Voter ID Court Victory!

[INSIDE JW]

SUSAN RICE CAN’T RECALL MUCH ABOUT BENGHAZI COVER-UP

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Susan Rice has as much trouble with her memory as Hillary Clinton.
Rice testified in writing that she “does not recall” who gave her
key Benghazi talking points she used on TV, “does not recall”
being in any meetings regarding Benghazi in five days following the
attack, and “does not recall” communicating with anyone in
Clinton’s office about Benghazi.

Rice, former Obama National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations, admitted in written responses under oath that she
emailed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Clinton’s
non-government email account and that she received emails related to
government business on her own personal email account. Her 2019 sworn
written answers are available here
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In responding to each of the 13 questions asked of her, Rice claimed
18 times that she “does not recall” critical information.

* When asked to describe meetings or discussions about the events in
Benghazi other than daily intelligence briefings, Rice said that she
had discussions with friends and family, and “does not recall
attending any meetings focused on the events in Benghazi between
September 11, 2012 and September 16, 2012, other than attending a
ceremony on September 14, 2012, at Joint Base Andrews … ” Rice
said she believes she would have discussed the Benghazi attack with
members of her UN staff, colleagues at the United Nations, and
individuals in attendance at the ceremony on September 14, 2012, at
Joint Base Andrews.
* When asked why she used a non-government email accounts to conduct
U.S. government business while U.S. Ambassador to the United States,
Rice acknowledged using her personal email account, at times, to
conduct official government business without answering the question
why she used non-government email accounts.
* Rice did not directly answer a question about deleting emails.
Rather, Rice answered that “when emails related to U.S. government
business were sent to [her] personal email account, [she] took steps
to ensure that a copy of that email was also on her government email
account.” and she “does not recall having need to review and
return emails form any non-governmental email account.”

Rice’s interrogatory responses come in our FOIA lawsuit
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that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the
Benghazi attack” (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State_
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(No.
1:14-cv-01242)). This FOIA suit led directly
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to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015. We uncovered
“talking points” created by
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the Obama White House and other documents showing that statements
about the attack made on the eve of the 2012 elections by
then-National Security Advisor Rice were false.

On December 6, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered
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Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and
Clinton aides, as well as Susan Rice, to be deposed or answer written
questions under oath. Judge Lamberth called the Clinton email system
“one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

On March 2, 2020, Judge Lamberth granted
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us discovery that includes taking testimony from Clinton and Mills,
under oath, regarding Clinton’s emails and the existence of records
about the Benghazi attack. Clinton and Mills filed an emergency
mandamus appeal to avoid testimony. Their petition is still pending
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before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Our discovery is centered upon whether Clinton intentionally attempted
to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a
non-government email system and whether the State Department acted in
bad faith in processing our FOIA request for communications from
Clinton’s office.

Rice didn’t recall much about the Obama administration’s response
to the Benghazi terrorist attack. Similarly, Hillary Clinton
couldn’t recall much in her written sworn responses to our questions
– which is one reason why a federal court judge ordered her
in-person deposition testimony.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR ANSWERS ON HUNTER BIDEN TRAVELS

Hunter Biden was quite the world traveler when his father was vice
president. Judicial Watch uncovered Secret Service records showing he
traveled to China five time and also visited Moscow. But we didn’t
get all the records, so we were forced to go to court to find out
more.

We just filed a FOIA) suit in the U.S. District Court for the District
of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for
records relating to travel by Hunter Biden. (_Judicial Watch v. U.S.
Department of Homeland Security_
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(No. 1:20-cv-02094)).

Specifically, we want records on the dates and locations of Hunter
Biden’s international and domestic travel during the period he
received a U.S. Secret Service protective detail.

We sued after the U.S. Secret Service, a component of the Department
of Homeland Security, provided incomplete responses to our February 7,
2020, FOIA request for the travel records and then failed to respond
to repeated follow-up efforts to discuss the incomplete response. The
FOIA request is for:

Records reflecting the dates and locations of travel, international
and domestic, for Hunter Biden while he received a USSS protective
detail. In your response, please note whether his travel was on Air
Force One or Two, or other government aircraft, as applicable and
whether additional family members were present for each trip.
The records
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produced with the incomplete response show that, for the first five
and a half years of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden traveled
extensively with a Secret Service protective detail. The records show
that, between January 31, 2011, and July 8, 2014, Hunter Biden
received Secret Service protection for 411 separate domestic and
international trips, including to 29 different foreign countries. He
received protection while visiting China five times.

The response is incomplete because it did not include any travel after
July 8, 2014. Vice-President Biden left office in January 2017, and
the request sought records of travel-related protection through the
present.

Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden reportedly
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flew on Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing in December
2013. The records we ferreted out from the Secret Service show Hunter
Biden arrived in Tokyo on December 2, 2013, and departed for Beijing
two days later. While it is typical for the families of the president
and vice president to travel with them, questions have been raised
about whether Hunter Biden used the government trip to further his
business interests.

Hunter Biden’s December 2013 trip to China received new examination
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in 2019 because he was forming a Chinese private equity fund, Bohai
Harvest RST (BHR), in which he still reportedly
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retains a 10 percent share.

During the last year and a half of the Obama administration, Hunter
Biden
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served on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings while
his father was heading up Ukraine policy. We have pushed hard for the
accountability and a full accounting on these issues through six
lawsuits
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and
dozens of FOIA requests related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with the
Ukrainian Burisma Holdings and the Chinese BHR Partners.

Given the Burisma-Ukraine-China influence-peddling scandals, Hunter
Biden’s extensive international travel during the Obama-Biden
presidency, including at least five trips to China, raises serious
questions about where else he traveled in the final two and a half
years of the Obama administration. The Secret Service’s incomplete
response to our straightforward FOIA request on Hunter Biden’s
travel has forced us to go to court – once again – to fight for
the public’s right to know.

A VICTORY FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY IN ALABAMA

Good news. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit adopted
the argument
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we and the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) put fourth in our
_amici curiae_ brief
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when it upheld Alabama’s 2011 Photo Voter Identification Law.

The court ruled the law does not violate the 14th or 15th Amendments
or the Voting Rights Act and that the anti-voter ID plaintiffs failed
to demonstrate the Alabama law causes the denial or abridgment of the
right to vote on account of race.

The appellate panel majority found:

The burden of providing a photo ID … in order to vote is a minimal
burden on Alabama’s voters—especially when Alabama accepts so many
different forms of photo ID and makes acquiring one simple and free
for voters who lack a valid ID but wish to obtain one.
The Circuit Court’s ruling affirmed a lower-court ruling in _Greater
Birmingham Ministries, et al. v. Secretary of State of Alabama
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(No.
2:15-cv-02193), in which the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Alabama upheld the Alabama Voter Photo ID Law in a
decision handed down January 10, 2018. When the plaintiffs appealed
the ruling, we, in conjunction with AEF, filed an amici curiae brief
supporting the Act’s constitutionality.

In our April 2018 _amici_ brief
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to the Appeals Court we and AEF explained
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succinctly why the Appellate Court should sustain the District
Court’s decision and uphold the Alabama law.

The District Court in this case properly focused on Appellants’
[Greater Birmingham Ministries] failure to show a discriminatory
“result”… let alone a discriminatory impact sufficient to rise
to the level of a denial or abridgment of an equal opportunity “to
participate in the political process and to elect representatives of
choice.”
In other words, as our brief argues
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A racially disproportionate impact is not enough; nor is a history of
discrimination; nor are the two in combination. Quite simply, the
challenged ID procedure must be shown by plaintiffs to cause
discriminatory results in order to prove a Section 2 [of the Voting
Rights Act] “results” [disparate-impact] claim.
The Eleventh Circuit panel agreed
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with our analysis in upholding the voter id law
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In this case, there is no evidence that the challenged law either
“resulted in” the denial or abridgment of the right to vote or
that any such denial or abridgment of the right to vote was “on
account of race or color” under Section 2(a). Lacking a showing of
evidence necessary to demonstrate the “sort of causal connection
between racial bias and disparate effect necessary to make a
vote-denial claim” dooms Plaintiff’s claims.
As we argued to the court, voter ID is good policy and protects the
votes of all voters. The Left is dishonestly playing the race card to
try to stop common sense voter ID measures in Alabama and
elsewhere. We’re pleased that we were able to help the Court see
through the canard that voter ID requirements harm any American
voters.

The issue addressed by the Eleventh Circuit is also currently before
the U.S. Supreme Court on a petition for review. In _Mark Brnovich,
et al. v. Democratic National Committee, et al._
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(No. 19-1257), we and AEF submitted an amici brief making arguments
similar to those that carried the day in the Alabama case. Our brief
contends that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals erred in ruling that
Arizona’s neutral regulations designed to protect the integrity of
its elections had discriminatory results even though the court never
found that the regulations actually caused any alleged discrimination.

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational
foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through
education. In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in
a number of projects, which include, but are not limited to,
educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has
partnered frequently with us to fight government and judicial
corruption and to promote a return to ethics and morality in the
nation’s public life.

VIRUS UPDATE: THE FDA AND THE INSIDE WAR OVER HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

The Deep State is not some abstraction out there somewhere. It can
directly affect your well-being. Consider how Deep State bureaucracies
have seemingly suppressed a potential Covid-19 treatment that doctors
are clamoring for. Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter,
has been closely following this story
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on our _Investigative Bulletin_ blog:

Judicial Watch readers have been closely following President Trump’s
efforts to promote hydroxychloroquine (HC), the anti-malaria drug that
has shown promise in the fight against Covid-19. Trump has encountered
fierce blowback from the media, the medical community, and even from
within his own administration. Still, he persists. “I happen to be a
believer in hydroxy,” he told reporters on July 29. “I used it. I
had no problem. I happen to be a believer.”

There are other believers too. The Second Opinion Project
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today will deliver to
the White House a letter from over 700 doctors asking that HC be made
widely available. The doctors target the Food and Drug
Administration’s erratic regulation of HC availability to medical
professionals and the public.

“You do not need initials after your name to understand that if you
restrict a life-saving medicine, more patients will die,” the
doctors write. “And then, if you un-restrict it, fewer patients will
die.”

As in-depth clinical studies of the drug grind on, so does the war
over HC. Sources tell Judicial Watch that resistance to HC inside the
Trump Administration is strong, with ongoing battles between the White
House and several government agencies—particularly the FDA.

A look at the FDA timeline on HC shows why it is coming under fire.

On March 28, weeks after the president began promoting HC, the FDA
issues an Emergency Use Authorization
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allowing doctors to use HC to treat patients with Covid-19.

On April 9, with pushback from the media and medical community
mounting, the Centers for Disease Control remove from their website
guidelines indicating HC has some success in treating HC.

On April 24, as rushed early studies raise questions about HC but
anecdotal reports continue to suggest some success, the FDA warns
against its use outside of a hospital setting.

On May 22, the prestigious medical journal Lancet publishes a
blockbuster study of more than 96,000 patients saying HC does not help
in the fight against Covid-19 and might increase patient deaths. News
of the study reverberates around the globe.

On June 5, the Lancet retracts the HC study, citing serious flaws in
the data. “We deeply apologize,” the Lancet writes.

On June 15, the FDA revokes its Emergency Use Authorization.
Curiously, one of the reasons for the revocation appears to be the
discredited Lancet study, which the FDA refers to as “recent data
from a large randomized controlled trial show[ing] no evidence of
benefit for mortality.”

On July 1, the FDA again warns
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against the use of HC outside a hospital setting.

On July 29, the FDA chief backs away from a definitive HC warning.
There is “some risk” associated with HC, Dr. Stephen Hahn tells
NBC
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But that’s “a decision between a doctor and a patient.”

The 700 doctors signing the Second Opinion Project letter aren’t
claiming that the drug is a miracle cure—and neither is Trump
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They want clarity from the FDA and wide access to the drug.

Second Opinion is also promoting a second, similar letter from
everyday Americans supporting HC access. Americans should “have
access to a safe, generic, widely-available drug that is routinely
given to pregnant women, breastfeeding women, children, the elderly
and the immune compromised since it was FDA-approved 65 years and
billions of dosages ago,” the letter states. “In order to clarify
the public perception of HC and to restore the doctor-patient
relationship, the FDA should immediately authorize an [Emergency Use
Authorization] stating that doctors are allowed to prescribe HC for
outpatient use to treat or prevent Covid-19.”

Read the full letter here
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U.S. KEEPS INTEL GIVEN TO 9/11 MASTERMIND’S LAWYERS FROM VICTIMS

The horror of 9/11 for the families of its victims should not be
exacerbated by our government, but that’s what is happening. Our
_Corruption Chronicles_ blog provides
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details.

Government documents already provided by the Department of Justice
(DOJ) to lawyers defending 9/11 terrorists continue to be withheld
from survivors of the attacks and family members of those who died.
The DOJ claims the roughly 25,000 pages of files are “State
Secrets,” even though 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s
(KSM) attorneys have been granted access. KSM is incarcerated at the
military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and faces a death sentence.
His victims and their family members claim in a federal lawsuit that
Saudi Arabia helped carry out the 2001 attack and they need the U.S.
government documents to help prove it.

A few weeks ago, thousands of 9/11 family members wrote a letter
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to Attorney General
William Barr demanding access to the protected intelligence files that
could help determine if Saudi Arabian officials are responsible for
the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Fifteen of the 19 Islamic
terrorists who hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the
World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field were from Saudi
Arabia. Besides KSM, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa
Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi helped organize the deadly event. Relatives of
the victims assert that the documents being withheld by the U.S.
government identify multiple witnesses who transported two of the
hijackers to Los Angeles International Airport as well as information
involving a terrorist support cell in California and photos
identifying members of the support cell.

“This situation is reprehensible and unacceptable,” states the
letter, which is signed by 3,361 family members. “How can it be that
the mastermind behind the deadliest attack on American soil is somehow
entitled, under your DOJ’s direction, to relevant U.S. government
investigative documents about the 9/11 plot, yet the families whose
loved ones were wrenched from us so painfully and ruthlessly that day
are prohibited from seeing this same information?” They proceed to
accuse the DOJ of manipulating and blocking their pursuit of justice
into one of the most significant events in U.S. history. “The FBI,
the DOJ, and you, Mr. Barr, turned your backs on the 9/11 community
when you chose to side with Saudi Arabia, the sponsor of the 9/11
attacks, over the American people. Your continued misguided and
inappropriate obstruction of the 9/11 community’s lawsuit against
Saudi Arabia is an affront to the judicial system and justice itself,
and a betrayal of the American people you are duty-bound to serve.”

The records requested by the family members include a once-secret FBI
probe into Saudi Arabia’s role in the 2001 attacks. It is known as
Operation Encore
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and a Florida nonprofit journalism conglomerate exposed it back in
2016 after suing the government for records under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA). A once censored FBI report revealed that in
2012 federal prosecutors and FBI agents in New York planned to charge
a suspect for providing material support to Saudi-born hijackers Nawaf
al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who helped crash American Airlines
Flight 77 into the Pentagon. The suspect’s identity was censored in
the report, which also listed three “main subjects.” They include
a Saudi diplomat and imam at a Los Angeles mosque as well as a Saudi
agent named Omar al-Bayoumi and a third man who had “tasked” them
with helping the future hijackers. The third man’s name was
initially censored, though the FBI inadvertently released it in court
papers that became public. He was identified as Musaed al-Jarrah, a
former Saudi Foreign Ministry official who worked at the Saudi embassy
in Washington in 1999-2000.

Family members of the 9/11 victims end their letter to Barr by writing
that they will hold him accountable for the surreptitious and
continuous action to derail their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. They
also demand that all relevant documents that were improperly labeled
as “State Secrets,” with no outside oversight or accountability,
be independently reviewed by their investigators and released to the
American people. “Your repeated, unjustified, and meritless
obstructions to justice for the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history
must end immediately,” they write. “The time for you to right this
wrong has long passed, and we demand that you stand up for Americans
and side with the 9/11 community and join the right side of
history.”
Until next week,






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