We’re kicking things off with Tom Fitton, who’s the president of Judicial Watch. Now, I can tell you as a member of Congress getting more and more seasoned and then eventually becoming the chairman of the oversight committee, I knew that there was some more power in issuing a Freedom of Information act often than a subpoena. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just telling you that is, that was so true.

That’s why I love what the Heritage foundation is doing with its oversight project, because they’re getting really aggressive and playing offense and doing good things. We’re going to hear from Mike Howell is going to talk about this. But another one who’s also in that the genre and the community of pushing for accountability and openness and transparency and peeling back the onion, which the government is trying to hold back from the people, is one of the strongest warriors out there that we know, and it’s Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch.

So please help me welcome Tom Fitton. Thank you. Well, weaponization of government ought to be the topic or a focus of every conservative group in the country, every member of Congress who purports to support constitutional government in the country, and every citizen who is worried about having a republic that they can pass on to their children and grandchildren in future generations. And the threat is as dire as anything we face in the modern era.

And it would be difficult to overstate the threat. So a symposium is certainly one way to highlight the issues that we’re facing. And I’ve been able to watch a little bit of it earlier today, and the various permutations of it seem to be overwhelming. But my response to you would be, well, what is it you can do about it, given your capacities? And we know heritage is doing what they can do.

It, given their capacities. And, of course, judicial watch has been fighting government corruption for 30 years now. So some of this isn’t new to us. But the threat, I think, is new in the sense that we could lose our republic within a few years if these issues aren’t addressed. And this isn’t like an intellectual debate or a philosophical or policy debate for me, because a few years ago, not that long ago, was November of 2021, maybe I was, I just had skin cancer surgery, and I got home and I’m lying on the couch recovering a few hours later, and it was the FBI knocking on my door with a subpoena to a grand jury investigating President Trump’s handling of government records.

They were nice enough. They told me I had an Amazon package. I think I’m the first American in the history of the country of to have an Amazon delivery announced to them by the FBI. But I preferred not to be part of that historic moment. So a few. And then shortly thereafter, special counsel Jack Smith gets appointed, and they harass me for four or 5 hours. I think it was a little over 4 hours before the grand jury arguing with me about politics, tweets, what I ate with the president, and election integrity debates.

Debates about what the law requires in terms of government document handling by the president, all of which was First Amendment activity by me and judicial Watch. And so when you have a Justice Department that targets the head of, and then through a subpoena, a document subpoena of judicial watch, the largest government watchdog organization in the country, and dare I say, the most important one in the world, I think we ought to be very concerned.

And on top of that, now we have this debate about election integrity, and I know we’re concerned about the integrity of our elections, but with the weaponization of government and the targeting of Trump and the efforts to censor those of us and punish and jail those of us concerned about election integrity, I think the conclusion one can draw is that the left doesn’t want to be able to cheat and steal elections.

They want to end elections. So when you remove a man from a ballot through this fraud, sham analysis, that he committed insurrection, and they haven’t, they’re not going to give up on that, by the way, or you try to jail the number one candidate for president in the middle of a campaign, or in most respects, cause him to be distracted from the campaign by prosecuting him four different times in various jurisdictions.

That, to me, shows that you don’t really want the election to happen. I mean, you can call it an election, but it’s not an election if they don’t have to steal it. It’s already been compromised through this process. And the question is, is Trump going to be able to overcome the compromise of the election through the election interference he’s suffered, and we’ve all suffered, as a result of the weaponization of the Justice Department and their allied Democrat politicians in Fulton county, in New York City.

I’m concerned, for example, in New York City, he’s facing a criminal trial next week. Does anyone think he’s going to get found not guilty in New York City? Of course he isn’t. He’s going to be convicted. Is he going to be sentenced? I don’t know. Is he going to face jail prior to the election? I don’t know. And anyone who suggests they do know for a certainty how this is going to turn out, I think is underestimating the desperation and the viciousness of the left that is seeking to undermine our republic as they are.

And it’s not just about Trump. I talked about the targeting and victimization of judicial watch, but of course, there are 1819 others who were prosecuted with Trump down. And Fulton County, Georgia, other states are prosecuting and harassing through civil and criminal investigations. State party leaders, democratic prosecutors are doing the same. Much of what Fannie Willis is doing, they’re doing in places like Michigan and Arizona and Nevada, I think.

But you name it, you have a number of state party officials for the Republican Party. You have just innocent activists who were trying to participate in the 2020 debates being targeted with criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits by the left. And so it’s not just about 2020 in that regard. It’s about sending a signal that if you dare say anything about the conduct of the 2024 election, you should expect criminal prosecutions, civil lawsuits.

And if you’re a lawyer, to be disbarred or suffer that process in a way that’s never been done before in american history. And so when you have a Justice Department, I understand, previously, I was thinking about this. It’s like, well, I guess we, previously we’ve had a politicized Justice Department. I’m thinking, well, actually, it’s happened more than we’d like to admit to. We had Nixon under Kennedy targeted, and then Nixon was targeted again, and then they went after Reagan because Reagan stole that election, remember, by coming with that secret deal with Iran, and then they went after George HW Bush and then George W.

Bush with Florida. So the weaponization has been around, but it really is kind of accelerated in a dramatic fashion most recently. And if the new rule is that the Justice Department can come up with and prosecute leading political figures based on radical, innovative, to put it charitably, applications, novel applications of the law. And it’s obviously political. And they pursue these claims in friendly courts with almost 90% party population support based on partisanship.

We’ve lost the Justice Department completely in that regard, if that’s allowed to continue. So I do think the republic is on the line. And it’s like, so what do we do? We have to, in my view, the left helps us figure out what to do, because they’re kind of telling us what they’re interested in. And maybe one rule of thumb is, well, let’s figure out what the left is interested in and maybe address those issues and confront them in the areas where they’re showing interest.

The effort to jail Trump seems to be a priority for them. I would submit it ought to be priority for honest Americans and Republicans who purport to stand for the rule of law. Sadly, Congress has refused to do much in the way of curtailing, if anything, any of these prosecutions of Trump. They had opportunities time and time again, and most recently, they punted on it again. And they have fully funded Jack Smith.

They have not curtailed any federal funding to the jurisdictions in New York and Fulton county that are harassing and violating the human and civil rights of Trump and others. Missed opportunity. And to me, it ought to be a priority. And I understand that some members of Congress, or many members of Congress don’t consider it a priority, but I would ask voters and those watching to let them know it’s a priority.

Election integrity, obviously is a priority for the left. I suggest it be a priority for us, as I say, trying to eliminate people literally from the ballot, destroy the electoral college, which is the basis for the constitutional compromises that gave us our federal system. I would submit that’s an important issue for us to focus on. They’re desperately opposed to voter id and cleaning up the ballots and such.

Let’s make that a priority for ourselves. They are spending billions. There’s an entire, and we’ve had this discussion earlier today, there are billions of dollars being deployed to censor speech online and speech generally on elections and any other matter of controversy that the left deems necessary to have speech around it suppressed. I suggest that be a priority for us. For example, Congress shouldn’t fund censorship operations by the Biden administration that are ongoing.

And I would submit that targeting of our children is a priority for the left. So again, maybe we should spend a little more time talking about how we protect children from being mutilated through government programs and such. That’s just kind of one way of thinking about it. And so as you’re an individual activist or representing groups and such, I would hope that you think about these issues in a more direct way and not put it on a panoply of policy issues that we all talk about.

It isn’t a tax fight. It isn’t a fight about government regulation. It isn’t a fight about climate and such. And I think they all have evil permutations. All of those arguments. This is a fight about whether we’re going to have a free country within a year or two or not. I mean, even the debt fights, we still have 30 years before we collapse economically with our astronomical spending I don’t think we have that amount of time, given the left’s hatred and anti not unconstitutional moves, anti constitutional moves to destroy a republic.

And that means also protecting the courts. I know we run hot and cold on the courts because then you have the corrupt courts that are politicized and been ruined by anti Trump animus. But then there are courts who want to do the right thing and judges who, despite public pressure, follow the ethics and try to rule straight down the middle. And for that, they’re being targeted, being threatened, having their lives threatened, having folks go to their home.

We see that at the Supreme Court level, that ought to be a priority, protecting the rule of law and our courts. So I don’t think it’s hard as to what we need to do or figuring out what we need to do. We need to focus on where the left is and fight them. And half the battle is deciding to fight. And my concern is the Republicans have declined to fight and use the power of purse they have.

So it’s up to us. So judicial watches are going to back down. We’re going to do what we can do. And I know heritage is pushing hard in this area as well, but this has got to be. And for the left, this is all these issues. There is no group that isn’t prepared to move on the issues I talk about on the right. Too often there is a hesitation to move on these anti corruption issues.

I think the country’s at stake, and if we don’t move on it, we could lose the country. Thank you very much. Thank you. .

See more of Judicial Watch on their Public Channel and the MPN Judicial Watch channel.