FBI Letter Shows Pfizer Tied to Investigation of Project Veritas

Another victory for Judicial Watch!

The City of Asheville, North Carolina, settled our federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a city-funded scholarship program. The city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators. The City Council approved the settlement on January 11.

In October 2021, we filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on behalf of a North Carolina citizens group, WNC Citizens for Equality, Inc., whose members include high school students who were ineligible for a scholarship program only because they are not Black (WNC Citizens for Equality, Inc., v. City of Asheville et al. (No. 1:21-cv-00310)). (The Legal Insurrection Foundation partnered with us in the lawsuit.)

Here’s the background. On May 5, 2021, the City of Asheville entered into an agreement with the Asheville City Schools Foundation to establish and administer the City of Asheville Scholarship Fund. According to the agreement, the City of Asheville Scholarship is “awarded in perpetuity to Black high school students within Asheville City Schools, with special consideration given for Black students pursuing a career in education.” (In July 2020, Ashville’s City Council unanimously approved what is called a “reparations initiative,” that provided “funding to programs geared toward increasing homeownership and business and career opportunities for Black residents.”)

To settle our civil rights lawsuit, on January 11, 2022, Asheville’s City Council approved a resolution that removes the racial criteria for the scholarship:

[T]he scholarship will give preference to applicants whose household members, including parents and/or guardians have a high school education or less, these applicants representing “first generation” college students.

The City Council also removed racially discriminatory language for a scholarship program for educators and staff of Asheville City Schools.

The scholarship agreements were also amended to prohibit discrimination based on race and other categories.

Our clients, a group of Asheville residents, including high school students, courageously challenged this blatantly discriminatory and illegal scholarship program in federal court. Thankfully, the City of Asheville did the right thing in quickly ending these indefensible race-based scholarship programs.

This federal lawsuit and the resulting remarkable settlement should serve as a wake-up call to those activists and allied politicians pushing the extremist leftist agenda to segregate and discriminate based on race.

 
Judicial Watch Sues for Info on CIA Targeting President Trump

Our Senior Attorney T. Russell Nobile told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties that voting procedures proposed under Democrat legislation aren’t necessary and would be destructive.

This legislation, H.R. 4 – John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021, would effectively result in a federal takeover of election management and empower the Justice Department to veto voter ID and other widely used election integrity measures.

“Data tells the true story of ballot access in America. To objectively evaluate whether racial minorities have an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process, you must look at racial registration and turnout data. Looking at the most recent data, the minority participation is exponentially higher now than it was in 1965,” Nobile said in the hearing titled “Voter Suppression and Continuing Threats to Democracy.”

“There is a significant disconnect between this ballot access data and public claims of widespread voter suppression,” he said. “Notwithstanding pervasive talking points about “rampant voter suppression,” the public data cannot be ignored: registration and turnout for minority voters in 2020 far exceeds that of 1965. When black citizens now register and turnout at higher rates than white citizens in places like Mississippi, it is simply not credible to claim that Jim Crow style voter suppression currently exists.”

Voter ID and other measures as “voter suppression” is truly a big lie.

There appears to be a larger motive behind the legislation, Nobile told the committee.

“[T]he truth is that H.R. 4 goes far beyond any civil rights law enacted during the height of the civil rights era. Rather, it appears part of a grander plan to wrest control of American elections away from accountable state legislatures and into the hands of a single federal agency. It does this despite Americans’ longstanding distrust of centralized administration of elections. Twice the U.S. Constitution mandated that presidential electors meet and cast their votes for president in their respective states, rather than at a central location, because in doing so there ‘would be less opportunity for political intrigue and chicanery than if they assembled in a single location.’”

Nobile, senior attorney Robert Popper and I repeatedly have addressed Congress on the importance of securing free and fair election. For more than 25 years, Judicial Watch has been known for its aggressive, leading-edge use of public records laws and lawsuits, as well as taxpayer, civil rights and whistleblower protection litigation, to fight government corruption. We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of this effort, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who have fought gerrymandering in Maryland, stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.

This hearing shows the Left has not given up on its effort to undermine election security. And it shows that Judicial Watch will not give up its leadership role in protecting free and fair elections.

DHS Disperses 273,396 Illegal Immigrants Around U.S. in Five Months

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are now abroad in the land with the secretive help of the Biden administration, that has been caught ferrying migrants furtively to communities with flights that land in the middle of the night. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports the outrageous numbers:

Startling figures reluctantly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that the Biden administration dispersed 273,396 illegal immigrants throughout the United States during a five-month period last year and issued north of 100,000 Notices to Report (NTR) to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office within 60 days. Not surprisingly, the stats reveal that over 50,000 illegal aliens failed to show up for their hearing with federal authorities by ignoring the government issued NTR that has become the laughingstock of the nation’s immigration system.

The administration began using the NTR during the 2021 border crisis, according to the Wisconsin senator who obtained the distressing records this month. Back in October the veteran lawmaker pressed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for data regarding the number of illegal immigrants released into American communities and how many have been relocated with an NTR, parole or a Notice to Appear (NTA), which officially starts the deportation process with a court hearing before an immigration judge. Johnson, who chaired the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for six years, also requested the number of illegal aliens that have been transported by plane, train and bus to destinations throughout the U.S. by DHS or government contractors. “Media reports indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not just releasing illegal aliens into border towns after CBP processing, but rather transporting illegal aliens from the border to cities within the interior of the United States,” Johnson writes in his October 19 letter to Mayorkas. “It also appears that ICE might not be properly assessing these illegal aliens before releasing them into the interior of the U.S. If true, ICE’s reported actions could threaten the safety and security of all Americans.”

In correspondence attached to the records, Mayorkas apologizes to the senator for the delay in responding and reiterates a script he has used repeatedly, that DHS is committed to ensuring a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system. “The Department continues to prioritize and allocate critical, limited resources toward the Southwest Border to process noncitizens consistent with applicable legal authorities, including our immigration authorities and public health requirements,” the DHS secretary writes. “This work includes guaranteeing that the rights of all individuals, including noncitizens, are protected while safeguarding the national and border security of the United States and the safety of American communities.” The six pages of agency statistics attached to it support the senator’s assessment that the administration’s failure to secure the border has created an unprecedented migration crisis.

The records show that between March 21, 2021, and August 31, 2021, the government “processed” a record 273,396 illegal immigrants into the U.S. Of those migrants, the Biden administration issued 104,171 NTR to individuals who were then released throughout the country. More than half of the illegal aliens freed into the interior of the U.S. with an NTR during the five-month period failed to check-in with ICE. Of the 49,859 that did report to an ICE field office, only 16,293 were put into removal proceedings, according to the records. The figures also reveal that between March 21, 2021, and December 5, 2021, ICE started deportation proceedings for 50,683 illegal immigrants previously released on an NTR but failed to keep track of the overwhelming majority of cases—more than 40,000—even though the agency is a key component in removals because it plays the role of prosecutor in deportations.

As for taxpayer-funded transportation of the illegal immigrants, the figures state that 37,569 “noncitizens” were moved by bus in fiscal year 2021. Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas served as the most popular “release point” for illegal immigrants bused by Uncle Sam with 15,779 and 15,645 respectively. The DHS figures show that 84,261 migrants were transported on planes last year as part of ICE Air Operations. Judicial Watch reported on several Biden administration schemes that covertly dispersed illegal immigrants throughout the U.S. via small regional airports or in the middle of the night without notifying local authorities or officials.

Until next week …