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Judicial Watch Lawsuit Forces Release of Records
on Raid of Project Veritas’s O’Keefe’s Home
Journalist group, Project Veritas, investigates
corruption and dishonesty in public and private institutions. James
O’Keefe is CEO and Chairman of the Board.
He and the organization apparently stepped on some highly sensitive toes in
Washington, and Washington reacted with an abusive raid of his home.
We received 11 pages of heavily
redacted records from the U.S Department of Justice concerning
communications of The New York Times to officials in the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), showing
the Times was tipped off about the November 6, 2021, FBI
raids on the homes of Project Veritas founder/CEO James O’Keefe and
then-Project Veritas journalists.
Seven pages of records are redacted in large part and three pages are
withheld entirely, which the agency claims are “not part of the
responsive record.”
The records were produced in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit we filed in
September 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
after the agency failed to respond to a March 29, 2022, FOIA request (Judicial Watch, Inc. v.
U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:22-cv-02652)).
Our lawsuit seeks all records of government and non-government
communications between officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the
Southern District of New York and representatives of the New York
Times regarding Project Veritas, James O’Keefe, Ashley Biden and
others.
The records reveal that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern
District of New York was in contact with New York Times
reporters, including William K. Rashbaum (referred to in the email chains
as “Willy”) and Ben Protess, before, during, and after the raids on the
homes of O’Keefe and then-Project Veritas reporters.
The records include a November 4, 2021, email chain labeled
“Search in Mamaroneck re [redacted] diary?”, from James Margolin,
former Chief Public Information Officer of SDNY to Nicholas Biase, former
senior public affairs officer for SDNY, and an individual whose name is
redacted. Margolin states that “Willy” from the Times has
information about the search warrants and investigation seemingly about Ashley Biden’s
diary:
Willy Rashbaum from the Times just called and says they know or believe
that a search warrant is being conducted in Mamaroneck this morning at a
location that is either the residence of Eric Cochrane (sp?) — who may or
may not be a whistle-blower — or a Project Veritas office. He believes
this is in connection with a Florida investigation into whether Project
Veritas stole, or purchased a stolen, diary belonging to [redacted].
Margolin later includes redacted details about “two searches” regarding
the homes of James O’Keefe and then-Project Veritas journalist Spencer
Meads.
Margolin later states: “Times now believes it’s not ‘a Florida
investigation’ but an SDNY investigation, ‘and it involves more than
just the diary’ (no elaboration on that).”
In a November 6, 2021, email with the subject
line ““Re: O’Keefe (arrest?)” from Margolin to Biase and others,
Margolin states, “The Times hears O’Keefe was arrested this
morning.” The rest of the body of the email is redacted as “not part of
the responsive record.”
In response, Biase thanks Margolin and writes: “The Times has his
neighbor on record (who they suspect may not be entirely truthful) saying
that FBI were banging on O’Keefe’s door with guns (or at least one
agent with a gun) drawn.”
On November 24, 2021, Margolin emails a redacted
individual and Biase with the subject line “Veritas,” stating that
“Willy” (William K. Rashbaum of Times) informed Margolin the
Times was doing another story about Project Veritas, and
“they’re pretty certain subpoenas went to [redacted].” Margolin
explains that Willy asked him for “a wave-off if” the information was
wrong, adding “I [Margolin] made no promises.”
Biase writes on November 30, 2021, in the heavily redacted email chain that
Biase had spoken with NYT reporters
“Willy” and Ben Protess, and “neither mentioned it. Maybe Jim?” The
rest of the body of the email is redacted as “not part of the responsive
record.”
The New York Times was obviously tipped off about the unprecedented
raid on the home of James O’Keefe and other Project Veritas journalists.
And these new Justice Department records raise more questions than answers
about how that happened.
Judicial Watch Sues FBI over Censorship of Hunter Biden Laptop
Story
The FBI has become a political enforcement arm of the Biden Administration
and the Biden family. We’re going to court to interrupt the
corruption.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit against the Justice
Department for records of communications between the FBI and social media
sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden
laptop story (Judicial Watch Inc. v
U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-00079)).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the
FBI failed to respond fully to an August 28, 2022, FOIA request for:
- All alerts, notifications, advisories, foreign threat indicators, or
similar records provided by any official or employee of the FBI to any
officer or employee of Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter, or any other
social media company regarding the threat of disinformation disseminated by
foreign actors related to any U.S. election.
- All records of communication between any official or employee of the
FBI and any officer or employee of Meta, Twitter, or any other social media
company regarding the laptop reportedly used by Hunter Biden, any news
media reporting regarding the laptop and/or its contents, and/or the
provenance of any information contained in any such reporting.
In October 2020, in the run-up to the presidential election, the New
York Post was able to confirm that Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was
abandoned at a Delaware computer shop, contained embarrassing and possibly
incriminating information about the Biden family. The Post’s story
was censored by Twitter and other social media platforms despite its
accuracy. Recent “Twitter files” released by Elon Musk show that FBI pressure on “Russian
disinformation” led to the censorship:
San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan “[sent] 10 documents to Twitter’s
then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way
communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,” the evening before the
release of the Post story.
Other “Twitter files” show the FBI pushed Twitter to also censor
countless Twitter users who tweeted concerns (and jokes) about election
integrity just before the 2020 election.
The FBI was literally paying Twitter to
censor Americans just before the 2020 election! The FBI seems to have
interfered in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden by encouraging Big Tech
to censor Americans about the Hunter Biden laptop and other debates. And to
add to the scandal, they are now covering up their misconduct.
We have a comprehensive investigation and litigation project to expose and
stop Big Government-Big Tech censorship. We sued the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for all records of communications
between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA), a
division of DHS, and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was
created to flag online election content for censorship and suppression.
In September 2022, we sued the Secretary of
State of the State of California for having YouTube censor a Judicial Watch
election integrity video.
In May 2022, YouTube censored a Judicial Watch video about Biden corruption
and election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The video, titled
“Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security,” was falsely
determined to be “election misinformation” and removed by YouTube, and
Judicial Watch’s YouTube account was suspended for a week. The video
featured an interview with me. Judicial Watch continues to post it’s video content
on its Rumble channel (https://rumble.com/vz7aof-fitton-impeach-biden-corruption-threatens-national-security.html).
In April 2021, we published documents revealing how California state officials
pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to
censor posts about the 2020 election.
In May 2021, we revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials
pressured social media companies, Twitter and Facebook, to censor posts
about the 2020 election.
In July 2021, we uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), which revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the
CDC to control the COVID narrative and “misinformation” and that over
$3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media
companies.
And, as you can see below, we’re just ramping up!
Judicial Watch Sues for Surgeon General Contact with Big Tech about
Vaccines
In the Biden administration’s zeal to push the COVID-19 vaccines, it
turned it’s Surgeon General into an anti-constitutional tyrant.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for communications and
records of the Surgeon General’s Communications Director’s contact with
social media companies regarding COVID-19 vaccines (Judicial Watch, Inc. v.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No.
1:23-cv-00113)).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after HHS
failed to respond adequately to a March 3, 2022, FOIA request for:
All records, including, but not limited to, electronic mail, texts,
memoranda, and handwritten notes, of, regarding, referring, or relating to
any efforts of Alexandria Phillips, Communications Director, Office of the
Surgeon General, to contact any employee of Facebook, Twitter, TikTok,
Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Pinterest
concerning COVID-19 vaccines.
In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a report titled “Confronting Health
Misinformation” to “slow the spread of health misinformation during
the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond,” which called for censorship of speech
about the vaccines and other COVID controversies:
Prioritize early detection of misinformation “super-spreaders” and
repeat offenders. Impose clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly
violate platform policies.
On March 3, 2022, Murthy demanded that the tech companies turn over information
about individuals who spread COVID-19 misinformation:
In a formal notice, Murthy requested major tech platforms submit
information about the prevalence and scale of COVID-19 misinformation on
their sites, from social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms,
e-commerce platforms and instant messaging systems.
Biden’s Surgeon General is abusing his office to pressure Big Tech
companies to censor Americans. This lawsuit aims to uncover the details of
this government attack on the First Amendment.
DHS Recalls Air Marshals on Migrant Welfare Missions Along Mexican
Border
The Biden administration dishonestly refers to its border crisis as “a
surge in irregular migration.” To cope with the mess it created, it began
to pull Federal Air Marshals away from their basic duties. Our
Corruption Chronicles blog has the latest update on the
result of our pressure.
Thanks to pressure from the Air Marshal National Council and Judicial
Watch’s reporting, the Biden administration will stop sending Federal Air
Marshals (FAM) to the Mexican border to provide illegal immigrants with
welfare checks, transportation, and other basic services. The reckless
practice left aircraft at risk by sending 150-200 FAM monthly to the
southern border to help deal with “a surge in irregular migration.”
Judicial Watch was the first to report on the
deployments in late October when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
sent an electronic memorandum to the highly skilled law enforcement
officers informing them of the assignments, which consisted of 21-day
rotations that could be extended for up to 120 days.
Judicial Watch obtained a copy of the
directive from various recipients at the agency, which operates under the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA), created after 9/11 to prevent
another terrorist attack. FAM are charged with protecting commercial
passenger flights by deterring and countering the risk of terrorist
activity, yet they were plucked from their duties to babysit illegal
aliens. “The nation is experiencing a surge in irregular migration along
the Southwest Border (SWB),” the October notice to FAM officers read.
“The unprecedented volume of Noncitizen Migrants (NCMs) currently
apprehended mandates immediate further action to protect the life and
safety of federal personnel and noncitizens in CBP [Customs and Border
Protection] custody.”
The first wave of air marshals was
dispatched to El Paso, Texas and Yuma, Arizona on October 30 for an October
31 start. Thirty officers and a supervisor went to El Paso, 15 officers and
a supervisor to Yuma. Here is the important work that the specially trained
law enforcement officers were doing on the southern border rather than
their critical duty of protecting commercial planes flagged for terrorist
threats. “Hospital Watch, Transportation, Law Enforcement Searches, Entry
Control, Security at CBP Facilities and Welfare Checks.” In a formal
complaint to the DHS
Inspector General, the Air Marshal National Council, which represents
thousands of FAM nationwide,
accused TSA Administrator David Pekoske and FAM Director Tirrell Stevenson
of violating federal law and overstepping their authority by assigning air
marshals to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with the illegal immigration
crisis. The complaint also accused Homeland Security leaders of fraud,
waste, and abuse of authority.
Earlier this month when an intelligence
alert disclosed that Al Qaeda is planning attacks in the U.S. involving
planes, the Air Marshal National Council fired off a letter to DHS
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as well as Pekoske and Stevenson reminding
them that deploying FAM to the southern border to perform humanitarian work
is reckless and putting the nation at extreme risk. Judicial Watch
published a story about the threat after
obtaining a copy from government sources of the intelligence alert, which
was delivered on December 31, 2022, at 12:23:52 Greenwich Mean Time. The
caption of the widely circulated warning reads: “Al-Qaeda says upcoming
attacks on US, possibly involving planes, will use new techniques and
tactics.”
It appears that the combined efforts of
Judicial Watch and the Air Marshal National Council have squeezed the Biden
administration to end the controversial border missions. A memo dispersed
to FAM just days ago says that all future deployments to the southwest
border (SWB) have been suspended until further notice. “Wave #5 will
continue their deployment until January 27th and then travel home as
planned on January 28th,” according to the notice provided to Judicial
Watch by various government sources. “Wave #6 will NOT DEPLOY as planned
on January 25th.” The missive directs FAM to cancel travel and informs
officers that hotel and car rental reservations will be cancelled by the
agency. Air marshals nationwide are thrilled that they can return to their
critical mission of securing the nation’s transportation system and David
Londo, president of the Air Marshal National Council, said “it looks like
we won.”
Until next week...
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