Biden Abuses Elon Musk—Judicial Watch Sues!



[INSIDE JW]

Court Orders Release of Qatar Documents about Funding Texas A&M

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The nation of Qatar has aligned itself with Islamic terrorists and
extremists,
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which has placed it at odds with the United States, Israel and other
U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, it managed to establish financial ties with an American
university, and we’re helping to reveal the details.

We filed a petition in the District Court of Texas for Travis County
on behalf of Zachor Legal Institute under the Texas Public Information
Act (TPIA), seeking information about potential influence of the Qatar
government’s funding of certain Texas A&M University programs and a
Texas A&M campus in Education City, Al Rayyan, Qatar (_Qatar
Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development v. Ken
Paxton, Texas Attorney General_
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(No. D-1-GN-18-006240)).

Now the court has sided with us, ordering the release of the pertinent
documents.

The court was right to reject the arguments of Qatar that sought to
hide information about the foreign government’s funding of Texas A&
M. This case has been a multi-year court battle against a foreign
government entity tied to Islamist terrorism – so this latest
victory is sweet.

Zachor Legal Institute is a U.S.-based advocacy group dedicated to
combatting the spread of anti-Semitism. Zachor made requests under the
TPIA 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.

Zachor’s initially pursued information related to the funding of the
Texas A&M campus in Qatar in 2018. Zachor sought to determine how
Texas A&M was able to establish a degree-conferring campus in Qatar
without the Texas legislature’s permission or involvement.

In 2018, Qatar filed a lawsuit to prevent disclosure of its funding
information. We countered with the argument that neither the Qatari
government nor any of its agencies are protected by exceptions under
Texas law and that federal law “expressly makes the requested
information public.”

Texas A&M claimed making the records public would reveal confidential
donor information. We countered this argument by pointing out the law
only protects private donors, not donations from a foreign government
body, specifically the Qatar Foundation. The Qatar Foundation “was
created by the Emir of Qatar, is Chaired by his consort, and is
sponsored and supported by the government of Qatar, a monarchy. At no
point did the Qatar Foundation demonstrate that it is not an agency or
subdivision of the government of Qatar.”

After reviewing
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the briefing, the arguments, and the evidence, including the documents
submitted by the Qatar Foundation, Judge Amy Clark Meachum ruled in
favor of Judicial Watch and the Zachor Legal Institute and ordered
that the documents be made public.

“Zachor Legal Institute is grateful for the incredible support and
skill of the entire Judicial Watch team,” said Marc Greendorfer,
President of Zachor Legal Institute. “We now look forward to
receiving the records that Qatar has spent the last four-plus years
blocking from public review. While Qatari agents have a history of
refusing to comply with lawful orders in the United States, such as Al
Jazeera’s continuing refusal to comply with the Department of
Justice’s 2020 order to register under the Foreign Agents
Registration Act, we will not stop our inquiries into what Qatar is
doing in the United States. We hope that Qatar will end its
interference with American institutions now that Judicial Watch has
once again compelled transparency in government.”

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FTC FOR INFORMATION ON TARGETING OF TWITTER OWNER
ELON MUSK

Lina Khan, nominated to lead the Federal Trade Commission by President
Biden in March 2021, has gone on the attack with others on the Left
against Twitter and its new chairman Elon Musk.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for records and communications
maintained by its leadership, including Chairman Lina Khan, about
Twitter and its owner Elon Musk (_Judicial Watch Inc. v. Federal Trade
Commission_
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(1:23-cv-00692 (ABJ)).

We sued after the Federal Trade Commission failed to respond to a
November 14, 2022, FOIA request for:

> Records and communications maintained by Lina Khan, Chairperson,
> U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) including memoranda, reports,
> briefings, hand-written notes, email communications, email chains,
> email attachments and other forms of records or communications
> exchanged regarding or referring to Mr. Elon Musk, CEO, Twitter, or
> the company Twitter with the below named individuals:

(a) Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips
(b) Commissioner Christine S. Wilson
(c) Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter
(d) Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya
Federal Trade Commission document demands to Twitter obtained by
the House Judiciary Committee show onerous requests for all documents
about Elon Musk and documents concerning Twitter’s work with
journalists to disclose to the public the details about the
government’s and Twitter’s censorship of American citizens. A
House report
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titled “The Weaponization of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC): An
Agency’s Overreach to Harass Elon Musk’s Twitter” details:

> Twitter allowed … journalists, as part of their reporting on
> government censorship by proxy, to review internal communications
> and correspondence between Twitter employees and federal agencies,
> including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

> [T]he FTC’s first demand in its letter sent after the initial
> installment of the Twitter Files did not concern what private user
> information may have been at risk. Instead, the FTC demanded that
> Twitter “[i]dentify all journalists and other members of the media
> to whom” Twitter has granted access to since Musk bought the
> company. The FTC even named some of the specific journalists—
> “Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, [and] Abigail
> Shrier”—with whom Twitter has engaged on the Twitter Files. The
> FTC also demanded to know any “other members of the media to whom
> You have granted any type of access to the Company’s internal
> communications” for any reason whatsoever.

***

> On November 10, the FTC sent two demand letters asking for
> voluminous information about Twitter’s personnel
> actions—terminations and resignations—and about the Twitter Blue
> service. To date, the FTC has submitted nearly 60 requests related
> to Twitter Blue. Some of the FTC’s demands about Twitter
> Blue—such as when the service was “first conceived”—appear
> to serve little purpose other than to pile on to the already
> burdensome requests. One such demand came just two days after
> Twitter reactivated President Trump’s account. In this letter, the
> FTC demanded nearly twenty additional categories of information
> about Twitter Blue.
The Biden FTC is abusing power to retaliate against Elon Musk for
supporting free speech on Twitter. And now, as our lawsuit shows, the
FTC is trying to cover up this attempt to silence and punish Musk.

We are heavily involved in countering government and Big Tech
censorship.

In February we filed a FOIA lawsuit
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against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records of
communication related to the work of the Election Integrity
Partnership that could detail coordinated censorship activities.

In a separate lawsuit, we are suing
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the DHS for
all records of communications between the Cybersecurity and
Information Security Agency (CISA) and the Election Integrity
Partnership (EIP), which was reportedly
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active during the 2022 midterm elections. Among the news outlets
flagged by EIP were websites for _Just the News_, _New York Post_,
_Fox News_, _Washington Examiner_, _The Washington Times_, _The Epoch
Times_ and _Breitbar_t.

We recently sued
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the DOJ for
records of communications between the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections,
as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

In September 2022, we sued
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the
Secretary of State of the State of California for censoring a Judicial
Watch election integrity video.

In April 2021, we published
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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
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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
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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.)

BIDEN’S MIGRANT POLICY CREATES ‘MEANINGLESS LINE IN THE SAND,’
JUDGE DECLARES

By Biden’s design, we effectively have no border with Mexico. It’s
little more than a “speedbump,” a federal judge says. Yet another
federal lawsuit further reveals the Biden administration is breaking
the law on immigration, as our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog reports
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> The Biden administration has turned the southwest border into a
> meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for
> aliens flooding into the country, according to a scathing federal
> court order
>
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> blasting the president’s controversial catch-and-release policy.
> Known as Parole Plus Alternative to Detention (Parole+ATD) the
> program released over a million illegal immigrants in the U.S. in a
> year, supposedly tracking them with technology and other tools.
> Florida officials filed a lawsuit in 2021, accusing the Biden
> administration of violating immigration laws with policies that
> freed illegal aliens from detention after entering the country via
> the Mexican border. The state alleged that releasing illegal
> immigrants impacts it because about 100,000 ended up in Florida,
> increasing healthcare, education, and criminal justice costs.
>
> A federal judge agreed with officials in the Sunshine State, ruling
> this month that the Biden administration is responsible for the
> southwest border crisis and that it is to blame for the influx of
> migrants. In his 109-page order the judge, T. Kent Wetherell of the
> U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, writes
> this: “Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border
> into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump
> for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing “alternatives
> to detention” over actual detention and by releasing more than a
> million aliens into the country—on “parole” or pursuant to the
> exercise of “prosecutorial discretion” under a wholly
> inapplicable statute—without even initiating removal
> proceedings.” Rejecting the government’s rationale for the
> outrageous policy, the Trump-appointed jurist likens it to “a
> child who kills his parents and then seeks pity for being an
> orphan.”
>
> The lashing continues in the lengthy decision, which was delivered
> after a weeklong trial in January. Biden’s open border policies
> are akin to posting a flashing “come in, we’re open sign on the
> Southern border,” Judge Wetherell writes. “The unprecedented
> ‘surge’ of aliens that started arriving at the Southwest border
> almost immediately after President Biden took office and that has
> continued unabated over the past two years was a predictable
> consequence of these actions.” The judge cites Border Patrol Chief
> Raul Ortiz’s testimony revealing that the current surge in
> migrants differs from prior surges he has seen over his lengthy
> career in that most of the border crossers are turning themselves in
> to federal agents rather than trying to escape. “It is reasonable
> to infer (and just plain common sense) that aliens are doing this
> because they are aware that they will be expeditiously processed and
> released into the country,” the order states, adding that
> “indeed, on this point, Chief Ortiz credibly opined based on his
> experience that the aliens are likely turning themselves in because
> they think they’re going to be released.”
>
> Ruling that Biden’s catch-and-release policy is unlawful, Judge
> Wetherell gives the administration seven days to comply with federal
> immigration law. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who filed
> the lawsuit, said the ruling affirms what we have known all along,
> that Biden is responsible for the border crisis and his unlawful
> immigration policies make the U.S. less safe. “A federal judge is
> now ordering Biden to follow the law,” Moody said in a statement
>
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> adding that “his administration should immediately begin securing
> the border to protect the American people.” A former state judge
> and federal prosecutor who tried drug, firearm, and fraud crimes,
> Moody and her legal team presented the court with evidence that the
> Biden administration purposely reduced Immigration and Customs
> Enforcement’s (ICE) holding capacity and narrowed removal pathways
> to force the release of hundreds of thousands of migrants into the
> U.S.
>
> Besides recently being ruled illegal by a federal court, a former
> senior advisor at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says the
> ATD program has proven to be a “costly failure” and thousands of
> illegal aliens disappear from monitoring every year. “The goal
> should be to quickly determine whether these individuals have a
> valid case, and if not, to quickly deport them,” the former DHS
> advisor, Jon Feere, says in a news article
>
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> In the same story former acting ICE director Ron Vitiello says that
> ATD is popular among the left and sounds great, but the reality is
> illegal immigrants in the program will likely never be deported.

Until next week…





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