Justice Amy Coney Barrett Confirmation a
Victory for the U.S. Constitution
Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation as a United States Supreme
Court justice is a great victory for the U.S. Constitution. It is another
great victory for constitutional government. Most Americans agree with
Justice Barrett that the Supreme Court should apply the law as it is
written and leave the legislating to the people’s elected
representatives.
We are grateful that the Senate rejected the leftist attacks on Justice
Barrett and moved to solidify a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
As she testified at her confirmation hearings, Justice Barrett rejected the
idea that judges should be political activists:
I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text
and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people
ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time. And it’s not up
to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.
As an immediate priority, Justice Barrett and the rest of Supreme Court
should reject the Left’s desperate efforts to use the courts to undermine
election security and rig the elections. For this reason, I was
disappointed to see that she declined to participate in two major emergency
election integrity cases this week out of North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
But it is a long ballgame, and we should expect great things from the
newest justice.
Biden ‘Unmasked’ General Flynn – Judicial Watch Sues for
Answers
Joe Biden was a busy boy in the waning days of the Obama administration.
While he and son Hunter were extorting Ukraine and China, he was also
lending a hand to the Obama lieutenants trying to undo President Trump’s
election.
We have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit against the National
Security Agency (NSA) for records of requests by former Vice President Joe
Biden and other top Obama administration officials, including President
Obama’s chief of staff, to “unmask” Lieutenant General (Retired)
Michael Flynn ( Judicial
Watch v. National Security Agency (No. 1:20-cv-03088)).
The term “unmasking” refers to the practice of disclosing to political
appointees the identities of U.S. citizens referenced in intelligence
surveillance of foreign nationals. U.S. citizens’ names are typically
redacted from such reports unless a specific request is made to
“unmask” them.
We sued after the NSA failed to respond to two separate September 1, 2020,
FOIA requests.
The first request seeks “records about a January 12, 2017, request to
‘unmask’ Lieutenant General Flynn submitted to NSA by or on behalf of
then-Vice President Joe Biden.”
The second request asks for “records about requests to ‘unmask’
Lieutenant General Flynn submitted to NSA by or on behalf of the following
officials on the dates or date ranges indicated:
Samantha Powers - Nov. 30, 2016 to Jan. 11, 2017
James Clapper - Dec. 2, 2016 to Jan. 7,
2017
Kelly Degnan – Dec. 6, 2016
John R. Phillips – Dec. 6, 2016
John Brennan – Dec. 14 & 15, 2016
Patrick Conlon – Dec. 14, 2016
Jacob Lew – Dec. 14 & 15, 2016
Arthur McGlynn – Dec. 14, 2016
Mike Neufeld – Dec. 14, 2016
Sarah Raskin – Dec. 14, 2016
Nathan Sheets – Dec. 14, 2016
Adam Szubin – Dec. 14, 2016
Robert Bell – Dec. 15, 2016
John Christenson – Dec. 15, 2016
Sarah Raskin – Dec. 15, 2016
Nathan Sheets – Dec. 15, 2016
Adam Szubin – Dec. 15, 2016
Robert Bell – Dec. 15, 2016
John Christenson – Dec. 15, 2016
James Comey – Dec. 15, 2016
Paul Geehreng – Dec. 15, 2016
Douglas Lute – Dec. 15, 2016
James Hursh – Dec. 15, 2016
Lee Litzenberger – Dec. 15, 2016
Scott Parrish – Dec. 15, 2016
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall – Dec. 15,
2016
Tamir Waser – Dec. 15, 2016
John Tefft – Dec. 16, 2016
John Bass – Dec. 28, 2016
Denis McDonough – Jan. 5, 2017
Michael Dempsy – Jan. 7, 2017
Stephanie O’Sullivan – Jan. 7, 2017
The Deputy Assistant Director of the
National Media Exploitation Center, whose name was not known - December 15,
2016
The names of officials and dates identified in the FOIA requests were
taken directly from a
list which was declassified on May 8, 2020, by then-Acting Director of
National Intelligence Richard Grenell and submitted to Senators Charles
Grassley and Ron Johnson on May 13.
On May 19, Senator Grassley responded
and asked for “the declassification of additional information related to
the unmasking of Americans around the time of the 2016 election, but also
to expand the scope of our request to include information as early as
January 2016. Based on our investigation and recent press reports, we are
increasingly concerned that the surveillance of U.S. persons affiliated
with the Trump campaign began earlier than the opening of the FBI’s
Crossfire Hurricane investigation in late July 2016.”
The requests by Joe Biden and President Obama’s chief of staff to unmask
the identity of President Trump’s top national security adviser reek of
corruption and abuse. The documents about this illicit spy operation should
be released immediately. And we will continue this battle no matter the
election results next week!
Burisma Lobbying Firm Tied to Democrats Met with U.S.
Officials
We now know that the anti-Trump State Department knew about the shady
Biden-Burisma connections and were desperate to monitor Biden’s
conservative critics.
This revelation comes in 116
pages of records from the State Department that include a briefing
checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and
chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm
which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption
allegations.
The briefing checklist notes that Painter also planned to
meet with Foreign Commercial Service (FCS) Officer Martin Claessens
“regarding the Burisma Group energy company.” (Painter was implicated
in the Clinton-era fundraising
scandal we exposed that involved the alleged sale of seats on Commerce
Department trade missions to Democratic National Committee donors.)
We received the records in response to our FOIA lawsuit
in January 2020 seeking records of communications from the U.S. Embassy in
Kyiv mentioning Burisma ( Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00229)).
At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe
Biden, was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings, a
Ukrainian energy firm. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma until April
2019.
The records we obtained also include a May 18, 2016, email
from a redacted sender to Amos Hochstein, senior advisor to Vice President
Joe Biden on international energy affairs, under the subject “Burisma
News Devon Archer.”
The email includes links to two articles, one by the New
York Post on May 12, 2016, which detail how Archer, a business
partner of Hunter Biden and also a member of the Burisma board of
directors, had been arrested on suspicion of securities fraud in a “$60
million scam that ripped off impoverished South Dakota Sioux and
others.”
The records also include several
emails in which officials in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv closely monitored
media and social media reaction to John Solomon’s reporting
for The Hill on Yovanovitch and Ukraine corruption. Individuals
whose statements were flagged included Dan Bongino, Sean Hannity, Rush
Limbaugh, Jack Posobiec, and Rudy Giuliani, as well as Ukrainian
journalists and politicians.
A March 23, 2019, email
from a redacted sender to several Kyiv embassy officials, including
Yovanovitch and Acting Deputy Chief of Mission George Kent, cites a Dan
Bongino tweet reacting to Solomon’s reporting.
The email reads: “Host of the Dan Bongino Podcast and Fox News
Contributor Dan Bongino (with nearly a million Twitter followers) tweeted
about 20-30 minutes ago (in a string of separate tweets):
They knew, The entire time. #MediaBias
Marie Yovanovitch
George Kent
Yuriy Lutsenko
Scrhiy Leshchenko
Fusion GPS
Joe Biden
Hunter Biden
Burisma
Devon Archer
The most important piece you can read
today: “Top Ukrainian justice official says US ambassador gave him a
do-not prosecute list” (link to earlier Hill article) I’ll explain more
on my show Monday.
A March 22, 2019, email
from a redacted sender to several Kyiv embassy officials, including
Yovanovitch and Kent, notes: “@JackPosobiec of One America News Network
(with about 440 thousand followers) tweeted about 15 minutes ago: “U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine, Maria (sic) Yovanovitch, an Obama holdover, has told
U.S. Embassy employees and Ukrainian officials that they need not pay
attention to Trump since he is going to be impeached.”
The email continues: “(This appears to be in the line stated by (Joe)
DiGenova on the air with Hannity a couple days ago; just flagging that it
is being recirculated now by a Twitter user with a large number of
followers, in case it leads to new press inquiries in DC, etc).”
A March 22, 2019, email
from a redacted sender to sender to several Kyiv embassy officials,
including Yovanovitch and Kent, cites a tweet from Giuliani: “See tweet
below from Rudy Giuliani, directing people to content released by Dan
Bongino (host of The Dan Bongino Podcast and a Fox News Contributor, per
his Twitter profile). The Dan Bongino video is an hour long, I’ll try to
skim through and get key points now….”
The email then quotes the tweet in which Giuliani writes: “Pay attention
to @dbongino for an analysis of some real collusion between Hillary, Kerry
and Biden people colluding with Ukrainian operatives to make money and
affect 2016 election.”
The email then cites a tweet in response to Giuliani’s in which Bongino
writes: “Joe Biden is going to have A LOT of explaining to do regarding
Ukraine. A LOT.”
Here’s some context.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 20,
2020, voted to subpoena
Blue Star Strategies as part of its investigation into Hunter Biden’s
role on the Burisma board. Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) is also
seeking depositions from Painter and Blue Star CEO Karen Tramontano. Painter
was a senior adviser in the Clinton administration.
The Wall Street Journal noted in an October 8, 2020, report
that a federal appeals court reinstated the conviction of Archer on
securities fraud and conspiracy charges, ruling a lower-court judge erred
last year in vacating a jury’s verdict.
Bevan Cooney, another a former business partner of Hunter Biden, was also
convicted and in July 2019 was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Cooney was recently moved out of his jail cell in Oregon by federal agents
for his protection after he provided emails and alleged Biden family
corruption to Breitbart News, a, October 20, 2020, Breitbart report
said.
In September 2020, we uncovered State Department records
showing Russia-linked media “trolling” Joe Biden over “his son’s
business.”
In a related case, also in September, we made public records
we received from the State Department that confirmed our prior reporting
that the Ukraine Embassy under then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch monitored,
in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major
journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma
2020”, and George Soros.
The documents list the targeted such persons as Sean Hannity, Laura
Ingraham, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Jack
Posobiec, Ryan Saavedra, Sara A Carter, Donald Trump Jr., Michael McFaul,
Lou Dobbs and Pamela Gellar. The search terms that were flagged to be
monitored by State Department officials on social media included
Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros,
Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma. The emails show that Yovanovitch was
aware of the social media monitoring program.
As you can see, one doesn’t need Hunter Biden’s laptop for evidence of
Burisma/Biden corruption – the FOIA documents that Judicial Watch
uncovered provide more than enough evidence for further inquiries by law
enforcement
New Strzok-Page Emails Show ‘Missing’ Meeting
Entries
The FBI officials responsible for the unprecedented abuse of President
Trump keeps on magically losing documents.
We just received 163
pages of emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI
attorney Lisa Page. The records show that Microsoft Outlook’s exchange
server had to recreate multiple meetings that were “missing” from Lisa
Page’s initial calendar entries. These missing meetings included the
subjects “Going Dark Strategy Meeting,” “Twitter,” and “702
Reauthorization Strategy Coordination Bi-Weekly.”
We received the records in response to our January 2018 Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 2017
request for all communications between Strzok and Page ( Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)). The FBI
is processing the records at a rate of only 500 pages per month and has
refused to process text messages. At this rate, the production of these
emails will not be completed until late 2021 at the earliest.
Multiple meetings were “missing” from Lisa Page’s calendar and had
the Microsoft Outlook message “Exchange Server re-created a meeting that
was missing from your calendar.” These meetings include a December 15,
2017, meeting
that was recreated and has the subject, “Going Dark Strategy
Meeting.”
A December 7, 2017, meeting
was recreated that has the subject “Twitter” and the location listed as
“SFHQ/Lync” [presumably SFHQ referring to San Francisco Headquarters
and “Lync,” referring to the FBI’s internal messaging system known as
Lync].
A July 10, 2017, meeting
was recreated that has the subject “702 Reauthorization Strategy
Coordination Bi-Weekly.”
An April 13, 2016, meeting
was recreated that has the subject “Investigative & Administrative Law
Top Issues Update.”
An April 14, 2016, meeting
with the subject “NSCLB Top Issues Update” was recreated.
A July 10, 2017, meeting
was recreated that has the subject “702 Reauthorization Strategy
Coordination Bi-Weekly.”
A December 7, 2017, meeting
with a redacted title under exemptions b6 (personal privacy) and b7C-1
(related to law enforcement sources and methods) was recreated, as was a
December 25, 2017, meeting
with the subject “702 Reauthorization Strategy Coordination
Bi-Weekly.”
On June 8, 2017, in an
email to Deputy Asst. Director Jon Moffa and Lisa Page (and an
unidentified General Counsel office official), regarding watching James
Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Peter Strzok
concluded his note with “[Redacted] sorry you have stupid NSA.”
On June 10, 2017, Peter Strzok forwarded an
email to his boss, Asst. Director for Counterintelligence Bill
Priestap, Page and General Counsel James Baker a New Yorker article that
Strzok called “thoughtful,” titled “Trump vs. Comey: Hope Against
Hope,” discussing the dispute between Comey and Trump about the contents
of conversations the two had in private Oval Office discussions about
Michael Flynn.
How did the meeting entries go missing? Deleted calendar entries, wiped
phones, missing text messages – all these disappearing records suggest
that the FBI and DOJ are engaged in an unprecedented cover-up of their
misconduct targeting President Trump.
In a related
case, we discovered in September that Robert Mueller’s Special
Counsel’s Office repeatedly and “accidentally” wiped phones assigned
to them.
And our work exposing the Page-Strzok and attendant FBI coup corruption is
second to none:
In July 2020, we uncovered
emails showing Strzok, Page and other top bureau officials in the days
prior to and following President Donald Trump’s inauguration discussing a
White House counterintelligence briefing that could “play into” the
FBI’s “investigative strategy.”
In February 2020, we uncovered
an August 2016 email in which Strzok writes that Hillary Clinton, in her
interview with the FBI about her email controversy, apologized for “the
work and effort” it caused the bureau and she said she chose to use a
non-state.gov email account “out of convenience” and that “it proved
to be anything but.” Strzok said Clinton’s apology and the
“convenience” discussion were “not in” the FBI 302 report that
summarized the interview.
Also in February, we made public Strzok-Page emails showing their direct
involvement in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the bureau’s
investigation of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The records also show additional “confirmed classified emails” were
found on Clinton’s unsecure non-state.gov
email server “beyond the number presented” in then-FBI Director James
Comey’s statements; Strzok and Page questioning the access the DOJ was
granting Clinton’s lawyers; and Page revealing that the DOJ was making
edits to FBI 302 reports related to the Clinton Midyear Exam investigation.
The emails detail a discussion about “squashing” an issue related to
the Seth Rich controversy.
In January 2020, we uncovered
Strzok-Page emails that detail special accommodations given to the lawyers
of Clinton and her aides during the FBI investigation of the Clinton email
controversy.
In November 2019, we revealed
Strzok-Page emails that show the attorney representing three of Clinton’s
aides were given meetings with senior FBI officials.
Also in November, we uncovered
emails revealing that after Clinton’s statement denying the transmission
of classified information over her unsecure email system, Strzok sent an
email to FBI officials citing “three [Clinton email] chains” containing
(C) [classified confidential] portion marks in front of paragraphs.”
In a separate case, in May 2020, we received the “ electronic
communication” (EC) that officially launched the counterintelligence
investigation, termed “Crossfire Hurricane,” of President Trump’s
2016 presidential campaign. The document was written by former FBI official
Peter Strzok.
Overwhelming Majority of MS-13 Defendants are in U.S.
Illegally
When you hear the terms “border wall” or “open borders” you should
think of the criminal activity the former seeks to prevent and the latter
has permitted. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has
the latest.
Sticking to its commitment of dismantling the nation’s deadliest street
gang, the Trump administration has criminally charged 127 members of the
famously violent Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) this year and half a dozen face
life in prison after being convicted. It’s a start but, shockingly, it
barely puts a dent on the problem since the MS-13 has an estimated 10,000
members in the U.S. and tens of thousands more abroad, according to
Department of Justice (DOJ) figures. Back in 2012 the Obama administration
issued sanctions
against the MS-13, officially classifying the Latin American gang as a
Transitional Criminal Organization (TCO) for its involvement in serious
criminal activities, including drug trafficking, kidnapping, human
smuggling, sex trafficking, murder, racketeering, blackmail, extortion and
immigration offenses.
MS-13 has long operated in the U.S., but it was Obama’s open border
policies that energized the international gang domestically with new
recruits provided by a steady flow of illegal immigrant minors. In fact,
the DOJ reveals that around 74% of MS-13 defendants prosecuted by the
agency in the last four years are in the U.S. illegally. Lax immigration
enforcement is largely responsible. When the Obama administration started
welcoming a barrage of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) in 2014, Homeland
Security sources told Judicial Watch that the nation’s most violent
street gangs—including MS-13 and the 18th Street gang—were actively
recruiting new members at U.S. shelters housing the minors. The Texas
Department of Public Safety subsequently confirmed
that the MS-13 is a top tier gang thanks to the influx of illegal alien
gang members that crossed into the state under Obama’s disastrous
program, which saw over 60,000 illegal immigrants—many with criminal
histories—storm into the U.S. in a matter of months. Tens of thousands
more have entered since then.
When Donald Trump became president he issued an Executive
Order directing several agencies, including the departments of Justice,
State and Homeland Security, to coordinate an effort to restore safety for
the American people by extinguishing TCOs such as MS-13. The order states
that the criminal groups have spread throughout the nation, threatening the
safety of the United States and its citizens. “These organizations derive
revenue through widespread illegal conduct, including acts of violence and
abuse that exhibit a wanton disregard for human life,” the president’s
order reads. “They, for example, have been known to commit brutal
murders, rapes, and other barbaric acts. These groups are drivers of crime,
corruption, violence, and misery.” The commander-in-chief gives federal
agencies 120 days to report progress in combating the criminal
organizations as well as recommended actions for dismantling them. In
August 2019 Attorney General William Barr launched an initiative known as
Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV) to address MS-13 with a coordinated force of
federal law enforcement agencies and the DOJ. Less than a year after its
formation, the task force recorded big successes. Over the summer the DOJ
announced
a number of significant JTFV cases, including for the first time an MS-13
member being charged with terrorism-related offenses, the take down of the
MS-13 Hollywood leadership and the Attorney General’s decision to seek
the death penalty against an MS-13 operative.
This month the DOJ released a report
documenting the government’s achievements in pursuing MS-13 members
nationwide. Since fiscal year 2016, the agency has charged 749 MS-13
defendants and obtained 504 convictions, including 37 life sentences. In
2020 federal prosecutors have charged 127 MS-13 gang bangers with six
facing life sentences after being convicted. Additionally, the DOJ is
seeking the death penalty in two MS-13 cases, in New York and Virginia. The
feds will keep at it because MS-13 is a barbaric and well-organized
criminal enterprise that continues to intensify in the U.S. and
internationally. “For decades, MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in U.S.
immigration enforcement policies to move its members in and out of the
United States and to recruit new members who have arrived in the United
States illegally,” the DOJ writes in its recently issued report. “MS-13
recruited and utilized foreign nationals, most often from Central America,
who were in the United States illegally.” A tiny portion, around three
percent, of MS-13 criminal defendants are in the country legally, according
to DOJ figures.
New Judicial Watch Book Set to Debut on New York Times Best Seller
List!
Exciting news! My latest Judicial Watch book, A Republic Under
Assault: The Left’s Ongoing Attack on American Freedom, will debut
at #12 on the New
York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction List on November 8.
The book will also come in at #14 on the Times’s Combined Print and
E-Book Best Sellers List. Additionally, A Republic Under Assault
will debut at #2 on Publishers Weekly’s Top Hardcover Frontlist
Nonfiction List and #4 on Publishers Weekly’s Overall Best Sellers List
on November 2. The book has only been in bookstores nationwide since
October 20.
A Republic Under Assault is my third New York Times bestselling
book. The first two bestselling Judicial Watch books, The
Corruption Chronicles and Clean
House, revealed what we have uncovered in our battles against
Obama secrecy. A
Republic Under Assault is a hard-hitting, fast-paced look at how
the Radical Left and the Deep State are trying to destroy the Trump
presidency.
I urge you to purchase this book immediately. Your buying the book now will
help Judicial Watch, keep the book on the bestseller lists (increasing
opportunities for other Americans to see and buy it), and you will annoy
the left. You can buy the book at www.JudicialWatchBook.com.
I’m serious when I say this is the most important book you could read
this year!
In this book I identify four major forces posing a continued threat to
American democracy:
Deep State Efforts to Destroy the Trump Presidency: How
the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign paid for the
fraudulent anti-Trump “Steele Dossier,” and how it was used by the
Obama FBI and DOJ to dupe the FISA Court to allow it to spy on the Trump
presidential campaign AND President Trump. These and more dirty secrets of
Obamagate and the impeachment coup attempt are exposed.
Hillary Clinton Email Scandal: How the Clinton team and
senior officials at the Obama State Department conspired to cover up
Hillary Clinton’s secret email system—and shocking revelations that tie
the Obama White House to the cover-up!
Voter Fraud: How Soros-funded groups attack states that
seek to protect clean elections by challenging voter ID laws, and how the
Left is cynically peddling COVID-19 crisis electoral “reforms,” such as
mail-in voting, which could increase voter fraud and election chaos. And
shocking numbers about dirty voting rolls across the nation!
Illegal Immigration: How deadly illegal “sanctuary”
policies are exploding across America, and how our nation’s sovereignty
has been under assault by radical open-border advocates.
Subversive Deep State collaborators with ties to the Clinton and Obama
machines not only launched countless—often illegal—operations to stop
and then remove Trump, but even more alarmingly, are working to transform
the United States into something truly unrecognizable to all who believe in
liberty and the rule of law.
Today one of their main targets is President Donald J. Trump.
Tomorrow it could be you and anyone who believes in the U.S.
Constitution, believes the United States must have clearly defined and
protected borders, believes in the need for a strong military, believes in
the value of hard work and faith, and believes in the rule of law and
American exceptionalism.
Sean Hannity, was particularly gracious in his praise of our new book.
Here’s his comment from our book cover:
“When it comes to fighting for the American people’s ‘right to
know,’ no one holds a candle to Tom Fitton and his team at Judicial
Watch. A Republic Under Assault lays bare the condemning facts
Judicial Watch continues to expose about ‘Obamagate,’ the Deep
State’s seditious coup to bring down Donald Trump, and much more. This is
must reading for every American who wants to save our nation,” said Sean
Hannity, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Live Free or Die.
Again, please help us keep the book on the bestseller lists with a
purchase now, you can get your copy here.
Until next week…
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