Hey, everyone, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton here with our weekly update on social media. A lot of breaking news happening in the area. Government corruption and abuse, new lawsuits, and I should say, new developments in a major lawsuit related to the abuse and corruption targeting President Trump. Plus, outrageous more information about Robert F. Kennedy and the refusal of the Biden regime to protect Mr. Kennedy with secret service protection.

First up is the breaking news of what’s happening in New York. There are two issues happening. Most recently, it’s just developing that Judge Angorin, the Democrat elected judge up there, he’s a politician, he’s elected. That’s the way many judges are selected in New York, issued an outrageous ruling fineing Trump for over $350,000,000, effectively seizing his business through a court appointed official and prohibiting him from engaging in business and prohibiting his sons from engaging in business for at least three years.

So it’s a debilitating fine. And the seizure and ultimate, practically speaking, the destruction of President Trump’s family business, an abuse that we’ve never really seen before in american history. And it follows on a case brought by anti Trump democratic politician, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who worked hand in glove, obviously, with Judge Angorin, to violate President Trump’s civil rights through these show trial proceedings of non crimes that had no victims, that has resulted in brazen election interference, and what I believe to be the worst judicial abuse in modern american history, if not all of american history, because I can’t think of anything comparable where a former president has had his rights so violated and the rule of law so stretched to abuse him as President Trump has been.

He is a crime victim like no other, certainly in the political sphere in american history. And it’s outrageous. And I’m upset about it. And what I’m also upset about, obviously, it’s one thing to see the abuse and recognize the writing on the wall. I don’t know whether he’s going to appeal this. I presume he will, and exercise all of his rights there. But what’s also frustrating to me, and I may sound like a broken record, but I’m going to keep on talking about it for as long as I’m able to draw breath.

And that is the failure of the republican controlled House to confront and try to stop and hold accountable those politicians abusing their powers to target President Trump and other american citizens. They keep on funding Jack Smith and they have done nothing. The curtail funding for New York, whose whole judicial system. And up there you have Letitia James, who’s the New York attorney general, they get all the federal money they normally get.

There’s been nothing curtailed. There’s been no haircut for abusing the civil rights of President Trump, engaging in election interference and destabilizing the country. Because I tell you, when you have a major figure like Trump, who is the number one contender for the president right now, he’s leading in most of the major polls. And the opposing party abuses the powerful offices entrusted to them by the american people, or in the case of New York, the citizens of New York, to try to abuse him and take him out of the equation in terms of the campaign that’s destabilizing to the country.

It’s never happened before in american history. We have this terrible story of that russian dissident effectively being killed by the Putin regime in that prison, navalny. Just a terrible situation. And then to see Joe Biden come out and talk about how Putin, and this is the quote, he had him arrested, had him prosecuted for fabricated crimes. How is that not what Biden has done against Trump? How is that not what Letitia James has done against Trump? How is that not what Fani Willis has done against Trump? Heck, Politico quotes Biden as saying the following.

This is a leak by the Biden regime to Politico. They’re pressuring Garland. They’re angry at him for allowing the release of that special counsel report that exposed the fact that Joe Biden has severe mental incompetencies that could impair his ability to be president. And they’re mad at Garland for not jailing Trump. So in Putin esque fashion, this is what they told Politico. In recent weeks, President Biden has grumbled to aides and advisors that had Garland moved sooner in the investigation to former President Trump’s election interference, a trial might already be underway or even have concluded, according to two people, granted anonymity to discuss private matters.

So this was a leak, complaining how Trump hasn’t been tried and convicted yet by the president of the United States and they’re lecturing us about how terrible Putin is. Putin’s pretty terrible, there’s no doubt. But as an american citizen, I’m most concerned that we have a president and a democratic party, and I try not to be partisan here, but this is a democratic party operation across the nation to not only target Trump, as I told you, in the various jurisdictions here in DC and Miami, by Jack Smith and Joe Biden up in New York, by Alvin Bragg, who’s a Soros backed prosecutor, Judge Angorin, through the civil process of trying to destroy we’re effectively destroying now President Trump’s business and trying to bankrupt him.

Letitia James and of course, you have the Fani Willis debacle down in Fulton county, also a Democrat official. And now they’re concerned that these cases in Washington, DC, the fabricated crimes about opposing Trump Biden’s election and disputing it. So now they’re hanging their hat on again, the Democrat system up in New York to try to try and jail Trump. We all know what the verdict’s going to be.

So you have this Alvin Bragg case where they’re pretending that Trump violated some type of federal law by engaging in an agreement with a woman who accused him of something, confidentiality agreement, standard practice. And now they’re trying to turn it into a crime and they’re trying to jail him for it. And the judge in that case, who also hates Trump, comes from the democratic machine up there. He says, well, I’m going to have the trial March 25.

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. There’s a presidential election going on. Doesn’t matter that a charge like this has never been filed in the history of man. Our republic is under attack. Our republic is tottering because of these abuses by the judiciary, prosecutors, and the president of the United States and his appointees. Never before in american history has this type of activity gone on, and we’re going to lose our country if we allow this to continue.

In the sense that once law enforcement agencies at the federal and state level are used in the ordinary course, right, in the ordinary course, to try to jail one’s political opponents, all of a sudden we become no better than Venezuela or Cuba or China or Russia. So what can be done? Well, Judicial watch obviously, is pursuing the truth through the Freedom of Information act. We have lawsuits, I think, in virtually every case related to these Trump prosecutions, investigations.

Heck, because we’ve been telling the truth and we’ve been so hard charging and telling the truth. I mean, yours truly had the Justice Department, they sent the FBI to knock at my door and bring me into the Jack Smith grand jury, ultimately, for 4 hours of harassment. Our work is so powerful that the federal government felt like they had to come in and try to intimidate us through these harassing subpoenas.

So we’re not going to stop, we’re not going to back down. We’re going to keep on telling the truth about misconduct by government officials and investigating it under law where we can. Now one of the cases may just break down because of the, under the weight of their internal corruption. In Fulton County, Georgia, you may have seen, I hope you saw and tracked the hearing about Fani Willis and her lover, prosecutor colleague Mr.

Wade. And they had the hearing. Finally, the judge found that he had to have a hearing to figure out what was going on, especially since they admitted they were having an affair. And there have been allegations that they lied about the start of the affair. And the core issue is, were they engaged in an affair in a way that undermined the appearance of justice for President Trump and the other american citizens? They’re trying to jail on unprecedented charges and political charges for trying to dispute the Biden election.

So there was a hearing yesterday, and I tell you, I’ve watched a lot of court hearings. I’ve had to testify in court. I can’t believe what happened yesterday. I don’t know. The judge must be horrified by the behavior of Fani Willis and her colleague, Mr. Wade, her lover. I think they’ve broken mean. I guess one is tempted to kind of laugh a little bit at the absurdity and kind of the low comedy of these two individuals who clearly don’t have the professional demeanor to be prosecuting, in my view, traffic tickets, let alone this sensitive and really outrageous case against President Trump.

And mean. Here’s a little bit of Fani Willis from yesterday. Isn’t it true that he paid for the cruise and the flight on his credit card? I’m not asking about reimbursement or after he used his credit card to buy the cruise and buy the flight. Correct. I have no idea how he paid for it, if it’s a credit card, if it’s a debit card. But certainly he called his cruise agent.

Like, how many people have a cruise agent? He calls his cruise agent, tells them where they want to go, what’s booked, and you have to remember, he paid for that initial was me, him and his mother. And then after that cruise, you all flew to Aruba and spent a couple of days in a hotel there. Correct? Right. And his mother was not happy that we left behind. He initially paid for that for Aruba? Yes, ma’am.

So let’s talk about both of those. I know he initially paid for it. Did you pay him back for the cruise and for Aruba? Yeah, I gave him his money before we ever went on that trip. You gave him cash before you ever went on the. Mm hmm. Okay. And so when you got cash to pay him back on these trips, would you go to the ATM? No, lady.

You would not go to the ATM? No. Okay. So Fulton county pays you direct deposit, I assume? Yes, Fulton county and the state of Georgia both pay me direct deposits. Okay. Did he come to, I guess, the condo. I’m not sure what you called it, condo apartment. Would he come and stay at that condo or visit you there? I’m sorry? Visit you there? What condo? What apartment? I want to be clear.

So not your house? I know you classified one as house and one is condo, so I’m trying to use those terms, but there’s been. Understand is because of this case, I got to. If you could ask a more precise question, please give me the time period Mr. Wade visits you at the place you laid your head. When has he ever visited you at the place you laid your head? So let’s be clear, because you’ve lied in this.

Let me tell you which one you lied in right here. Think you lied, right? No, this is the truth. It is a lie. It is a lie. Mr. Senate. Thank you. We’re going to take five minutes. Be back in five. We’re getting way far. I mean, I don’t mind her explaining her answers, but I literally just asked if they met at that conference. Explaining how she met Mr.

Wade, which was exactly the question asked by Ms. Merchant. These answers are more than appropriate. Ms. Merchant, if you want more concise answers, perhaps you could lead the witness. I will. Thank you. Judge, isn’t it true that you met Mr. Wade? October 2019 judges conference. We haven’t gotten to the point where Ms. Willis should be treated hostile. I think we have. I very much want to be here, so I’m not a hostile witness.

I very much want to be. Not so much that you’re hostile, Miss Willis. It’d be an adverse witness. Your interests are opposed to Miss merchants? Miss Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy, your honor, not to mine. All right, let’s proceed. We can keep things moving, Ms. Merchant. Next question, please. Imagine being a jury and having that person testify. You could see she erupted when the lawyer questioning her.

Miss Merchant, who was a lawyer for one of Trump’s co defendants, kind of got closer to the truth. And I think the lawyers all could have done a better job. But that’s a. I’m not a lawyer, so take that for what it’s worth. But know, it’s easy for me to say since it’s kind of like, kind of a slap dash hearing that was put together. But the hostility of this person to the rule of law, the judicial process to the court, it’s quite evident, and I think the court has more than enough evidence that I’ve been able to see to date.

There was another set of hearings today, I watched a bit of them, that Miss Willis, the district attorney, and Mr. Wade used their positions to line their own pockets. And through these travels they had together, and to advance their romantic and personal interests. And so it raises the question whether everything that they were doing against Trump, pursuing those ridiculous charges, was the reason for that pursuit. So to keep Mr.

Wade employed so they could keep going on vacations. Know, and the hearing also opened the question up, because Wade goes up and he says in a brief or declaration he filed with the court, which is under oath last week, he suggested the relationship began a lot later than another witness said it did. And the evidence deduced in this hearing suggests it did. So on top of the abuse of authority and power in targeting Trump to help line their own pockets, while in addition, advancing Fani Willis’s political hatred for Trump and the Democratic Party’s hatred for Trump, now is a question about whether they’re being truthful to the court.

So what can the judge do? The judge probably can do a lot, in my view. He’s being asked to disqualify Willis and her whole office because of the conflict or the appearance of a conflict and other misconduct. Judge, President Trump’s lawyer is asking Willis be removed and the case dismissed, in part because in addition of Willis’s, you may have seen her speech at that church about two or three weeks ago.

It was around the Martin Luther King Day holiday, accusing, and she played the race card at the hearing this week, accusing her opponents of criticizing their conduct because of their race. And so some of the defendants, including Trump and Mr. Roman, who’s Trump’s co defendant, are asking the whole case be thrown out because it’s tainted. It’s tainted by this mean they’re talking about all these transactions taking place with cash.

I don’t really think it matters because I don’t think these trips would have occurred even if they were splitting them. But for this job that Fani Willis had given Mr. Wade in terms of targeting Trump. But I tell you, when someone engages in cash transactions like mean Miss Willis, I’m sure, has put people in jail, and some of the evidence is a lot of cash laying around in the mean cash transactions usually prick the ears, right? Raise the ears of law enforcement when they’re investigating someone.

And so when there’s an issue of unethical or potentially illegal conduct and someone says, well, I was paid back in cash, which means it’s difficult, if impossible, to find records of it, what’s the judge going to conclude from that? So I don’t know what the judge ultimately is going to conclude. I told you what I think he should conclude. So I think in the least, he’ll probably have to remove her or her office from being able to prosecute these cases.

And the end result of that may be the case may die on the vine. It may be an effective VEP penalty as it is, because it’s harder than you might think to get other prosecutors in Georgia to pursue what are political dubious charges to begin with. But when you see the demeanor and the contempt and the politics and the racially charged statements, it’s disturbing that this person has the ability to prosecute anyone, isn’t it? At least I think it is.

So what else happened? This, huh? Oh, something minor. A cabinet official was impeached. The House of Representatives managed to impeach Alejandro Meyerkus. Myracas is the Department of Homeland Security chief responsible for implementing Biden’s border invasion. So he was impeached for in, I think it was a one vote margin. The Republicans were able to get all their bodies there in the chamber, and I guess the Democrats were short won.

And so now Myra Orcas is the first cabinet official impeached, I think, since the 1850s. And I think I had a statement that quite succinctly describes what we should think, or I suggest that you should think how you should think about this impeachment effort. Hey, everyone, judicial watch President Tom Fitton here. Big news with Meyer Orcas’s historic impeachment. It’s absolutely necessary, but at the same time, woefully insufficient, given the severity of Biden’s border invasion.

In the least, Joe Biden should also be impeached over the border invasion. Plus, the House of Representatives, nominally controlled by Republicans, need to defund Biden’s border invasion. I mean, the idea that you’re impeaching someone for engaging in conduct that you’re fully funding strikes me as a bit odd, doesn’t it? So the House of Representatives desperately needs to shut down taxpayer funding for the invasion of the United States, and that means, if necessary, shutting down the government in order to protect Arkansas.

Well, I agree with that, young man, and it’s hard to really say much more beyond that. Right. But of course I will, because we got a little time here. So there’s this debate now about funding still for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan. And as you know, when you’re talking about massive funding bills like that, there’s always money walking around, money for the left, as I like to call it.

And if it’s so urgent that we need to help defend these other countries or allow them to defend themselves. Certainly there should be similar urgency for defending America. Right. And that includes stopping this invasion. So it still should be part of the debate because remember, the Senate tried to slide through a bill that would codify in law an actual invasion of the United States. Well, why stop from trying to attach to this bill something that actually defunds Biden’s invasion, that prevents him from spending monies to move people through the interior, go through this fraudulent asylum process and then let everyone go.

You prevent him from spending money to help illegal aliens essentially evade the. There’s, that’s easy to do in terms of a funding. I’m trying, I guess I’m avoiding the debate about funding for Ukraine and Israel and supporting Taiwan and its continuing battle of wills at this point with China. So I think there’s a simple, don’t know. I don’t know about you. To me at this point, it’s almost monopoly money now.

So would it be worth it to keep Ukraine at least its head above water and allow Israel to finish off, amass and give the taiwanese support? And of know, it’s always inefficient. So it’s always too much money necessarily if it means that we’re able to save our country from an invasion. I don’t know. If I were in office, I might say it’s okay, but we can’t even get there.

We can’t even get to that debate. So I appreciate that Mayor orcas was impeached, but there’s a lot more to do. And Republicans, I suspect more than a few Republicans who voted for Mayor Orkis would be more than happy to avoid the immigration issue for the rest of the year. But in my view, you can’t let them do that. You should be demanding that they defund the Biden border invasion.

There are multiple opportunities to do so. They’re going to have it with this battle over Ukraine funding. And in a few weeks, the beginning of March, the middle of march, I think it’s march eigth or 9th, that’s when the continuing resolution runs out. So they’re going to have to come up with another continuing resolution likely. And if you want full government funding, it’s going to have to mean America’s protected in order for that to happen.

Simple. I’m friends with a lot of Republicans on the hill. Right. But just because I’m friendly with them doesn’t mean we’re not going to stop telling the truth about things they’re not doing and what they’re not doing the republican party, certainly the republican controlled House, is using the full power of the purse that they have under our constitution to protect our country from being destroyed. They’re funding the invasion, they’re funding the abuses and the efforts to turn America into a one party state by putting Trump on show trials and jailing them, et cetera.

They’re funding the censorship of Americans, you name it. And I’m not going to let Republicans just complain about it and give them a pass from doing something effective to actually stop it from happening. Well, I’m going to move into my orcs. Speaking of Myorcus, now that they impeached him, maybe they can bring him up again and ask him a question about the following, which is why he denied Secret Service protection to Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. I’ve been reporting to you about Judicial Watch’s independent investigation into the outrageous decision by the Biden administration to refuse to provide secret service protection to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Whose father was assassinated. The assassination of his father led to a change in the law allowing Secret Service protection for candidates for the presidency. And we know from Judicial Watch, our FOIA, that he was being threatened. There are public reports that the threats continue.

Why on earth wouldn’t you give him the protection now? I know there are certain rules they go through. I’ve gone over this with you. Certain metrics they use to figure out whether someone warrants presidential Secret Service protection during a presidential campaign. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is different because of his last name. Let’s be sensible about this. And it’s pretty clear they don’t want to give it to him because I can’t think of any moral reason or law enforcement reason for denying it.

I can think of a political reason because by giving him Secret Service protection, it makes him seem more important than maybe the Biden people want him to be because they don’t like the idea of his challenging Biden in a third party or independent campaign. And we had new documents, thanks to our FOIA lawsuit, that show Meyer Orchis actually was the man who denied him the protection. We received 99 last week.

I think we talked about about 65 pages of records. We received 99 pages of records the other day, and it includes a letter, two sentence letter sent by my orchest to the Secret Service director advising her the following. Let’s bring up that. You can see it there. On May 26, it’s dated July 21, 2023, candidate for President Robert F. Kennedy submitted a request to the Department of Homeland Security for United States Secret Service protection in accordance with the authority as set forth in title 18, United States Code, section three, five, six, a seven, and in consultation with the Candidate Protection Advisory Committee, I decline to identify candidate, candidate for United States service protection at this time.

And if you scroll down a little bit, you can see he cc’d it to the Candidate Protection Advisory Committee, which consists of, I think, the Senate sergeant of arms. Yes, the Senate sergeant of Arms, which is an appointee of Schumer and the four leaders of the House at the time, and Senate Schumer, McConnell, McCarthy, and Jeffries. So I’d like to know what those five think of what my orcas did.

But this confirms that my Orcus is responsible. And as you know, they’ve got their internal metrics, but the metrics aren’t the end all and be all, because as the document I described earlier shows, I think I quoted it again in our most recent release. I don’t see the quote anyway, my orcus has discretion to issue the protection even if the technical metrics aren’t met. And certainly President Biden can step up as well, according to the Secret Service’s own documents, as judicial watch uncovered, and issue the protection or the order of protection as well.

And as we noted that they were sending letter after letter detailing the threats asking for the protection, and Marioca said no. And to me, it is a dangerous and vindictive decision by Joe Biden’s regime to deny secret service protection to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Dangerous and vindictive and blatantly political, and it’s urgent that he get the protection. I don’t know who you should vote for. Well, I have a personal idea who I think you should vote for.

But judicial Watch doesn’t take a position, as on candidates, we don’t say vote for against someone. It’s not a question of whether you support candidate. You could be a Biden supporter or Trump supporter or Kennedy supporter or Nikki Haley supporter. It doesn’t matter. What’s at issue here is what’s ethical and moral and right under the rule of law here. And so Judicial watch will continue with this litigation.

I don’t think this is the last match of documents, because every match we get, it’s more and more mean. It’s this like a modified, limited hangout of information about the failure to protect Kennedy. I encourage you to go back and look at all of these documents. As I said in our press release about this. What did I say? It is simply despicable that Secretary Meyer Orchis refused, needed Secret Service protection for Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. That it took a federal FOIA lawsuit to force out this information speaks volumes. So the letter denying Secret Service protection, I would think if you did a FOIA search, it’d be at the top of the pile. But the fact is we filed this lawsuit. When did we file this lawsuit? September, and it’s February. Took them five months to give us the core letter that we asked for.

If that’s not an indication of corruption and the kind of acknowledgment that they did something wrong. Right. It’s like a little kid who doesn’t want to show you the piece of evidence that shows he did something that he wasn’t supposed to do. This is the key evidence. And my guess is my orcas kept this away from us so it wouldn’t be part of his impeachment inquiry and give people another reason to vote against him.

So ugly politics. And it’s one thing to kind of be concerned about government corruption and liberals and conservatives and all that. In theory, we should all be concerned about it. Right? But when it means that someone’s life is put at risk, know, that gets me a little bit more angry. So I’ll let you know if we get anything else in response to our litigation here. But in the meantime, pray for Robert F.

Kennedy, Jr. And that he has the best possible private security because the feds are leaving him hanging out there by himself. So there was some good news this week. Believe it or not, to change gears, we have Qatar, which is a terrorist supporting country in the Middle east, has gobs of money that it spends freely here in the United States, especially among our colleges and universities, and to shore up its reputation and increase its power and influence, and more notoriously, its support for terrorism, has been further exposed after October 7, the massacre of Jews in Israel by Hamas, which Qatar is a key supporter of and which the leaders.

Qatar is where the leaders of Hamas, or many of them, live, and it’s where their headquarters, practically speaking, is. And so Qatar is a bad actor. And we have exposed and have been in litigation with Texas a M university on behalf of the Sakara Legal Institute for years. And we fought the Qatar foundation, who intervened and tried to stop the release of records about their support for Texas a M university.

And as a result of judicial Watch’s disclosures or litigation, we won. After years of fighting went up and down the Texas courts. It was a mighty complicated FOIA fight. We found that Qatar, which is the, this is what they were trying to hide from us, essentially gave Texas A and M 500 and nearly half a billion dollars, arguably it looks like it was over 522. It was 520 20.

Excuse me, been talking too much. $522,000,000. And Texas A and M in recent days just announced that they’re shutting down their campus in Qatar. So Qatar has something called campus. Was it Education City, maybe. And they’ve got some universities over there, including Texas A-M-I wish I had the list of other universities that were over there because they deserve to be pressured as well. So anyway, but Texas A and M shut it down.

And I think it was like $75 million that they were spending over there. So this is a great victory. And this is what I said in our press release describing what Texas A and M had done. Texas A and M’s decision to close its Qatar campus is a recognition of how reckless and dangerous it is for a taxpayer funded university or institution to take money and partner with a known supporter of terrorism, especially now that terrorism has raised its ugly head so dramatically again in the Middle East.

Texas A M has more work to do to extract itself from Qatar’s hooks. And Judicial Watch will continue to push for transparency on Qatar influence operations here in the United States. So the Texas A and M board of regents voted in February. Eigth. So it was just not too long ago to cancel its contract with the Qatar foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, which funded the campus, ending the 20 year old program.

It will reportedly take four years finally to close out the program. So it’s going to be a slow process. The records that we uncovered showed that over $522,000,000 was given to Qatar, to the state university from January 1, 2023, from January 1, 2023, and going back to 2018, excuse me. And most of that came from the Qatar foundation, which is a front for the government. So we had this battle, I think, that began in 2019.

So it took five years to get that key piece of information because we’re battling this foreign government essentially in Texas state courts. It’s really quite incredible. Let’s see. Our friends at Sakar said something, too. Mark Greendorfer, who is Zakar’s president. Great guy. Smart guy. First, we wouldn’t have been able to obtain this shocking information without the work of Judicial Watch. For small organizations like Sakar, partnering with judicial Watch creates a verifiable, veritable David standing against the Goliaths who otherwise shut down public scrutiny of their harmful alliances.

Second, we also intend to continue our work combating terror and hate that is fed by the deep pockets of countries like Qatar, while our focus is on fighting anti semitism this issue is one that affects every american. And we are grateful to have such a strong and effective partner. And, you know, I like the David versus Goliath metaphor for Judicial Watch. But I tell you what, I kind of think that judicial watch is more like Goliath than we get credit for.

It’s Goliath versus Goliath. You know why? Because we have tens of millions of Americans who are desperate for our leadership and support our work. We are, plus one of the most widely supported organizations in the country when it comes to combating government corruption and demanding accountability through these transparency laws that we, you know, judicial watch is Goliath for justice. And I tell you, that’s why we win so much in court in a surprising way.

Know, we’ve got the support of the american people. And I tell you, I guess going back to the David metaphor, if there’s any sling that is going to take out those stone walls that prevent us from getting documents under law, it’s the rule of law. It’s the FOIA law. It’s so powerful. And without it, judicial watch and the american people would be way behind the eight ball in terms of trying to obtain this information.

So we’ve got this war in the Middle east, right? And one of the bad actors in that war has its tender hooks into our university system to the tunes of, if they’re giving a half a billion to one university, you can presume they’re giving billions to other universities in toto. So we’ve got a lot more work to do, but a nice little victory. And Qatar, by the way, went crazy when Texas a M pushed back on this or back out of their little education city program out there, because they see this as a blow to their reputation to try to launder their reputation that has been so harmed because they support terrorists.

So great work by judicial Watch. And you can see that your support for judicial Watch, excuse me, I lost control of the chair there. That your support for judicial Watch has a real impact. We’re not just taking on the US government, we’re taking on foreign governments in court. So getting back to the abuse of Trump, I don’t mean the Kareem from topic to topic, but one of the major battles we have in terms of accountability for what’s happening to Trump is holding Jack Smith’s operation accountable to the rule of law.

And one key thing we want to know is who is working for Jack Smith? We’ve got this unprecedented targeting and abuse of President Trump, but no way of knowing because he’s refused, thus far to give us the information, who his top people are, that’s helping him try to put Trump in jail. Why is that important? Because a, the american people have a right to know what it is, who these people are under law.

So it’s important that a Justice Department official out there trying to uphold the rule of law, right, actually follows the law in terms of transparency. And plus, we want to know who’s doing this. Jack Smith’s background is important in evaluating how he’s working and whether he’s doing something appropriate. I mean, we’ve seen in the Fani Willis case, knowing about Nathan Wade and what he was doing with her.

Are there any fani Willis issues on Jack Smith’s team and say, oh, well, that’s a federal, they’ve got much more, much better people at the federal level. No, they don’t. Peter struck and Lisa Page, the two a great, we produced a great show with, on the Internet, I forget the name of it now, lovebirds, I think, detailing the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two of the top officials prosecuting and pursuing Trump.

They had to leave that Mueller investigation because of their anti Trump text messages and their illicit relationship. I mean, under, under Jack Smith’s theory of the law, because he’s saying we can’t get the names because there’s a dearth of FOIA interest and we have to worry about their security. And plus, you don’t have a right to the names under FOIA exemptions that protect law enforcement information from being publicized.

So that means he can hire Michelle Obama to prosecute President Trump. And we can’t know that. That’s what his logic is. And of course, we’re not asking for the names of secretaries or administrators or low level administrative people. We want to know who the top people are. So we had to file this massive brief. Here it is. I’m going to read you the title. Kind of gives you a fun way of understanding, just kind of the type of legal battles we are for basic information.

This is a FOIA brief. We just want to list the names. Who’s working for you, Mr. Smith? And this is what we got to do. Plaintiffs corrected memorandum of points and authorities in opposition to defendant’s motion for summary judgment and in support of plaintiff’s cross motion. So the government’s telling the court, oh, throw out Judicial Watch’s case, just rule for the government and keep all these names secret.

And judicial watch is saying, well, they’re not giving us a name. You should rule for us and grant us summary judgment so that’s why it’s a cross motion. And I’m going to read you a little bit from the brief introduction. And we begin with a quote, quote by President Biden himself. Well, we just have to demonstrate that Donald Trump will not take the power, will not take power if he does run.

I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our constitution, does not become the next president again. So he essentially commits to using the powers entrusted to him by the american people to make sure that Trump doesn’t become president again. It’s all legitimate, though, right? On November 18, 2022, Anthony Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing by President Donald Trump. The appointment came nine days after President Biden announced his effort to make sure Trump did not become president again.

The unprecedented investigation and now prosecutions by an incumbent president of his immediate predecessor, opponent in the last election, and leading opponent in the upcoming election raises numerous questions about who special counsel Smith chose to assist him in this highly charged endeavor. Are these persons opponents or supporters of the former president aligned with one of the two major political parties, or otherwise biased or conflicted? Or are they unbiased, nonpartisan professionals? I remember we’ve gotten documents about who was working for Mueller, and we found, and there were other public disclosures of who was working for Mueller, that most of them were all Democrats and Democrat contributors.

It’s amazing he only managed to hire Democrats. And, you know, that’s why they don’t want us to get these names, because they’re going to recognize that there’s going to be a partisan bias evident from the hires and their backgrounds. Plaintiff judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request to the special counsel’s office on December 9, 2022. They’ve been hiding this for over a year trying to answer these questions. The request seeks all staff rosters, phone lists, or similar records depicting all employees hired by or detailed to the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Plaintiff previously had requested and obtained a staff roster of personnel working for special counsel Robert Mueller, albeit after special counsel Mueller’s investigation had ended. But of course, there was public disclosure of some of those names as well. Plaintiff had limited its current identity of special counsel staffers to the GS 14 level and above because such employees tend to be decision makers or supervisors or possess specialized skills, knowledge, and experience.

So GS 14 is a category from the United States Civil Service. I’m not an expert on personnel in the civil service, but generally speaking, GS levels, the higher the number, the more senior the person. So a GS 14 person is a senior official in the civil service. So he’s a senior government official who typically, if they were involved, would be, for instance, the equivalent of an assistant U.

S. Attorney. I mean, if someone is being prosecuted by A-U-S. Attorney, an assistant U. S. Attorney, we’re not allowed to find out who that name is. If that person’s working on the case, it’s absurd. But it gets worse. It gets worse in terms of the games they’re playing here, because defendants searched, so the Justice Department looked, they’re holding the documents, right? But they did find something. That’s the wonderful thing about this FOIA process, specifically.

Well, the process could be better, because rather than just following the law, we often have to sue to get them to follow the law. So after the lawsuit, they did a search. So we forced the Justice Department to search for the records. And they found two records, staff rosters, dating from sometime before February 2, 2023. So that was just the beginning of Smith’s appointment, because I think he was appointed in the middle of November, thereabouts.

So it’s like two or three months after he was appointed. Defendant does not identify the date of either roster. But because special counsel Smith was only appointed in mid November, 2022, I guess I’m right. As the document says, they necessarily have to date from early in the investigation. Defendant has withheld these more than one year old rosters in their entirety, refusing to redact the names of those personnel who have not been officially acknowledged.

Defendant will not even disclose the number of pages that they have, asserting the plaintiff will somehow be able to glean the size of the staff from the font size and page length. Much has transpired since those rosters were prepared. The operations and staff of the special counsel appear to have expanded since February. Most significantly, special counsel Smith obtained indictments of former President Trump in June of 2023 in Florida and August 2023 here in the District of Columbia.

A superseding indictment was issued in July. In the Florida proceedings, both cases have been litigated vigorously, and the scope, nature, and direction of the prosecution have become clear in the more than 14 months that have since passed since special counsel Smith was appointed. So what we’re saying here is we all know where the direction of the investigation is going because it went there already. It’s passed. It went to prosecuting Trump.

So their argument is, oh, you can’t ask for these records because it might tell us what, it might tell you where our investigations going. Well, they’ve got the charges out there already. Defendant readily acknowledges that the special counsel’s investigation of prosecutions of Trump have been the subject of intense public scrutiny, and this scrutiny will only increase as the election approaches. Yet defendant also claims, startlingly, that there is a dearth of FOIA public interest in knowing the identities of their staffers.

A dearth of FOIA public interest. Defendant could not be more wrong. Knowing who special counsel Smith chose to investigate and prosecute the former president is vital to informed debate about the special counsel’s activities. It is substantial, bearing on public confidence in or skepticism about the special counsel’s actions, and may help voters decide how to cast their ballots in the upcoming election. It is vital to the functioning of our republic and at the very center of FOIA’s purpose of providing citizens with information about what the government’s up to.

And then the brief, which numbers about. It’s a 24 page brief, I think 26 page. And then, of course, all these are the attachments goes into more detail about why the exemptions and the theories they have that withhold the information are all wet. And one of the highlights of what we found is that our team and our lead lawyer found the names of 23 special counsel officials already.

So how is it you’re concerned about this information coming out when it’s already in the public record? By large measure, and we highlight further, two recent examples show the importance of knowing the identities of the staffers. Notorious FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were both members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of then President Trump. Strzock was the lead FBI investigator assigned to the probe, and Page was the general attorney on special counsel Mueller’s staff.

So they were senior people on that team. Strzok was the lead FBI investigator assigned to the probe. During the investigation, it was discovered that struck and Page had exchanged voluminous text messages disparaging then President Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, commenting, that will stop Trump from becoming president and citing having an insurance policy in case he did. A subsequent report by the US Department of Justice inspector general was highly critical of the exchanges, noting the respect to the well, stop it.

Text, in particular when one senior FBI official struck, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, no, no, he won’t. We’ll stop it. In response to her question, Trump’s not ever going to be president, right? Right. It’s not only indicative of a pious state of mind, but even more seriously implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.

This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, who also brought criminal charges against the former president, is now reportedly under investigation herself. This was written before the hearing proceeded for allegedly choosing her paramour, Nathan Wade, to lead the prosecution. Although Wade’s identity was already known, it led to the discovery of new, previously unknown information that bears in the public’s perception of the prosecution.

It helps the public to know what their government is up to. This case is no different. And then we talk about finding all these names. Defendant’s argument that disclosing the more than one year old rosters, again, these are phone lists, could reasonably be expected to interfere with the work of the office because it could lead to the staff being threatened and harassed, is entirely conclusory, little more than speculation, and lacks meaningful evidentiary support.

It also ignores the fact that the names, at least 23 staffers, are readily available from the public sources. Yet the public availability of these names, and in some instances, email addresses and cell phone number, does not seem to have any discernible impact on the functioning of the office. Its prosecution of the former president and the two other individuals certainly appears to be proceeding apace, and the defendant has neither claimed or demonstrated otherwise.

So what we’re saying here is they’ve got 23 names out there already. It’s in our brief. You can go look it up. You can see who it is. Yeah, our investigator did the declaration. It looks like here it is. You can’t see the list literally from here, but you can see it’s a list of names, one through 23. I know a few of these names because they question special counsel.

Jack Smith isn’t above the law, and the american people have the right to know about just who is working on his unprecedented and politicized anti Trump investigation. Given the scandalous revelations about the Fani Willis prosecution team targeting Trump, it is especially urgent. Americans know just who the top people on Jack Smith’s staff are. So there you go. So next up, the court. I don’t know. I think the government has a brief or two they’ll file.

So I think the paper part of the fighting is over, and now we have to wait for the judge to respond. Maybe the judge will want to have a hearing before he issues an order or an opinion, but this is where we stand. So again, I’m president of judicial Watch, but I say this as a citizen. I don’t know where America would be without judicial watch. And if you think it’s important that we litigate for the names of who’s prosecuting Trump.

Try to know. We have a lawsuit against the Fani Willis Fulton county and state of Georgia for how she hired her friend. We’re battling guitar in Texas state court to find out about how this terrorist regime is funding universities, including Texas a m university. Our election integrity work, all that great work, cleaning up the rolls, filing federal lawsuits to make sure that ballots that are counted are ones that arrive by election day, not after election day, things like that.

Then support judicial Watch. If you think all that’s important and you want to see more of it and for it to continue, then support judicial Watch. You can go to our website. It’s at judicialwatch. org, judicialwatchoneword. org. You can see all the documents I’m talking about, all the litigation highlighting, for instance, how the Secret Service is, the Biden administration is refusing to provide secret service, the details of that protection for Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. Et cetera, and a whole lot of other documents and materials and news stories and such that we are able to do but support it with a donation@judicialwatch. org. So with that, I wish you the best. I wish you happy President’s Day as well. Be sure to celebrate it. Recognize, I guess it’s designed to cover President George Washington and Lincoln, right? Don’t let the left besmirch their names and bury their greatness in the memory hole because as you know, the left hates history and hates memory.

So let’s celebrate our nation’s founding and those presidents who certainly case of Washington, I don’t know if we’d be America without Washington. So with that, God bless you. God bless America. And I’ll see you here next time on the judicial watch weekly update. Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button and like our video down below. .

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