January 6 Emails Exposed

[INSIDE JW]

New January 6 Emails: Media Pushed Medical Examiner on Capitol Hill
Police Officer Death Investigation

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On January 7, one day after the breach of the U.S. Capitol building,
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died. On April 19, the
medical examiner released the autopsy results – he died of natural
causes.

However, between those two dates, Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans
and allied media continually pushed the false narrative that Officer
Sicknick was killed by rioters.

We now have an additional 2,440 pages
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of records related to his death that show major media representatives
pressuring the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) of the
District of Columbia over its conclusion. The emails in these
documents read as if the leftist media had an interest in pressing the
false narrative that Officer Sicknick was killed by protestors.

On April 20, one day after Officer Sicknick’s autopsy results were
released, CNN reporter Jen Christensen emailed
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the medical examiner’s office, asking “how someone could die of
natural causes after a traumatic event.”

And, in an April 20 email
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to the medical examiner’s office, reporter Sarah Mimms of BuzzFeed
News presses for “clarity” on the death determination: “I’m
really pressing on clarity here not only because of the importance of
this case but also because USCP and the Justice Department initially
said that Officer Sicknick died DUE TO injuries he sustained at the
Capitol. [Emphasis in original] We want to be accurate, which may mean
updating those original stories about how he died, if the ME [medical
examiner] can clarify this key point.”

We obtained the documents in a FOIA lawsuit
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after
the medical examiner’s office denied our February 16, 2021, FOIA
request (_Judicial Watch v. District of Columbia_
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(No. 2021 CA 000875 B)). We asked for:

All records, including but not limited to autopsy reports, toxicology
reports, notes, photographs, and OCME [medical examiner] officials’
electronic communications, related to the death on January 6, 2021 of
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and its related investigation.

Pressure from this lawsuit helped lead to the April disclosure that
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes
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On February 7, Dr. Brent Harris, Director of Neuropathology at
Georgetown University Hospital, emailed
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D.C. Medical Examiner Dr. Sasha Breland, saying, “Sasha, here’s
the draft for your rush case and a paper I found on the topic. Take a
look and let me know your thoughts.” The attached paper was titled,
“Basilar artery thrombosis after cervical injury 2010.”

On January 8, medical examiner investigator Leigh Fields Broadbent
emailed
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medical examiner colleagues regarding the Sicknick case, saying,
“Accepted: 21-00132> Please contact Special Agent Riley, FBI
[redacted] regarding the start time of the autopsy. He will be waiting
in his car outside the building by 0730-0800 hrs regardless. DONE –
he and the US Attorney will be coming down btwn 0900-0930 hrs. MPD
will present btwn 0800-0830hrs.”

Dr. Samantha Tolliver, the Chief Toxicologist for the medical
examiner’s office, indicated
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that a “draft report” had been completed in the Sicknick death
investigation on February 17.

A “preliminary toxicology report
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on Sicknick was completed by March 2, 2021.

Of the 10 outlets that filed FOIA requests seeking Officer
Sicknick’s autopsy report, as of March 25, according to the medical
examiner’s office’s talking points
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all 10 were denied, but only Judicial Watch appealed the denial.

Following the submission of our appeal, DC General Counsel Rodney
Adams emailed
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Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz, and copying the medical
examiner’s special assistant Cheryle Adams and Chief of Staff
Beverly Fields, saying: “And the celebration was short lived … A
Judicial Watch reporter has immediately appealed my denial of his
request for the case file of Off. Brian Sicknick who died during the
Jan. 6th riot at the Capitol. We have several other reporters
requesting it as well.” [Note: Officer Sicknick died at the hospital
on January 7, not “during the January 6 riot at the Capitol.”]

On March 31, Medical Examiner Francisco Diaz emailed
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medical examiner official Anna Francis, saying, “Can you please
restrict access to E-file in this case,” referring to the Sicknick
investigation. Francis replied, “What groups should be eliminated?
These are the only groups that have access to the entire decedent
file. Files are not in a completed state until released.
Investigations, Medical Examiners, Terencia Davenport, QC-n-RecMgmt.
Let me know. Mike restricts the images.” Diaz replied, “Please
restrict access to you, me and Dr. Breland.”

On April 8, medical examiner General Counsel Rodney Adams sent a
‘’high importance
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email to medical examiner colleagues Francis, Diaz, Cheryle Adams and
Beverly Fields advising them of a “litigation hold” notice and
that “FYI … Judicial Watch has filed suit to obtain the Off.
Sicknick case file. [Redacted].”

On April 19, Breland, who handled Officer Sicknick’s autopsy,
advised
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Det. Joshua Branson that the information regarding stroke as the cause
of death of Officer Sicknick was conveyed to the officer’s mother
and girlfriend on the afternoon of April 19, after Branson emailed
Breland, asking, “Have y’all ruled on the Sicknick case yet? The
FBI just called me saying the family received a call from the [medical
examiner’s office] stating that his death was ruled a natural.”

Initial reports from _The New York Times_ and other media outlets
about the cause of Officer Sicknick’s death have subsequently been
corrected and revised
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We are conducting an extensive investigation into the January 6 events
in Washington D.C.

Earlier this month, we uncovered
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documents from Washington, DC’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
(OCME) related to Air Force veteran and San Diego native Ashli
Babbitt. These documents reveal that OCME submitted a request for
permission to cremate Babbitt only two days after taking custody of
her body and that due to the “high profile nature” of Babbitt’s
case, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Francisco Diaz requested that a
secure electronic file with limited access be created for Babbitt’s
records. Additionally, Babbitt’s fingerprints were emailed to a
person supposedly working for the DC government, which resulted in
Microsoft “undeliverable” messages written in Chinese characters
being returned.

In July, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
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against the DOJ for records of communication between the FBI and
several financial institutions about the reported transfer of
financial transactions made by people in DC, Maryland and Virginia on
January 5 and January 6, 2021. The FBI refused to confirm or deny any
such records exist. Also in July, we filed a lawsuit
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against the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for information relating to the
tracking and collecting of Americans’ social media posts through its
Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP).

In May, we sued
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both the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense for
records regarding the deployment of armed forces around the Capitol
complex in Washington, DC, in January and February of 2021.

In March, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
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against the U.S. Department of Defense for records about House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi’s January 8, 2021, telephone call with Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

You can see that Judicial Watch is not afraid to ask the tough
questions and go to court for the truth about January 6 and its
aftermath

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR RECORDS ON BIDEN PENTAGON PLAN TO MONITOR THE
SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS OF TROOPS

In too many ways, the Biden administration is an enemy of the First
Amendment. The hostility to free speech is readily apparent in
Biden’s Pentagon, which is one reason why we sued the Department of
Defense for all records about whether it was monitoring or planning to
monitor the social media accounts of military members (_Judicial Watch
v U.S. Department of Defense_
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(No. 1:21-cv-02146)).

We sued after the Defense Department failed to respond to a May 18,
2021, FOIA request for:

Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to any actual or
proposed program to monitor the social media accounts of service
members or other Department of Defense employees for extremist content
or activity. This request includes, but is not limited to, the
following:

Any and all related records of communication between any official,
employee, or representative of the Department of Defense and any other
individual or entity.

Any and all records related to any actual or proposed grants or
contracts related to the program.

Any and all related records mentioning or referring to the private
contractor Babel Street.

Any and all related legal analyses, decisions, or determinations
drafted or issued by the Office of General Counsel.

When asked about a social media monitoring program during a May 2021
press conference
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Department of Defense Press Secretary John Kirby said:

[P]art of that insider threat program is to take a look at social
media activity out there so that we're – that we can be as informed
as possible

If there is – again, the insider threat, right, is, you know, when
there’s a concern about the potential of a threat coming from
inside, you know, one of the things you want to do is take a look at
the social media footprint and see what’s out there in the public
space.

When asked for an underlying Pentagon document for the program, Kirby
replied that he had not seen it. When asked if the document would be
made public, Kirby said: “If it exists, we'll look at it and see if
it’s – if it's something that's potentially worth public release
or that we could. But I'm not going to make any promises at this
point.”

In April 2021, the Pentagon issued a press release regarding Secretary
of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s memorandum announcing “Immediate
Actions to Counter Extremism in the Department” that included
information about its social media monitoring program:

Screening Capability. This [line of effort] will discuss the
Department’s pursuit of scalable a cost-effective capabilities to
screen publicly available electronic information in accessions and
continuous vetting for national security positions. The [line of
effort] will make recommendations on further development of such
capabilities and incorporating machine learning and natural language
processing into social media screening platforms.

No one is being fooled – the Biden Pentagon is abusing its authority
to spy on the social media posts of troops who espouse conservative
views. That the Pentagon is hiding documents about this Big Brother
program in violation of law is doubly concerning.

BIDEN’S HOMELAND SECURITY AGENCY USES SMALL TEXAS AIRPORT TO
DISPERSE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS RELEASED FROM DETENTION

When the border is broken, every town is a border town. And even more
so when the Biden administration aids and abets human trafficking by
flying illegal border crossers from the border directly to other areas
of the country. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog has the story
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly using a small
regional airport in central Texas to disperse large groups of illegal
immigrants throughout the U.S. after releasing them from detention
facilities in other parts of the state, city and federal sources
confirm. Local authorities in the city where this is occurring,
Abilene
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are being kept in
the dark, and a federal lawmaker is demanding an end to the
“reckless and irresponsible practice” as well as answers from DHS
after a series of local news reports exposed the covert operation.

Abilene is located about 180 miles west of Dallas and has a population
of around 120,000. The area’s airport is run by the city and its
transportation director reveals in a news story
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that
local officials are not aware of what exactly is going on with the
illegal immigrant flights. The airport is only given 24 to 48 hours of
notice before flights arrive, according to Abilene Director of
Transportation Don Green, who verifies the planes are private charters
from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency in
charge. The Texas news conglomerate, which also publishes reports in
Spanish, writes that it “shot video of strange activity at the
airport” and includes the footage on its website. It shows
immigrants exiting unmarked planes, getting frisked, then boarding
buses. Some footage includes buses arriving at the airport where
immigrants are seen getting off and boarding planes to different parts
of the U.S.

Republican Jodey Arrington, who represents the area in the U.S. House,
says the flights have been coming into Abilene Airport for some time
and his office has contacted ICE for more information, but the agency
has essentially blown him off. The congressman also reveals that he
has called numerous local officials, and not one has been notified by
the federal government of the covert ICE operations at Abilene
Airport. That includes county commissioners, judges, city mayors and
state legislators who are being kept in the dark by ICE and DHS about
the activity. In response to the news organization’s inquiry, ICE
issued a statement saying that Abilene Airport is used to facilitate
detainee transfers in accordance with operational needs and assures
the agency is “committed to ensuring that all those in our custody
reside in safe, secure, and humane environments and under appropriate
conditions of confinement.” The DHS agency also writes that
detainees in transit will be transported in a safe and humane manner
under the supervision of trained and experienced personnel.

ICE also stresses that detainees’ medical and other special needs
are prioritized before any transfer and that accommodations are made
during transfer for detainees with disabilities. For those concerned
about where the relocated illegal immigrants will end up, the agency
offers this reassuring information in its statement to the Texas media
outlet: “ICE is coordinating with non-governmental organizations to
ensure individuals have immediate needs such as temporary shelter upon
their release, as well as food, water, clothing, and transportation
services to help mitigate strains placed on resources in the local
community.” Custody determinations are made daily by the agency, the
ICE statement reads, on a case-by-case basis in accordance with U.S.
law and DHS policy considering the “merits and factors of each
case.”

Congressman Arrington is calling on the Biden administration to
immediately end the reckless “catch and release” operations and
blasts the administration for the unacceptable lack of communication
and transparency surrounding the process. In a letter
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to
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Arrington trashes Biden’s
disastrous policies for encouraging illegal immigration, emboldening
drug cartels and jeopardizing the safety of the American people.
“Under your leadership and as a result of the Biden
Administration’s policies, the United States has ceded control of
our southern border to narco-terrorist cartels, which in turn, has
created an unprecedented humanitarian and security crisis,” the
congressman writes to the DHS secretary. The legislator also asks
Mayorkas several questions, including how many illegal immigrants have
been released from local detention facilities and transported to
Abilene, if DHS is conducting criminal background checks on them, and
if the illegal immigrants are tested for COVID-19 before being
released into the community.

A few months ago Judicial Watch reported
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on a similar Biden administration scheme in which planeloads of
illegal immigrant minors were relocated around the country in the
middle of the night to avoid public scrutiny. In that case the
Department of Defense (DOD) contracted big tour buses to take the
migrants to cities throughout the southeast. A Tennessee news outlet
captured video of planes arriving at a Chattanooga private jet
terminal and adolescents who appear to be in their early teens are
seen deboarding the planes carrying matching bags then boarding large
tour busses parked on the runway. Federal lawmakers representing the
area as well as local officials were also kept in the dark.

JUDICIAL WATCH FIGHTS WEST POINT STONEWALL ON RACIST PROPAGANDA

The Biden Pentagon, in addition to spying
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on troops to root out conservatives, is also abusing our young men and
women in their care with critical race theory indoctrination, as Micah
Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, describes
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in his _Investigative Bulletin_.

“Critical race theory” is suddenly, weirdly, everywhere. Schools,
Congress, the law, the media, big business are abruptly awash in the
CRT gospel
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that U.S. institutions are inherently, irredeemably,
“systemically” racist, and must be destroyed to be saved. One day
in the not-too-distant future someone will write a fascinating study
of how this insanity came upon us, and not for the first time. But for
now, the deluge.

Now the storm has reached a citadel of American democracy, the United
States Military Academy at West Point. For months, Judicial Watch has
been investigating tips from West Point sources about shocking CRT
teachings that divide, not unite, our future military leaders.

In April, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request
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with the Defense Department for all West Point material related to
CRT. The Defense Department ignored our request. So last month, we
sued
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them.

“Critical race theory is racist, anti-American, and repackaged
Marxism,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It has no
place in our military, let alone the storied heights of West Point.
The Pentagon needs to immediately follow the FOIA law so the American
people can fully understand and stop the extremist indoctrination of
the U.S. Army’s rising leadership at West Point.”

In June, in an extraordinary statement on Capitol Hill
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the chairman on the
Joint Chiefs of Staff—the highest-ranking military officer in the
U.S.—defended CRT at West Point. “I want to understand white
rage,” said General Mark Milley, “and I’m white.”

Milley called on members of the military to be “open-minded” and
compared CRT to the classroom study of communism. “I’ve read Mao
Zedong,” he said. “I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That
doesn’t make me a communist. So what’s wrong with understanding,
having some situational understanding, about the country for which we
are here to defend?”

What’s wrong of course is that a radical dogma like CRT has goals
far beyond the classroom. It seeks to exploit liberal good will,
“open-mindedness,” to undermine, divide and ultimately destroy the
country. It’s a tactic Mao and Lenin understood well.

Congressman Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret, also has been
investigating CRT at West Point. In a letter
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to the superintendent of the military academy, Rep. Waltz noted that
he received reports from cadets and families about CRT-inspired racist
teachings.

One mandatory seminar for cadets, according to the Waltz, included a
workshop on “Understanding Systemic Racism” and featured a
presentation by Dr. Carol Anderson of Emory University on
“Understanding Whiteness and White Rage.”

Rep. Waltz noted that Anderson “is a controversial, partisan
academic
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who has made no secret where she stands politically.” She has
written that the “trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black
advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the
problem: rather, it is blackness with ambition, drive, purpose,
aspirations.”

According to reports received by Waltz, the entire cadet corps was
required to attend a stadium assembly that included testimony from a
fellow cadet about her “white privilege” and how she “felt
guilty for the advantages of her race.”

It’s obvious why CRT at West Point is so alarming. “A fundamental
pillar of military training has been it doesn’t matter what race,
what religion, or whether one’s family was rich or poor before
entering the military,” Waltz writes. “This is why every
soldier’s head is shaved and every soldier wears the exact same
uniform.”

Critical race theory takes aim at this pillar of American democracy,
pitting “cadets against one another through divisive
indoctrination,” writes Waltz. CRT at West Point teaches our future
military leaders “that they should treat their fellow officers and
soldiers differently based on race and socio-economic background. In a
combat environment, where every soldier must equally share the burden
of danger, I cannot think of a notion more destructive to unit
cohesion and morale.”

Make that: more destructive to the American experiment writ large.

Until next week …





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