Lawsuit Challenge to Left Racism Advances

[INSIDE JW]

U.S. Capitol Police Tells Federal Court January 6 Videos Are Not
Public Records

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What is Nancy Pelosi hiding?

The U.S. Capitol Police are trying to shut down a public records
lawsuit for January 6 disturbance video and emails by arguing
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to a federal court that the requested records are “not public
records.”

We filed a lawsuit
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in February under the common law right of access to public records
after the U.S. Capitol Police refused to provide any records in
response to a January 21, 2021, request for:

* Email communications between the U.S. Capitol Police Executive
Team and the Capitol Police Board concerning the security of the
Capitol on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from
January 1, 2021 through January 10, 2021.
* Email communications of the Capitol Police Board with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security concerning the security of the Capitol
on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from January 1,
2021through January 10, 2021.
* All video footage from within the Capitol between 12 pm and 9 pm
on January 6, 2021.

Regarding withholding the videos, the U.S. Capitol Police told the
court:

The USCP’s camera security system, including footage recorded by it
within the Capitol and sought by [Judicial Watch], is solely for
national security and law enforcement purposes.
Access to video footage from the USCP’s camera security system is
limited to narrow circumstances and strictly controlled by USCP
policy.
The USCP has not made any public disclosures of video footage from
January 6 from its camera security system.
There are currently pending criminal investigations and prosecutions
of individuals involved in the events at the U.S. Capitol on January
6, 2021.
There are currently pending congressional investigations into the
events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In its motion, the Capitol Police also argue the case should be closed
because, among other assertions, even if the records Judicial Watch
asks for are “public records,” the USCP’s interests in
confidentiality “outweigh any public interest in those materials.”

It also conveniently claims not to have access to many of the emails
we seek.

To cut to the chase, the U.S. Capitol Police are hiding a reported
14,000 hours of January 6 video from the American people in order to
help Nancy Pelosi’s abusive targeting of Trump’s supporters and
other political opponents. Any other police department in America
would be investigated and defunded for such abusive secrecy. The
Pelosi Congress is in cover-up mode regarding January 6.

As you know, we are conducting an extensive investigation into the
January 6 events in Washington, DC.

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, Judicial Watch 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, D.C., in January and February of 2021.

In March, we sued the District of Columbia for the autopsy of Capitol
Police Officer Brian Sicknick and related records. Pressure from this
lawsuit helped lead to the disclosure that Capitol Police Officer
Brian Sicknick died of natural causes
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Also 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.

Once again, Judicial Watch is doing the heavy lifting that a Congress,
a media, and an honest executive branch also ought to be doing!

JUDICIAL WATCH SEEKS BIDEN PENTAGON EMAILS ON ‘COUNTERING EXTREMISM
WORKING GROUP’

Our military is now in an ideological war with itself. It is
undergoing an ideological purge, endorsed by President Biden’s
appointed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. We wanted to know more
CRT-themed agenda targeting our troops, so we filed a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Defense
seeking records of communications from Austin, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff John Hyten regarding the Pentagon’s Countering
Extremism Working Group (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Defense
_
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1:21-cv-02145)).

We sued here in DC after the Pentagon failed to reply to our May 7,
2021, FOIA request, in which we asked for the following public
records:

All emails exchanged between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and
email accounts ending in .gov and/or .mil referencing “Countering
Extremism Working Group” and/or “CEWG.”

All emails exchanged between Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Gen. Mark Milley and email accounts ending in .gov and/or .mil
referencing “Countering Extremism Working Group” and/or
“CEWG.”

All emails exchanged between Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Gen. John Hyten and email accounts ending in .gov and/or .mil
referencing “Countering Extremism Working Group” and/or “CEWG."
During his Senate confirmation
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hearing in January, which followed the January 6 disturbance at the
U.S. Capitol building, Austin vowed that he would purge the U.S.
military of “racists and extremists.” Austin told the Senate Armed
Services Committee, “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep
America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those
enemies lie within our own ranks.”

On February 3, Austin ordered
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a 60-day military stand down to address the “challenge of extremism
in the ranks.”

Austin established
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the Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG) on April 9.

Austin selected Bishop Garrison, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of
Defense on Human Capital and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, to head
up the CEWG. The effort has been criticized
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as a racialized vehicle to attack supporters of President Trump and
others who espouse conservative views.

In July 2019, Garrison tweeted
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of then-President Donald Trump:

Silence from our Congressional leaders is complicity. He is only going
to get worse from here, & his party and its leadership are watching it
happen while doing nothing to stop it. Support for him, a racist, is
support for ALL his beliefs.

He's dragging a lot of bad actors (misogynists, extremists, other
racists) out into the light, normalizing their actions. If you support
the President, you support that. There is no room for nuance with
this. There is no more “but I'm not like that” talk.
This week’s Afghanistan humiliation is further evidence that the
Biden Pentagon’s obsession with targeting conservatives in the
military undermines our national security. Why is the Pentagon’s
leadership hiding records about its ongoing political purge and attack
on the First Amendment rights of our troops?

TEXAS SUPREME COURT ASKED TO REVIEW SUIT FOR DOCS ON QATARI FUNDING OF
TEXAS A&M

We have long investigated
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the role of unfriendly foreign governments in American universities,
and it hasn’t abated. One might suppose that there is just too much
money involved. The latest example is the nation of Qatar.

We filed a petition for review
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with the Supreme Court of Texas regarding a lawsuit on behalf of our
client Zachor Legal Institute under the Texas Public Information Act
(TPIA), seeking records about potential influence by the Qatar
government’s funding of certain Texas A&M University programs at its
campus in Education City, Al Rayyan, Qatar (_Zachor Legal Institute,
v. Qatar Foundation For Education, Science And Community Development _
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21-0542))

Zachor Legal Institute is a U.S.-based advocacy group dedicated to
combatting the spread of anti-Semitism. Zachor made two requests under
the Texas Public Information Act for information about the funding or
donations made to Texas A&M by the government of Qatar and agencies
and subdivisions of the government of Qatar. Qatar controversially has
aligned itself with Islamic terrorists and extremists
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which has placed it at odds with the United States, Israel and other
U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Zachor began asking two years ago for information about Qatari funding
of Texas A&M research and how Texas A&M, a public university, was able
to establish a degree-conferring campus in Qatar without the Texas
Legislature’s permission or involvement. In 2003 Texas A&M
established a campus in Qatar that now grants Bachelor of Science
degrees
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in Chemical Engineering,
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and
Petroleum Engineering. Since 2011, advanced degrees have been offered
in Chemical Engineering.

Texas A&M at Qatar has awarded more than 1000 degrees
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since 2007.

In October 2018, Qatar filed suit against the Texas attorney general
to prevent the disclosure of its funding information. On April 29,
2019, we filed a petition
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to intervene on behalf of Zachor.

We contend that a key issue, in this case, is the proper
interpretation of the TPIA [Texas Public Information Act], an
important statute governing the public’s right to access public
information. We are asking the court to interpret whether the act
waives the Attorney General’s immunity from being sued – not by a
governmental body seeking to withhold information but by a private
entity (Qatar Foundation) wishing to have public information kept
secret – or “whether the governmental body that holds the
information and has the duty to release it" must be the party filing
the lawsuit.

The Texas Attorney General ruled that Texas A&M could withhold only
the donors’ identifying information but must release the other
requested information. The Qatar Foundation filed a suit challenging
the Attorney General’s opinion. The Honorable Karin Crump, presiding
Judge of the 200th Judicial District Court of Travis County, dismissed
the Qatar Foundation’s claims on jurisdictional grounds leaving the
Attorney General’s opinion intact. The Qatar Foundation appealed to
the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, at Austin, Texas. The
court reversed the district court’s jurisdictional order and
remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.
Zachor is now asking the Texas Supreme Court to grant its petition for
review and render judgment that Qatar Foundation’s lawsuit to keep
this public information secret is jurisdictionally barred.

As we point out in our petition, the U.S. Congressional Research
Service has found serious issues worthy of investigation with
Qatar’s involvement in discrimination and terrorism:

The Qatari government has been identified as a vocal purveyor of
anti-Semitism and promoter of extremist terrorist groups. The merits
of this case ask whether the Qatar Foundation (a private entity) will
be allowed to use the (Texas Public Information Act) to preclude
public scrutiny of its involvement with and influence on a public
university.
Marc Greendorfer, president of Zachor Legal Institute, said, “When
Zachor first submitted the public records request, we were concerned
that foreign governments were using United States’ university
campuses as breeding grounds for hate and indoctrination. With the
dramatic and rapid explosion of antisemitism and anti-American unrest
that have spread on campuses since we submitted the request, our
concerns are only amplified. We urge the Texas Supreme Court to allow
Zachor, and the people of the State of Texas, to see what Qatar is
trying to hide.”

The Qatari government has been misusing our nation’s courts to hide
the details of its controversial funding of Texas A & M University. We
hope the Texas Supreme Court puts a stop to this.

DEPOSITION ORDERED FOR MAYOR LIGHTFOOT’S OFFICE OVER HER RACIST
INTERVIEW POLICY

There’s been an important development in our legal battle against
Chicago’s mayor.

A federal court ordered the deposition of a representative of Chicago
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office in our lawsuit over
her discriminatory interview policy. In doing so, the court rejected
arguments by the mayor’s lawyers against discovery and to dismiss
the legal challenge.

We filed a motion for limited jurisdictional discovery
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after Mayor Lightfoot’s office once again changed its explanation
about when and how she would only grant interviews to “journalists
of color.” Only after we filed our lawsuit and the mayor had to
defend her actions in court did the public learn that the racially
biased criteria only applied to a purported “press tour.”

On May 27, 2021, we filed a civil rights lawsuit
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on
behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation and reporter Thomas
Catenacci against Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for violating their
First Amendment Rights and Catenacci’s right to equal protection
under the Fourteenth Amendment (_Catenacci et al v. Lightfoot_
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(No. 1:21-cv-02852)). Christine Svenson of Svenson Law Offices in
Palatine, Illinois, is assisting us with the lawsuit.

Catenacci, a white male, emailed Mayor Lightfoot’s office requesting
a one-on-one interview with the mayor. The office never replied to the
request or to multiple follow up emails from Catenacci.

The civil rights lawsuit argues that Lightfoot purposefully
discriminated against Catenacci “because of his race by stating that
she would only grant interview requests from ‘journalists of
color….’”

“America’s civil rights heroes must be turning over in their
graves because of the overt racism now openly embraced by so many on
the far left in America, including Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot. We are
optimistic the courts will agree that government officials are still
not allowed to discriminate in America,” Daily Caller News
Foundation President Neil Patel said.

“I look forward to understanding how the mayor's office implemented
such a discriminatory policy. My rights, and the First Amendment
rights of countless other reporters in America, must not be trampled
upon,” Thomas Catenacci said.

We’re pleased by the federal court ruling requiring a representative
of Mayor Lightfoot to explain, under oath, the scope and nature of her
racist interview policy.

Until next week …


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