U.S. Capitol Police Tells Federal Court
January 6 Videos Are Not Public Records
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
to a federal court that the requested records are “not public
records.”
We filed a lawsuit
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
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 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 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 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. Also in March, we filed a FOIA lawsuit 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 (No. 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 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 a 60-day military stand down to address the “challenge of
extremism in the ranks.”
Austin established
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
as a racialized vehicle to attack supporters of President Trump and others
who espouse conservative views.
In July 2019, Garrison tweeted
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
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 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 (No. 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, 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
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 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
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 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
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 (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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