What’s great about Judicial Watch is our investigations and lawsuits reach across so many issues. And what starts off sometimes as a relatively modest investigation of lawsuit sometimes blossoms into something really significant in terms of public policy impact or in terms of exposing a significant government scandal. And I have an example of this for you now with our lawsuit into who the Biden administration was giving money to in Gaza. The Biden administration’s USAID operation had given grants to humanitarian organizations in Gaza after Hamas slaughtered countless Israelis and raped, pillaged, kidnapped Israelis and American citizens.

And so the Biden regime’s efforts were geared at, in my view, supporting Hamas by providing humanitarian aid to a region or to an area that essentially was controlled by Hamas. So if you send humanitarian aid to a neighborhood controlled by Hamas, who are you helping? You’re helping Hamas. And you can be sure they knew that and certainly reports suggest they did know that. So we asked specifically about grants of totaling, I think, $27 million. And we’ve been getting the runaround. They did not want to give us the information because their theory was, the Biden’s theory was, oh, we give you the names of NGOs, non-governmental organizations that we’re giving money to, the people they’re working for will be targeted and put at risk in Gaza.

First of all, that’s not what the law is. You don’t have a right to privacy as an organization who gets government grants. And the idea that because they might be terrorists, because that’s the implication of what’s happening here is they’re giving money to groups that Israel might target because they’re Hamas affiliates or fronts, and they don’t want us to know about it. Now, I understand, although I reject why the Biden regime may want to cover up their corruption, I don’t understand why Marco Rubio State Department and the Attorney General’s Justice Department are in court this week defending that cover-up in corruption.

So I went into court with our lawyer, Jim Peterson. I was there as client, judicial watch president, and we were in with Judge Reggie Walton, who’s been on the bench a long time. He’s a tough judge. I don’t always agree with his statements publicly. I sometimes don’t agree with his rulings, but he’s a tough judge. And he was aghast at what the argument was by the Justice Department attorney defending this USAID cover-up, because right now there’s one issue. There’s a $7 million grant. They don’t want to tell us to whom it was given.

And they’ve run this argument with the implication that Israel is going to kill them if we release it. And Judge Walton asked the lawyer for the Justice Department, what are you talking about here? Are you suggesting that Israel, our ally that we give money to, weaponry, is purposely targeting aid workers for harm and killing? He said there’s a big difference between an aid worker being generally at risk for operating in a war-torn setting versus what seems to be the allegation of the Biden administration, embraced now by Marco Rubio’s State Department, that Israel is the big problem here because they’re going to be killing people indiscriminately, murdering people.

And Walton wanted to know if that was the position of the US government. And the lawyer really didn’t have a good understanding of it. And he said, all I can say is that they’re at risk. And he’s like, at risk from whom? And indeed, in the papers the Justice Department filed for the State Department, they said the risk is from Israel. So they all but admitted they were concerned the Israelis were going to murder aid workers, which was a sly way for the anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic left that I think is embedded in the State Department to smear Israel and promote Hamas’s interests.

And so I think, I mean, I kind of summarized it in this video. Let’s play the video of my describing the issue here. I tell you, Marco Rubio and Attorney General Bondi need to write heard on the Justice Department and the State Department. They’re creating now international incidents in federal court over a simple judicial watch FOIA. We asked for records about Biden administration grants through USAID to Gaza for supposedly humanitarian reasons. Of course, many people have complained that the money’s actually going to help Hamas. So we wanted answers. Rather than produce the answers, they’re continuing the Biden administration cover up.

And the judge today was incredulous. He’s like, what are you doing? Are you suggesting we can’t get this information because the individuals who work for this NGO who you want to keep secret might be targeted for killing by Israel? Is that what the U.S. government is saying about Israel? What’s going on here? And he demanded more information about what I believe to be fake reasons for hiding the identity of the NGO, which they’re giving money to. Probably Hamas front or someone tied to terrorists, in my view. I can’t explain the cover up any other way.

And nor can I explain why the Rubio State Department and Bondi Justice Department are furthering this Biden corruption scandal. It’s not me who’s just skeptical. It’s also Judge Walton. And he ordered further information about what it is they’re saying here. Judge Walton’s order calls for a supplemental explanation regarding USAID’s reliance on FOIA exemption 6, which protects against unwarranted invasions of personal privacy. An organization who receives grants from the government obviously doesn’t have personal privacy. In order to hide the recipients of the Biden USAID grant, made shortly after the Hamas mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of Israeli and American citizens.

And this is what Judge Walton’s order says. The defendant shall file at least one supplemental declaration explaining the defendant’s basis for asserting that its grant recipient, information about which defendant seeks to withhold from disclosure citing exemption 6 to the Freedom of Information Act, and its affiliates could be targeted if the informants requested by the plaintiffs were released. If the information requested by the plaintiff was released. Specifically, the court requires more than a general assertion that aid workers have been targeted or harmed in the Gaza Strip in order to make a determination as to whether exemption 6 should apply to the information and issue here.

Including, for example, an explanation of who might target the grant recipients or its affiliates and the kind of targeting about which the defendant is concerned. And he set a set of hearings to resolve this issue, I hope, on May 27, so the end of the month. So, you know, when people say, well, Tom, why don’t you get frustrated? Because I get frustrated because Pam Bondi’s Justice Department and Marco Rubio’s State Department is clearly covering up a Biden scandal. And they’re using a defense created by the Biden gang to essentially smear Israel.

And we had at least one federal court judge said, what the heck are you people saying here? As I wrote, I attended the court hearing in this case. This is incredible. The state and justice departments continue to cover up who in Gaza received American tax dollars from the Biden administration. The government has turned a simple FOIA case into a foreign policy scandal. Were terror linked groups funded by USAID? It sure looks that way. Moreover, why are the state and justice departments pushing leftist smears against Israel and federal court? Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi, as I said earlier, need to ride herd and stop this cover up justified by a sly, deep state libel of Israel.

And it’s just seven million dollars and they don’t want to tell us who got the money in Gaza. And I can’t think of any reason to do that, given the absurdity of the arguments they’re putting forward, other than they were they were funding likely a terrorist organization. Here’s some more background on all the money that was sent, as I say, I think, laundered for Hamas. On November 15th, 2023, less than a month against after, well, a little over a month after the murderous attack by Hamas, the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, a component of the USAID, issued a seven million dollar grant for multisectoral response in Gaza.

Don’t you love that government speak multisectoral? The grant was awarded to quote miscellaneous foreign awardees. Well, that’s a great way to describe who they’re sending money to, isn’t it? And also to disguise it. The same day, a continuation grant of 20 million was also issued for multisectoral response. USAID reported that over 282 million dollars total was obligated to the West Bank in Gaza in fiscal year 2023. It was recently discovered that USAID provided millions of dollars in funding to extremist groups tied to designated terrorist organizations and their allies, according to a report published by the Middle East Forum, the U.S.

think tank, and then the U.S. Inspector General, or excuse me, the Office of Inspector General for USAID, issued a report that essentially confirmed it. So there’s little doubt that they were giving money to terrorist fronts. And of course, you know, the United Nations group that was operating there, the Relief Agency, was found to be a Hamas front group and basically run by Hamas locally there in Gaza. So there’s a lot here to uncover. Judicial Watch, of course, again, is doing the heavy lifting, but we’re being obstructed by Marco Rubio’s State Department with the help of Attorney General Bonnie’s Justice Department.

And, you know, this has been going on for months now. It’s not like I’ve been quiet about it. I’m not a shrinking violet. I’m not going to stop talking about the obstruction and the secrecy to help Joe Biden’s administration get away with funding what I believe to be terrorist fronts. And I hold Marco Rubio, Secretary Rubio is doing some great work and Attorney General Bonnie’s doing some great work. They’ve got to expand the scope of their duties and responsibilities and take, you know, in a way that really ensures that transparency laws are followed.

That’s as important as anything else they’re doing, especially on these corruption issues. So, look, the Attorney General has been transparent on many issues that previously administration was not transparent on. So we appreciate that. But here, this is a really significant lapse. [tr:trw].

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