COVID Censorship – In Court!

[INSIDE JW]

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR RECORDS OF PELOSI CALL WITH PENTAGON CHIEF

[[link removed]]

In psychology, the term _projection_ describes the act of attributing
your own negative trait to someone else. Nobody does this better than
Nancy Pelosi. If you’ve read her January 8 letter
[[link removed]]
attacking then-President
Trump to her colleagues you would agree. In it, she talked about her
anti-Trump phone call to the nation’s top military chief.

We want to know more, so we filed a FOIA suit against the U.S.
Department of Defense for records of Pelosi’s January 8, 2021,
telephone call with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley
(_Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense_
[[link removed]]
(No
1:21-cv-00593)).

Pelosi acknowledged the call in her January 8 letter to her fellow
Democrats. In the letter, Pelosi described her purported discussion
with Milley earlier that same day:

“This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an
unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing
the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike. The situation of this
unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do
everything that we can to protect the American people from his
unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy.”

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Defense Department failed to respond to a January 11, 2021,
Freedom of Information (FOIA) request for:

* Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the
telephone call between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and General Mark
Milley on or about January 8, 2021. This request includes, but is not
limited to, any and all transcripts, recordings, and/or summaries of
the call, as well as any other records produced in preparation for,
during, and/or pursuant to the call.
* Any and all additional records of communication between Gen.
Milley and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi between November 1, 2020 and the
present.

In a section of the letter headed “Removing the President From
Office,” Pelosi also told her colleagues:

“As you know, there is growing momentum around the invocation of the
25th Amendment, which would allow the Vice President and a majority of
the Cabinet to remove the President for his incitement of insurrection
and the danger he still poses. Yesterday, Leader Schumer and I placed
a call with Vice President Pence, and we still hope to hear from him
as soon as possible with a positive answer as to whether he and the
Cabinet will honor their oath to the Constitution and the American
people.”

If Speaker Pelosi’s description of her conversation with General
Milley is true, it sets a dangerous precedent that could undermine the
president’s role as commander in chief and the separation of powers.
Our lawsuit aims to uncover truth about the call.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page called her call “A Coup of
Pelosi’s Own
[[link removed]


Mrs. Pelosi’s call to Gen. Milley is itself a violation of the
separation of powers by seeking to inject herself into an
executive-branch military decision. She can offer advice all she
wants, but this call at this time has the sound of an order. It might
even be construed by some as its own little coup—conniving with the
military to relieve of command the person who remains the elected
President.

It is remarkable, but par for the course, that it is up to Judicial
Watch is doing the heavy lifting to get more details about this
dangerous Pelosi call as Congress and a corrupted partisan media sit
on their thumbs in the face of yet another attack on constitutional
governance.

DID THE CDC COMMUNICATE WITH BIG TECH ABOUT COVID-19?

Big Tech has taken upon itself the role of Ministry of Health Truth,
censoring users and even doctors with which it disagrees. To what
extent has the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) been involved in
this?

To find out, we filed a FOIA suit against the Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) seeking records of communications between the CDC
and Big Tech about COVID-19.

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
HHS failed to reply to a September 15, 2020, FOIA request (_Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Health of Human Services_
[[link removed]]
(No.
1:21-cv-00625)). Judicial Watch requested:

Any and all records of communication between CDC officials and/or
employees and employees, agents, and/or representatives of Google,
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube concerning,
regarding, or relating to COVID-19 related content on company
platforms. Such records include, but are not limited to, any advice or
instructions issued on disinformation re COVID-19.

The CDC was required to respond to Judicial Watch’s request by
October 29, 2020, but failed to do so.

The public has the right to know about CDC’s involvement in Big
Tech’s outrageous censorship of Americans, including doctors, who
raise questions about the COVID-19 response. The Biden administration
should stop stonewalling and release the records about the CDC’s
role in suppressing the free speech of Americans.

ICE ARRESTED 60% FEWER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN FEBRUARY

As I noted in my recent CPAC
[[link removed]
[[link removed]],
Joe Biden “has launched the most significant attack on immigration
law in American history.” And the consequences are a humanitarian,
national security, and public health disaster on the border.

Here, from our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog, are details
[[link removed]]
of “Biden’s Border Crisis”:

Predictably, the Biden administration’s disastrous immigration
policies are having a detrimental impact on the U.S. even though they
have only been in place for weeks. In that short time, the nation has
seen an overwhelming flood of illegal alien minors slam Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) and a huge drop in adult fugitives arrested by
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Last month the
administration restricted
[[link removed]]
ICE
from making arrests by reducing agents’ enforcement priorities and
forcing them to seek written permission from senior supervisors before
arresting fugitives. Not surprisingly, it has resulted in a huge
decrease in illegal immigrant arrests. ICE data reviewed by a
mainstream newspaper reveals that the number of illegal aliens
arrested by ICE dropped more than 60% in February compared with the
last three months of the Trump administration. Deportations fell by
nearly the same amount, according to the figures.

In the meantime, more than 7,000 illegal immigrant minors
[[link removed]]
were
placed in U.S. shelters in February alone, according to government
data published by a separate national news outlet days earlier. “The
numbers in March indicate the steady rise has continued,” the story
reads. “During the first four days of the month, more than 1,500
unaccompanied migrant minors were taken into custody.” The Office of
Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a well-funded branch of the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), is charged with providing care for
illegal aliens under the age of 18 which are classified as
Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) by the government. ORR has been
receiving an average of 337 UAC a day. “The figure for the first
full month of the Biden administration is the most migrant children
the refugee office has ever received in a February,” the news
article states.

Just a few weeks ago, Judicial Watch reported that the UAC influx is
prompting a health emergency on the southern border and surrounding
communities. The increasing number of UAC illegally crossing the
border will soon overwhelm facilities in the middle of a global
pandemic, according to a congressional delegation’s letter
[[link removed]]
to
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “This surge also has
the capability to cause a COVID-19 outbreak at ports of entry and
other CBP facilities, which threatens the health of CBP personnel and
could result in the temporary closures of ports of entry,” the
legislators who sit on various House committees—including civil
rights, national security, and the environment—write. “Such
closures would greatly impact commerce and hamper the United States’
economic recovery,” the lawmakers continue. “The increase in
illegal immigration at the southern border presents a risk not only to
Border Patrol agents apprehending migrants who illegally cross the
border, but also to those communities into which those individuals
will relocate—likely leading to widespread COVID-19 infection and
fatalities.”

Concerns associated with the new onslaught in illegal immigration are
not limited to health issues. The attorney general in Montana points
out that methamphetamine trafficked by Mexican drug cartels has
wracked his state
[[link removed]].
“The problem will only be made worse if the Biden administration
continues to allow criminals to stay in the country,” according to
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. This month Knudsen and his
counterpart in Arizona, sued the Biden administration to block the
outrageous directive restricting ICE from arresting illegal
immigrants. “Blindly releasing thousands of people, including
convicted criminals and those that may be spreading COVID-19 into our
state, is both unconscionable and a violation of federal law,” said
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “This must be stopped now to
avoid a dangerous humanitarian crisis for the immigrants and the
people of Arizona.”

Their lawsuit asserts that Biden’s new policy will lead to an
increase in criminals and drugs as well as COVID-19 in Montana and
Arizona. It will also cause a hike in healthcare and law enforcement
costs, according to the complaint, which lists a multitude of
government agencies among defendants, including the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS). “The Removal Moratorium will directly
increase the number of aliens with final orders of removal who remain
in Arizona because they will not have been removed by DHS,” the
complaint says. “Additionally, knowledge that DHS has issued a
blanket moratorium on removals will encourage additional unauthorized
immigration to Arizona, and this increase in population will increase
Arizona’s incurred law enforcement and healthcare services costs
related to them.” Embedded in the court document are statements from
law enforcement officials who claim the states will be hurt by the new
initiatives.

CLEAR THINKING ON ELECTIONS FROM CLARENCE THOMAS

The controversies of the 2020 election haven’t gotten much traction
yet in the courts. However, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas, speaking for some of his colleagues, is unafraid to deal with
the legal issues of the 2020 election crisis. Our chief investigative
reporter, Micah Morrison, sets forth
[[link removed]]
Thomas’ thinking in his _Investigative Bulletin_.

The Supreme Court shut the door on the 2020 election late last month,
but Justice Clarence Thomas got the last word. In a dissent directed
at the court’s decision not to take up two cases involving the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court and mail-in ballots, Thomas encapsulated
the world of electoral woe surrounding the 2020 presidential contest.

“We failed to settle this dispute before the election,” Thomas
wrote, “and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide
clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law
hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we
invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.”

The Pennsylvania cases centered on which state bodies have the
ultimate authority to set election rules, the legislature or the
judiciary? The U.S. Constitution says that the “Times, Places and
Manner of holding Elections…shall be prescribed in each State by the
Legislature thereof.” But state courts often intervene.

In the run-up to the presidential election, the Pennsylvania state
legislature gave all Pennsylvania voters the option of casting mail-in
ballots. But it left in place a November 3 deadline for ballots to be
in. Unhappy with the deadline, Democrats sued, arguing that in light
of the Covid-19 pandemic, the deadline violated a voting-rights clause
in the state constitution stating that elections “shall be free and
equal.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed, extending the
deadline for mail-in ballots by three days.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined petitions to intervene in the case
before the election. In February, with the election settled,
petitioners tried again. The high court again declined to hear the
cases, prompting the Thomas dissent.

It’s worth reading in its entirety
[[link removed]].
Thomas
zeroes in on two key issues: legislative versus judicial power, and
problems with mail-in voting.

Both “before and after the 2020 election,” Thomas notes,
“non-legislative officials in various States took it upon themselves
to set the rules,” resulting in “an unusually high number of
petitions and emergency applications” to the high court.

The Pennsylvania changes undermine confidence in the electoral system.
“Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough,”
Thomas writes. “Such rule changes by officials who may lack the
authority to do so is even worse.”

Thomas is clear-sighted on the problems of mail-in voting. “Voting
by mail was traditionally limited to voters who had defined,
well-documented reasons to be absent,” he notes. But in recent
years, “many States have become more permissive, a trend greatly
accelerated by Covid-19.”

The opportunity for cheating in mail-in or absentee balloting is
substantial, Thomas writes. He cites a 2012 New York Times article
[[link removed]]
that
notes the “vastly more prevalent” risk of fraud in mail-in
balloting. He cites ballot fraud cases in Pennsylvania and North
Carolina. He reminds us that Heather Gerken—now dean of Yale Law
School—told the Times in the same article that absentee voting
allows for “simpler and more effective alternatives to commit
fraud.”

At Judicial Watch, we’ve been tracking ballot fraud for years.
We’ve noted that as far back as 2005, the bi-partisan Carter-Baker
Commission warned that “absentee ballots remain the largest source
of potential voter fraud.” In July, we pointed to California
Governor Gavin Newsom’s rapid escalation of mail-in voting and
reported on a New Jersey fraud case. Read the JW bulletin here
[[link removed]].


The thanks Justice Thomas got for his rigorous dissent was to be
attacked by Democrats and the progressive media. But the complex
issues surrounding election fraud aren’t going away. The country
owes Clarence Thomas a debt of gratitude for his clear thinking on the
coming crisis.

Until next week,





[Contribute]
[[link removed]]


<a
href="[link removed]"
target="_blank"><img alt="WU01"
src="[link removed]"
style="width:100%; height:auto;" /></a>

[32x32x1]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x2]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x3]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x3]
[[link removed]]

Judicial Watch, Inc.
425 3rd St Sw Ste 800
Washington, DC 20024

202.646.5172



© 2017 - 2021, All Rights Reserved
Manage Email Subscriptions
[[link removed]]
|
Unsubscribe
[[link removed]]

View in browser
[[link removed]]