Election Lawsuit Update!
Secret Service Records: DEI Is Priority in ‘Every Action, Every Day’
Federal Court Speeds Appeal over Counting of Ballots Arriving after Election Day
U.S. Fails to Monitor Illegal Alien Minors, Risking Forced Labor, Trafficking
Secret Service Records: DEI Is Priority in ‘Every Action, Every Day’
For years the Secret Service has seemed to place woke politics over their protection and law enforcement mission.This is confirmed in 311 pages of U.S. Secret Service (USSS) records we received that show the agency has made it a top priority that “diversity and inclusion is not just ‘talked about’ – but demonstrated by all employees through ‘Every Action, Every Day.’” [Emphasis in original]
The records show the Secret Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), demands that 12 percent of its workforce be composed of “persons with disabilities,” and that it is the policy of the Secret Service to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to such non-merit factors as “disability (physical or mental).”
We obtained the records in a FOIA lawsuit against DHS for records relating to an incident in April at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland in which a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris got into a scuffle with colleagues (Judicial Watch v. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-01705)).
According to an April 24 report by the Washington Examiner, a Secret Service agent was removed from her duties after physically attacking the commanding agent in charge and other agents who tried to subdue her.
A later report states: “The agents involved in restraining [Michelle] Herczeg were especially concerned because she still had her gun in the holster. They wrestled her to the ground, took the gun from her, cuffed her, and then removed her from the terminal.” The report also states that, following the incident at Joint Base Andrews, which is the home base for Air Force One and Air Force Two. “Secret Service agents and officers are privately questioning the hiring process and whether the agency had adequately screened Herczeg’s background.”
The newly obtained records include an undated document titled “Secret Service Inclusion and Engagement Council Charter: Changing the Game of Diversity and Inclusion,” in which the Secret Service puts forth a strategy for the council and establishes an “SES-level Executive Champion for Inclusion and Engagement:
The IEC’s collective duty is to help the Secret Service build, foster, create, and inspire a workforce where diversity and inclusion is not just “talked about” — but demonstrated by all employees through “Every Action, Every Day.” [Emphasis in original]
The document notes that the Secret Service’s Inclusion and Engagement Council “will not rely solely on the legal requirements underscoring the principles of EEO and the voluntary initiatives in Diversity programs; rather, the IEC will seek innovative solutions outside the agency’s mandated requirements to create a culture where differences are valued and appreciated, and employee engagement is encouraged.”
The “Inclusive Diversity Vision Statement” instructs: “To be the employer of choice and ‘gold standard’ for leveraging inclusive diversity by modeling the qualities of mutual respect, admiration, and appreciation for cultural differences and varying perspectives.”
A document dated fiscal year (FY) 2023 and titled “Affirmative Action Plan for the Recruitment, Hiring, Advancement, and Retention of Persons with Disabilities” states that the Secret Service should have a “numerical goal” to have “persons with disabilities” (PWDs) make up 12 percent of its workforce.
In a 2005 Secret Service “Human Resources and Training Manual,” the general provisions state that it is the policy of the Secret Service to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to such non-merit factors as “disability (physical or mental):”
It is the policy of the Secret Service to provide equal employment opportunity throughout the Service for all employees, former employees, and applicants for employment who are otherwise eligible and qualified, without regard to such non-merit factors as race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability (physical or mental), parental status, protected genetic information, sexual orientation, age, or reprisal for objecting to discrimination or prior or current participation in the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint process. This policy applies to appointments, details, career development, training, reassignments, promotions, and assignments of work, and to any other actions or situations affecting employment status where the possibility exists for consideration of non-merit factors.
The document also outlines a program within Secret Service called “Special Emphasis Programs” that:
[A]re designed to assist the organization in meeting its affirmative action responsibilities. SEPs are affirmative action programs established to increase the representation, retention, and advancement of their constituent groups in underrepresented occupations and grades. SEPs are also charged with promoting cultural awareness, identifying policies, procedures, and practices affecting their groups and advising management on actions, which may increase participation of minorities, women and persons with disabilities in all Secret Service programs and activities. The Secret Service delivers the following six programs:
Federal Women
Hispanic Employment
African American
Asian/Pacific Islander
Persons with Disabilities/Disabled Veterans
American Indian/Alaskan Native
A document titled “Diversity Management Program” dated February 2001 explains: “The Diversity Management Program has been established in the Secret Service as a means of achieving an organizational culture which values diversity and utilizes employees to their fullest potential regardless of age, gender, race or other factors.”
The document also establishes the “Duties, Functions and Responsibilities” of the Diversity Management Program, including the goals:
Promotes awareness of diversity within the workplace, enhances interpersonal relationships, and strives to create an organizational culture that is free from racism, sexism, and other biases.
Actively supports the recruitment, development, advancement, and retention of a diverse workforce.
An undated Secret Service Human Resources PowerPoint training slideshow, titled “SAITC-UDITC [Special Agent Introductory Training Course-Uniformed Division Introductory Training Course] Zero Tolerance Briefing” outlines “Special Emphasis Programs” as focusing “special attention on groups that are not represented or have less than expected participation rates in specific occupational categories or grade levels within the agency’s workforce,” including among others, “Federal Women’s Program,” “Hispanic Program,” and “LGBT Program.”
We recently uncovered records from the district attorney’s office in Butler County, PA, detailing the extensive preparation of local police for the rally at which former President Trump was shot, including sniper teams, counter assault teams and a quick response force.
On August 9, in response to a separate open records request, we obtained bodycam footage of the July 13 assassination events from the Butler Township Police Department.
On August 12 reported that the FBI withheld information on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about its coordination with the U.S. Secret Service regarding the July 13 Butler, PA, rally.
On July 31, we reported that the United States Secret Service completely denied multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents about the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
We have more than 25 FOIA and open records currently pending on the shooting of Trump with the Biden administration and local and state officials and agencies in Pennsylvania.
Lawsuits are coming, so stay tuned….
Federal Court Speeds Appeal over Counting of Ballots Arriving after Election Day
Extending the counting of ballots for five days after the Election Day established by Congress runs counter to federal law, invites fraud, and undermines voter confidence. That’s why we’re pleased that a federal appellate court will quickly hear our appeal for lawful election procedures.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ordered a hearing regarding a lower court ruling on Mississippi’s election law that permits absentee ballots to be received as late as five business days after Election Day. The Fifth Circuit will hear the case on Tuesday, September 24.
We filed the civil rights lawsuit challenging the Mississippi election law on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi (Libertarian Party of Mississippi v Wetzel et al. (No. 1:24-cv-00037)). The court consolidated our case with one filed by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, and other complainants.
Our lawsuit argues:
Under federal law, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every even-numbered year is election day (“Election Day”) for federal elections.
Congress recently reaffirmed a single national Election Day when it enacted the Electoral Count Reform Act (“ECRA”).
Under the recent Congressional amendments, no extension of Election Day shall be allowed unless there are “force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic” that justify extension.
Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding a single and uniform national Election Day, Mississippi extended Election Day by allowing five additional business days after Election Day for receipt of absentee ballots.
No “force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic” currently exist in Mississippi to justify extending the ballot receipt deadline for the November 5, 2024, federal election for Presidential and Vice-Presential Electors.
We argue that holding voting open for five days past Election Day violates the constitutional rights of voters and candidates:
Counting untimely, illegal, and invalid votes, such as those received in violation of federal law, substantially increases the pool of total votes cast and dilutes the weight of votes cast by Plaintiff’s members and others in support of Plaintiff’s federal nominees.
Our complaint points out that, based on the reported numbers, as many as 1.7% of votes cast in Mississippi in 2020 were received after Election Day.
In our appeal filings, we explain that the Mississippi law extending Election Day is obviously at odds with federal law.
As you know we are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.
Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads our election law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states.
In a similar lawsuit, in 2022, on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two other registered voters, we sued Illinois for allowing vote-by-mail ballots (even those without postmarks) to be counted if received up to 14 calendar days after Election Day if the ballots are dated on or before Election Day.
Here’s a great list of our tremendous election law efforts:
In July 2024, we sent a notice letter to the Oregon secretary of state on behalf of the Constitution Party of Oregon and an Oregon registered voter, notifying them of evident violations of the National Voter Registration Act(NVRA) of 1993, based on their failure to remove inactive voters from their registration rolls. The notice letter to Oregon serves as a “pre-suit” notice. The letter points out that “According to your state’s responses to the EAC’s [federal government’s Election Assistance Commission] survey, 19 Oregon counties reported removing zero voter registrations from November 2020 to November 2022 pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA for failing to respond to a Confirmation Notice and failing to vote in two consecutive general federal elections. Another 10 counties reported just a handful of such removals during the same two-year period.”
In May 2024, we sued California to clean up its voter rolls. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Libertarian Party of California, asks the court to compel California to make “a reasonable effort to remove the registrations of ineligible registrants from the voter rolls” as required by federal law (Judicial Watch Inc. and the Libertarian Party of CA v. Shirley Weber et al. (No. 2:24-cv-3750)).
In December 2023, notice letters were sent to election officials in the District of Columbia, California, and Illinois, notifying them of evident violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, based on their failure to remove inactive voters from their registration rolls. The letters point out that these jurisdictions publicly reported removing few or no ineligible voter registrations under a key provision of the NVRA. The letters threatened federal lawsuits unless the violations were corrected in a timely fashion. In response to our inquiries, Washington, DC, officials admitted that they had not complied with the NVRA, promptly removed 65,544 outdated names from the voting rolls, promised to remove 37,962 more, and designated another 73,522 registrations as “inactive.” NVRA lawsuits subsequently were commenced against California and Illinois.
In July 2023 we filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, supporting the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, which struck down Maine’s policy restricting the use and distribution of the state’s voter registration list (Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Shenna Bellows (No. 23-1361). According to a national study conducted by Judicial Watch in 2020, Maine’s statewide registration rate was 101% of eligible voters.
In July 2023 we also settled a federal election integrity lawsuit on behalf of the Illinois Conservative Union against the state of Illinois, the Illinois State Board of Elections, and its director, which now grants access to the current centralized statewide list of registered voters for the state for the past 15 elections.
In April 2023, Pennsylvania settled with us and admitted in court filings that it removed 178,258 ineligible registrations in response to our communications. The settlement commits Pennsylvania and five of its counties to extensive public reporting of statistics regarding their ongoing voter roll clean-up efforts for the next five years.
In March 2023, Colorado agreed to settle our NVRA lawsuit alleging that Colorado failed to remove ineligible voters from its rolls. The settlement agreement requires Colorado to provide us with the most recent voter roll data for each Colorado county each year for six years.
In February 2023, Los Angeles County confirmed the removal of 1,207,613 ineligible voters from its rolls since last year, under the terms of a settlement agreement in a federal lawsuit we filed in 2017.
In March 2023, Colorado agreed to settle our NVRA lawsuit alleging that Colorado failed to remove ineligible voters from its rolls. The settlement agreement requires Colorado to provide us with the most recent voter roll data for each Colorado county each year for six years.
In February 2023, Los Angeles County confirmed the removal of 1,207,613 ineligible voters from its rolls since last year, under the terms of a settlement agreement in a federal lawsuit we filed in 2017.
We settled a federal election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the city removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and promised to take reasonable steps going forward to clean its voter registration lists.
Kentucky also removed hundreds of thousands of old registrations after it entered into a consent decree to end another Judicial Watch lawsuit.
In February 2022, we settled a voter roll clean-up lawsuit against North Carolina and two of its counties after North Carolina removed over 430,000 inactive registrations from its voter rolls.
In March 2022, a Maryland court ruled in favor of our challenge to the Democratic state legislature’s “extreme” congressional-districts gerrymander.
U.S. Fails to Monitor Illegal Alien Minors, Risking Forced Labor, Trafficking
Tens of thousands of young people coming across the Southwestern border have essentially vanished and are at risk of abuse and trafficking thanks to the Biden-Harris administration. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the details of this massive Biden-Harris administration failure.
A year after a mainstream newspaper reported that the Biden administration lost track of 85,000 illegal immigrant minors welcomed into the United States upon crossing the Mexican border, a federal audit reveals that tens of thousands have subsequently vanished from the government’s radar and hundreds of thousands go unmonitored. It marks the latest in a multitude of scandals involving the nearly half a million Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)—rebranded Unaccompanied Children (UC) by the Biden administration to be more politically correct—admitted into the country in the last few years. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which operates under Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for caring for UAC, which are overwhelmingly males over the age of 14, according to government figures. They come from Guatemala (42%), Honduras (28%), El Salvador (9%), Mexico (8%) and “other” (13%).
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the “premier” Homeland Security law enforcement agency created after 9/11 to safeguard the nation and preserve national security, is responsible for monitoring the location and status of all UAC inside the U.S. This is important because many of the minors have been victims of abuse and exploitation but also because some have committed violent crimes after being released into American communities. This includes a teen from El Salvador who raped and murdered a Maryland woman, two teens—one from El Salvador and other from Guatemala—charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at a public high school, and a pair of 17-year-old Central Americans who executed a Massachusetts man by shooting him in the head shortly after crossing the southwest border. Both had ties to the famously violent gang known as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), renowned for drug distribution, murder, rape, robbery, home invasions, kidnappings, vandalism, and other brutal crimes.
Despite the documented threats presented by some UAC and media reports exposing how many are victimized, ICE fails to keep proper track of the young migrants once released into the country by HHS and the agency does not initiate removal proceedings for those who should be deported. Investigators from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General (DHS IG) found that the agency transferred more than 448,000 illegal immigrant minors to HHS between 2019 and 2023 but was not able to account for the location of more than 32,000 UAC and failed to serve more than 291,000 illegal immigrant minors “who warranted placement in removal proceedings under 8 U.S. Code Section 1229(a)” a Notice to Appear (NTA) in court. “Additionally, even though HHS is responsible for the care and custody of UCs, ICE did not always inform HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) when UCs failed to appear in immigration court after release from HHS’ custody,” the DHS IG report states, adding that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers at only one of the 10 field offices probed by investigators attempted to locate UACs who did not appear in immigration court.
The DHS watchdog also points out that the underage migrants may be at high risk for trafficking, exploitation or forced labor and ICE must take immediate action to ensure the safety of those residing in the United States. By not issuing NTAs to hundreds of thousands of UAC who were not placed in removal proceedings, the report says the agency limits its chances of having contact with the illegal aliens when they are released from HHS custody, which reduces opportunities to verify their safety. “Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” auditors write.
The government’s UAC program has for years been rocked by many other problems that have put young migrants at risk, including physical and sexual abuse at U.S.-funded shelters. In 2021 Judicial Watch obtained records from HHS documenting 33 incidents of physical and sexual abuse during a one-month period at shelters where the government houses UAC until they are relocated with a sponsor. That year a federal audit blasted the agency for failing to protect UAC from sexual misconduct at the facilities. During a six-month period alone, investigators from the HHS Inspector General’s office uncovered more than 750 incidents involving sexual misconduct at dozens of shelters housing minor detainees. Last year the HHS IG slammed the agency for failing to properly vet employees and contractors who care for the illegal immigrant minors. Just weeks ago, the U.S. sued a nonprofit it has paid billions to house migrant youths for sexually abusing them for years.
Until next week,
TOP NEWS
