What is Biden Hiding?

President Biden tucked away more than 1,850 boxes of archival records from his 36-year Senate career at the University of Delaware. Of course, Biden and the university don’t want anyone to see them.

Here’s the latest. The Delaware Superior Court ordered the university to respond to our objections to its response justifying its decision to restrict access to the records.

Reviewing an affidavit submitted by the university, and Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation’s objections to it, Judge Mary M. Johnston on August 23 gave the University 30 days to respond.

In June the court had ordered the university to provide under oath additional information on its decision, in which the university asserted that no state funds were used on the university’s “matters or undertakings” regarding Biden and that the Biden Senate papers were never discussed at any meetings of the university’s full Board of Trustees.

This began when, with the Daily Caller News Foundation, we filed a July 2020 Delaware Freedom of Information Act lawsuit after the university denied our requests on April 30, 2020, for all of Biden’s Senate records and records about the preservation and any proposed release of the records, including communications with Biden or his representatives (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. University of Delaware, No. N20A-07-001 MMJ (Del. Super.)).

In February of 2021, we appealed an adverse lower court ruling, and the Delaware Supreme Court returned the case to the lower court.

The university then filed an affidavit, citing no documents or other specifics, stating that no state funds were used in its housing of Biden’s Senate papers and that the papers were never discussed at any meetings of the university’s full Board of Trustees.

We argue that the supplemental affidavit submitted by the university on July 27 was essentially a duplicate of the initial affidavit.

In objecting to the university’s filing, we write:

Even after having several opportunities to satisfy its burden of proof, the University submits a five-page affidavit filled with nothing more than hearsay and conclusory statements. By and large, the “Supplemented” affidavit is duplicative of what the University has previously submitted to justify its position. The University continues to fail to satisfy its burden.

What is now clear after the University has tried and tried again is that it cannot or, for whatever reason, refuses to satisfy its burden of proof to justify the denial of access to the records sought by Judicial Watch and DCNF. The Court must require either the turn-over of the records, or, in the least, allow Appellants the opportunity for limited discovery to confirm that the University’s position is totally without merit.

“After all the lectures from the Biden Administration on democracy and the rule of law it’s amazing that the President has a secret deal in place to hide his records from the public,” said Daily Caller News Foundation President Neil Patel. “We are happy that the court is pushing the University of Delaware to stop playing games and come clean.”

What is Biden hiding? Is there classified information in his Senate materials? Joe Biden has a secret deal to hide his Senate records with the University of Delaware—and a court wants more answers. Of course, President Biden could help by simply releasing all his Senate records. The fact that he hasn’t is telling!
 

Courts and Crime: Court Official Sues After Being Fired for Speaking Out for the Public Safety!

Judicial Watch is now in federal court on behalf of former Virginia Magistrate Elizabeth Fuller, who was fired in violation of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Virginia Supreme Court officials are seeking to dismiss her lawsuit.

A court hearing was held before Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles this week in the case (Elizabeth Fuller v. Karl R. Hade, et al. (No. 1:22-cv-00218)).

On October 19, 2021, Fuller was fired from her position as magistrate after commenting to the Alexandria Times as part of a discussion about the publicly available outcome of her own 2020 complaint against a bondsman named Man Nguyen.

We filed the lawsuit in March 2022.

Here are the details.

Ibrahm Elkahi Bouaichi was arrested and indicted by a grand jury on or about January 13, 2020, for burglary with the intent to commit murder, abduction, sodomy, strangulation, and rape of Karla Elizabeth Dominguez Gonzalez. Notwithstanding the seriousness of these charges, the Alexandria Circuit Court released Bouaichi on a $25,000 bond in April 2020. Less than four months after his release on bail, Bouaichi, on July 29, 2020, reportedly drove to Ms. Dominguez’ residence in Alexandria, Virginia and shot and killed her outside her apartment complex.

We argue:

In the immediate days following the news reports about Ms. Dominguez’ murder, Plaintiff learned from a police officer in the citizen lobby of the magistrate’s office that the vehicle and gun reportedly used by Bouaichi to murder Ms. Dominquez belonged to the surety bail bondsman, Man Nguyen, who posted the $25,000 bond for Bouaichi’s release in April 2020. On information and belief, bondsman Nguyen and the officer struck casual conversation while they were waiting in the citizens lobby when Nguyen said it was his gun and car that Bouaichi used to murder Ms. Dominguez, and that he had let Bouaichi stay at his house while he was away on vacation. The officer subsequently relayed the information to Plaintiff as part of casual conversation among friendly colleagues, outside any hearing or proceeding.

On August 6, 2020, Fuller, in her personal capacity, filed a complaint with the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, alleging that Nguyen violated rules and regulations of his licensure as a surety bail bondsman. On September 1, 2020, Nguyen’s surety bail bond license was suspended and revoked as a result. Fuller understood that this concluded the matter.

More than a year later, the Alexandria Times disclosed information it obtained through a Freedom of Information request regarding Nguyen’s involvement, as well as Fuller’s complaint, and subsequently approached Fuller for comment in October 2021. Fuller commented as follows:

• Nguyen came to work in the days following the murder nearly boasting and joking about the fact that the gun and car belonged to him and that Bouaichi had stayed at his home.
• “[Bondsman Nguyen] was telling this officer about what happened and almost bragging about it. The officer said to me, ‘You will never believe what he just said to me.’” “So I said, ‘I’ve got to do something about it.’”

Five days after this story was published on October 7, Fuller was placed on administrative leave and she was fired on October 19, 2021.

 It was then claimed that Fuller had violated Canon 3, Section B(6) that states: “[a] magistrate shall abstain from public comment about a pending, impending or concluded proceeding in any court or magistrate’s office.”

In early November 2021, Fuller filed a grievance appealing her termination and asked for reinstatement, which was denied.

We argue that Fuller’s firing was retaliation for protected speech and that the judicial canon used to justify her firing doesn’t apply to comments made about a public filing made in her personal capacity:

At all relevant times, [Fuller] was engaged in constitutionally protected speech when she made the comments to the Alexandria Times, which undeniably addressed matters of public concern.

***

Plaintiff enjoys the right to freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.  This includes the right to comment to the Alexandria Times on Plaintiff’s public complaint filed in her personal capacity about the misconduct of a bondsman and its outcome, and the system’s failure to protect a rape victim.

The fact remains that an innocent woman is dead because she was murdered by a rapist who was let out of jail. The Virginia court should not have fired the magistrate who blew the whistle on the court bondsman whose misconduct enabled this murder. Ms. Fuller is a hero. Her constitutional rights were violated because she embarrassed the Virginia court and political officials over their deadly soft-on-crime bail policies.
 

Mayorkas Secretly Met with Soros Groups During Border Trip

It’s no secret George Soros funds leftist causes around the world. It’s little wonder, then, that groups he supports have a hand in the Biden border invasion, as our Corruption Chronicles blog documents.

During a highly publicized Mexican border visit to address the record-breaking migrant crisis, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas secretly met with influential open border groups including nonprofits funded by leftwing billionaire George Soros and another operated by a former Hillary Clinton and Obama advisor, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. The Biden administration deployed Mayorkas on the mission in mid-August of last year as part of an ill-fated effort to reassure the nation that the immigration chaos was under control as startling Border Patrol figures revealed that agents shattered a 21-year-old record in July with 212,672 apprehensions, a 13% increase over June.

Mayorkas, shamefully ousted as a Bill Clinton U.S. Attorney after orchestrating the pardon of a big-time drug dealer, put on his game face, met with Border Patrol officials in south Texas, placated and schmoozed local leaders and publicly suggested that the border is under control. In a press conference delivered in Brownsville, Texas, the DHS secretary confidently promoted the administration’s plan to deal with the crisis, including spending tens of millions of dollars to address the root causes of migration in Central America, an increase in law enforcement operations with our Mexican partners and a vague strengthening of enforcement with additional personnel. Mayorkas also explained that “worsening conditions…including poverty, a rise in violence, and corruption” were responsible for the rise in migrant encounters. He described the situation as a tough and complicated challenge that involves vulnerable people.

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with DHS for the records involving the DHS secretary’s August 2021 tour to uncover more information about the excursion, especially the private meetings with previously undisclosed attendees. Most of the records provided by the agency include background to prepare Mayorkas for events and details of the various meetings with local elected and law enforcement officials. The files include biographies and photos of many of the officials, including the mayors of Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, Del Rio, Pharr, and Mission. The itinerary also contains the bios of local judges in several Texas border counties who had expressed concern to the administration about the migrant crisis. The records include a July 30, 2021 letter from Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez to President Biden warning that the ongoing immigrant surge demands immediate and decisive action. In the short letter to the commander-in-chief the judge refers to the situation as “an extremely pressing issue.”

The most notable record obtained by Judicial Watch includes a backgrounder for a private session Mayorkas held with open border nonprofits working with immigrants along the southwest border, some of them on the government’s payroll. Judicial Watch has reported leftist groups’ key role in the border crisis, specifically that the Biden administration is allowing them to select the illegal immigrants that enter the U.S. to request asylum. Among the 14 attendees at the Mayorkas meeting was Juanita Valdez-Cox, Executive Director of La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), an affiliate of the influential National Council of La Raza (NCLR), which changed its name to a less divisive UnidosUS. LUPE’s website lists Soros’s Open Society Institute as a partner organization. Also present was Olivia Peña, an attorney and co-director with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, which received $80,000 from the Soros Fund Charitable Foundation in 2020. The group also got $5.5 million this year from the Department of the Interior for “Child Advocate Services” and $6.7 million from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last year for the care of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC).

Laura Peña, Legal Director at the Texas Civil Rights Project, also attended the covert powwow with the nation’s Homeland Security Secretary. Peña was previously the Director of Latino Outreach for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, Deputy Political Director of HillPAC/Friends of Hillary, and a senior State Department advisor and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Chief Counsel during the Obama administration. Also present at the Mayorkas meeting was Jennifer Harbury, a co-founder of the group Angry Tias & Abuelas. Harbury is a longtime liberal activist lawyer who was married to Guatemalan Marxist guerrilla Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, also known as Comandante Everardo, in 1991. Angry Tias & Abuelas operates under the fiscal sponsorship of the leftwing activist nonprofit Progress Texas Institute.

Judicial Watch Warns: Critical Race Theory Rising

Critical Race Theory is an insidious Marxist concept that is a real threat to our country — as Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, explores.

Across America, critical race theory is impacting political battles as the country hurtles toward midterm voting. CRT is the latest front in the war of the far Left against American values, attacking U.S. society as suffused to the core by white supremacy and institutionalized racism and demanding radical change.

Recent Judicial Watch cases reveal how deep CRT has penetrated into the fabric of American life. Judicial Watch was among the first to ring alarm bells over CRT. We noted last year that CRT—long dismissed as an esoteric fad of the academic Left—suddenly was everywhere in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd, its agenda advancing swiftly through universities and public schools, government, law, science, business, and the media.

Last month, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton warned that CRT also is emerging as a threat to national security. Writing in the Washington Examiner, Tom highlighted documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act that painted a disturbing portrait of CRT stoking racial divisiveness at the historic U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Judicial Watch obtained more than 600 pages of documents revealing CRT instruction at West Point. The documents, Tom notes, “reveal an assault on cadets in the form of race-based shaming that paints one race as an oppressor and another as the victim.”

One West Point training slide is titled “Modern Day Slavery in the USA.” Others state that “whiteness” is a set of “cultural practices that are usually unmarked or unnamed,” and that “white people and people of color live racially different structured lives.” One presentation, “‘Race and the Invisible Hand’: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs,” suggests an ongoing program of white oppression.

And apparently it’s not just West Point. In June, the Federalist reported that the U.S. Navy had issued an instructional video on how service members must use “correct pronouns” and “inclusive language” and not “misgender” others. In July, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense after it failed to respond to requests for U.S. Naval Academy records related to CRT.

Elsewhere in the Biden Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is busy with a CRT-inspired program to ferret out “race and gender microaggressions.” A Judicial Watch FOIA action revealed a CFPB Power Point training presentation to help employees “identify race and gender based microaggressions” and understand how microaggression can turn into “discrimination and/or unlawful harassment.”

Microaggressions are defined in the CFPB documents as “verbal and nonverbal behavior” that “communicate negative, hostile, and derogatory messages to people rooted in their marginalized group membership (based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc.)” Microaggressions can be “intentional or unintentional,” and are “more subtle” than “using racial epithets or displaying swastikas.”

According to the document, examples of racial microaggressions include questions like: “Where are you from?”, or “Where were you born?” Or asking an Asian American or Latino American to teach them words in their native language. Or saying, “You are so articulate” or “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.” The list goes on.

“Federal agencies shouldn’t abuse tax dollars for CRT indoctrination, which makes a mockery of serious race and sex discrimination issues,” Judicial Watch’s Fitton noted. “This document from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows critical race theory is alive and well in the Biden administration.”

But the main battlefront in the war over CRT and related race-based initiatives is in the schools. With a pushback gaining traction in many communities, Bloomberg reports that 42 states have “introduced bills or taken steps” to address the influence of CRT in education. In Florida, in late August, once-sleepy school board elections revealed electrified parents and big wins for anti-CRT forces.

On August 2, Judicial Watch filed a friend-of-the-court brief, in partnership with the Allied Educational Foundation, in support of a challenge to race-based admissions at the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. We asked a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court finding that a new admissions policy of the Fairfax County Public Schools system was unconstitutional because of improper considerations of race.

We noted in our brief, “the truth is that Fairfax County Public Schools was not interested in improving Thomas Jefferson High School diversity”—the stated claim of the new policy. “Thomas Jefferson’s student body was already diverse.”

But for CRT activists in Fairfax County, the status quo at a diverse, successful school wasn’t enough. What was really behind the sudden policy change? The Fairfax school system was seeking “to change the racial mix by increasing the representation of underrepresented, preferred minorities (Blacks and Hispanics) to the disadvantage of other minorities (Asian Americans).” Read more about the case here.

In the District of Columbia, meanwhile, Judicial Watch exposed a 2021 effort by local public schools to create “affinity spaces” segregated by race and sexual identity. We obtained 190 pages of records showing how CRT informed actions by DC public school officials.

Affinity spaces are straight out of the CRT political reeducation playbook. The “goal of these affinity groups,” says one document, an email between two senior school officials “is to create a safe space among colleagues to process the impacts of racism and white supremacy within our school community and identify collective actions to take as individuals and as groups.”

Another document asks public school staff, “Which racial affinity group(s) do you plan to join?”—a not subtle warning to get with the program.

Another document seeks to divide people into “new LGBTQIA+ ‘Affinity Spaces,’” including  “BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/People of Color) LGBTQIA+” and “White LGBTQIA+.”  Some “Guiding Norms” for affinity spaces included “Go beyond celebration,” “Isolate race,” and create a “Lens for equity.”

In Massachusetts, Judicial Watch brought a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of David Flynn, a high school football coach fired after raising questions about CRT in his daughter’s seventh grade history class.

Among Coach Flynn’s concerns: the course curriculum had been changed without providing parents an opportunity for review and comment; the new course contained material on politics, race, gender, equity, and diversity that were inappropriate for seventh graders age 12 and 13; the teacher was not teaching the material objectively and was promoting the controversial Black Lives Matter movement; and the teacher used course material that portrayed all police officers as risks to all black people, and all black males as risks to white people.

Coach Flynn sent a polite email to school authorities asking for compromises and modest changes to the new curriculum. Their response? You’re fired.

Judicial Watch sued school authorities in federal court. A judge dismissed the case, we appealed the decision, and last month, a historic settlement was reached. In a letter to Coach Flynn, school authorities noted that “your legitimate questions prompted additional conversations at the School Committee level that ultimately led to the establishment of a Curriculum Advisory Committee that now brings together parents, community members, and district educators to broadly review and more thoroughly communicate curriculum changes and concerns.” Policy changes included a ban on promoting Black Lives Matter to students in classrooms and online. Read more about the Flynn case here.

How much will CRT impact the upcoming midterm elections? As Judicial Watch reported during last year’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign, the media, liberals, and the Left are dismissive of concerns about CRT. Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, in a trope widely deployed by the Left, said concerns over CRT are nothing more than a “racist dog whistle.” Axios managing editor Margaret Talev said on CNN: “Let’s just say for the record in case anyone doesn’t know, they don’t teach Critical Race Theory to kids in kids K-12 schools. That’s not a thing anywhere in the country, including Virginia.” The claim was repeated elsewhere on CNN. It was dogma at MSNBC.

It was also dead wrong. It turned out in fact that CRT was a big thing in Virginia, and that CRT teachings were widely influential in the Virginia school system. The controversy over CRT had a major impact on the Virginia race. On his first day in office, newly elected Governor Glenn Youngkin, fulfilling a campaign promise, signed an executive order banning “inherently divisive concepts,” including CRT, in Virginia public schools.

Whether the Virginia experience will be repeated in the broader contours of the midterm elections remains to be seen. But the evidence is clear: fights over CRT are impacting communities across the country.

Until next week,