Judicial Watch Victory: Court Rejects Biden
DOJ Effort to Keep Trump Warrant Affidavit Completely
Sealed
We are aggressively fighting the Department of Justice to uncover
all the details of the unprecedented August 8, 2022, raid on the
home of former President Trump.
In a vindication of our efforts, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart issued a
decision
that rejected the out-of-hand Justice Department’s brazen play to keep
the whole document secret. The Biden administration’s unprecedented and
abusive raid on Trump’s home has created a crisis in the rule of law that
can only be alleviated with transparency and accountability. We’re
thrilled that Americans will get more of both with today’s court
decision, finding that at least some more information about this terrible
raid should be released.
Magistrate Reinhart had called for a
hearing in West Palm Beach, FL, at which James Moon of the Meland
Budwick, P.A. law firm in Miami, argued on our behalf. After the hearing
the court issued
an order that stated:
As I ruled from the bench at the conclusion of the hearing, I find that on
the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that
the entire affidavit should remain sealed. It is ORDERED that by noon EST
on Thursday, August 25, 2022, the Government shall file under seal its
proposed redactions along with a legal memorandum setting forth the
justification for the proposed redactions.
The court also ordered the release
of other documents concerning the warrant.
Here’s what led up to this decision.
On August 9, we filed
a motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
Florida to unseal the search warrant materials used by the FBI to raid
President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida (U.S.
v. Sealed Search Warrant (Case No. 9:22-mj-08332)).
On August 11, the DOJ filed a motion
offering to unseal certain warrant materials.
On August 12, we filed
President Trump’s public statement with the court, in which he made it
clear that he would not oppose the release of documents related to the
raid. Later that day, the DOJ made a
partial release of the Trump raid warrant materials.
Initially, the Albany
Times Union and the New
York Times joined us in filing for the unsealing of the warrant by
filing an amicus letter and motion respectively. Other interests later
joined in the effort.
Magistrate Reinhart ordered
the Justice Department to respond by August 15 to our Motion to Unseal the
warrant and supporting materials behind the FBI raid. In its
filing, the Justice Department alleged that releasing the affidavit
would “cause significant and irreparable damage” to its ongoing
criminal investigation.
On August 17, we submitted our reply
to the DOJ’s effort
to keep under seal the affidavit used to justify the raid.
The “criminal investigation” the Biden administration is covering up
reeks of corruption and dishonesty – and is based on a reinvention of law
about presidential records that is at odds with the U.S. Constitution,
court rulings, federal statutes, and prior government legal positions and
practice. No administration should be able to raid the home of a former
president and putative presidential candidate based on ‘secret’
reasons.
We’re pleased that our legal pressure forced the partial release of
warrant materials. The U.S. Constitution and federal law give unreviewable
authority to President Trump to take whatever records he wishes at the end
of his presidency. The Biden administration’s dishonest depiction of
personal records of President Trump it illicitly seized during the raid as
“classified” is further demonstration that the raid was a brazen act of
raw political abuse.
The battle for transparency and accountable will continue and require much
heavy lifting by your Judicial Watch legal team. If this current crisis
doesn’t convince you of the need for Judicial Watch, I’m not sure what
will! I encourage to join our cause and support our work directly here.
In the meantime, we will keep you abreast of breaking developments in the
Biden administration’s attack on President Trump and the rule of law.
Whistleblower: Hundreds of Afghans on Terror Watchlist Released in
U.S.
Our southern border isn’t our only security vulnerability. The Biden
administration is also abdicating its duty to protect America when it comes
to vetting so-called refugees from Afghanistan. According to a Defense
Department whistleblower, political appointees in the national security
bureaucracy are the problem. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
Hundreds of unvetted Afghan refugees released in the United States by the
Biden administration are on a Department of Defense (DOD) watchlist of
suspected and known terrorists, according to a Pentagon whistleblower. The
database is known as Biometrically Enabled Watchlist (BEWL), and it
identifies individuals whose unique physical characteristics have been
flagged by analysts to be national security threats. Some 324 Afghan
evacuees who appear in the system were freed in the U.S., the DOD
whistleblower says. The information has sparked outrage among some members
of Congress who assert known
suspected terrorists were let into the U.S. last year “ after the
administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
At least two U.S. Senators are demanding and immediate investigation by the
DOD Inspector General. In a letter
to the Pentagon watchdog, the lawmakers, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ron
Johnson of Wisconsin, write that the whistleblower’s information may show
the Biden administration’s failure to vet those evacuated from
Afghanistan was even worse than the public was led to believe. The
whistleblower also alleges that political appointees at the National
Security Council (NSC) and DOD instructed agency personnel to cut corners
when processing evacuees in Afghanistan and at staging bases in Europe, the
lawmakers write. Rather than administer fingerprint tests on all ten
fingers, personnel were told to abbreviate tests to promote the rushed
evacuation from Afghanistan. “Finally, it is alleged that personnel at
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who work on vetting Afghan
evacuees have been authorized to delete old biometric data, whenever they
personally believed that such information is out of date,” the senators
write. “This is a troubling development that could threaten national
security and public safety.”
The legislators want the DOD IG to investigate how many BEWL matches were
generated by biometric submissions from Afghan evacuees, how many of those
individuals were denied entry in the U.S., how many were admitted and how
many are currently in the country. They also want to know the number of
BEWL matches generated by evacuees after their arrival in the U.S. and what
steps have been taken to identify, vet and deport the individuals who
appeared on the watchlist or if the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
has investigated any of them. The probe also needs to reveal if political
appointees at the NSC or DOD instructed personnel to administer abbreviated
fingerprint tests to Afghan evacuees, according to the senators, and under
what conditions may agency personnel delete biometric information. They
specifically want to know if any biometric information associated with
Afghan evacuees been deleted.
The disturbing security lapses exposed by the whistleblower come on the
heels of a federal
audit confirming that dozens of Afghan refugees released in the U.S.
were flagged by the Pentagon for “potentially significant security
concerns.” In that probe the DOD IG found that the agency responsible for
clearing the Afghans by conducting thorough background checks is not doing
its job, creating serious national security issues, and undoubtedly
threatening the safety of Americans. The agency is known as the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and it functions under the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). It was launched in the aftermath
of the 2001 terrorist attacks by consolidating intel gathered by the FBI,
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), DHS, and the DOD. Besides missing the
significant DOD security concerns of at least 50 refugees, the nation’s
lead counterterrorism intelligence entity also failed to stop at least four
dozen Afghans with “derogatory information” in their record, the
watchdog found.
Under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome (OAW),
approximately 80,000 “displaced persons from Afghanistan” have been
admitted into the country under a special immigrant visa (SIV) or
humanitarian parole. The president directed the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) to lead the chaotic plan to resettle the Afghans and the
administration assured Americans the refugees would be thoroughly screened.
That has not materialized and for months media reports have exposed crimes,
including child molestation, assault and domestic violence committed by
Afghans housed at military bases throughout the U.S.
Until next week …
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