Tom Fitton's Judicial Watch Weekly Update | November 22, 2024

Supreme Court Election Integrity Battle

Judicial Watch Petitions Supreme Court on Post-Election Day Ballot Counting
Government Censorship of Conservative Social Media In 2020 Election Detailed
After 19 Years Defense Department Releases Details on Gov’t Operation That Could Have Prevented 9/11 Attacks
After $107 Billion Taxpayer Bailout, U.S. Postal Service Reports $9.5 Billion Loss

Judicial Watch Petitions Supreme Court on Post-Election Day Ballot Counting

Our efforts to clean up our election system continue.

Our legal team just filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court challenging the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case filed on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors from Illinois to prevent state election officials from extending Election Day for 14 days beyond the date established by federal law (Rep.Michael J. Bost, Laura Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews (No. 1:22-cv-02754, 23-2644)).

We filed our lawsuit on May 25, 2022.

Federal law defines Election Day as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every even-numbered year. The initial complaint states: “Despite Congress’ clear statement regarding a single national Election Day, Illinois has expanded Election Day by extending by 14 days the date for receipt and counting of vote-by-mail ballots.” The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just ruled in another Judicial Watch lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, that counting ballots received after Election Day is unlawful.

Illinois election law allows vote-by-mail ballots received up to 14 days after the polls close on Election Day to be counted as if they were cast and received on or before Election Day. Illinois law also provides that “[e]ven vote-by-mail ballots without postmarks shall be counted if received up to 14 calendar days after Election Day if the ballots are dated on or before Election Day.”  In a split decision, a Seventh Circuit appellate court panel found that Congressman Bost had no standing to challenge the provision, despite the increased costs and injuries to him caused by the two-week counting of ballots that arrive after Election Day.

In our petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, we state:

For over 130 years, this Court has heard claims brought by federal candidates challenging state time, place, or manner regulations affecting their federal elections. Until recently, it was axiomatic that candidates had standing to challenge these regulations. Indeed, “it’s hard to imagine anyone who has a more particularized injury than the candidate has.” … That is because a candidate who “pours money and sweat into a campaign, who spends time away from her job and family to traverse the campaign trail, and who puts her name on a ballot has an undeniably different— and more particularized—interest in the lawfulness of the election” than “some random voter.”

***

Petitioners are a sitting multi-term Congressman and two federal electors. They challenged an Illinois law (the “Receipt Deadline”) that allows absentee ballots to be received and counted after the day specified in federal statutes for holding federal elections (“Election Day”). They contend that Illinois’ Receipt Deadline is preempted by the federal Election Day statutes.

***

This petition presents an opportunity for the Court to provide lower courts and litigants much needed guidance on candidate standing, outside of the high-stakes, emergency, post-election litigation where these issues commonly arise.

It is a scandal that the courts would deny a federal candidate the ability to challenge an election provision that could lead to illegal votes being cast and counted. Illinois’ 14-day extension of Election Day thwarts federal law, violates the civil rights of voters, and invites fraud. The Supreme Court should take up this case and reaffirm the right of federal candidates to challenge unlawful election schemes.

 

Government Censorship of Conservative Social Media In 2020 Election Detailed

We received 274 pages of records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealing an extensive effort by government and non-government entities to monitor and censor social media posts on fraud during the 2020 election.

These previously secret documents show that the Deep State worked full-time to censor and monitor Americans in collusion with left-wing interest groups and Big Tech. The Trump administration should launch a criminal probe into this assault on the First Amendment civil rights of Americans.

The records were uncovered thanks to our November 2022 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for communications between the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a division of DHS, and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was created to flag online election content for censorship and suppression(Judicial Watch Inc. vs. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:22-cv-03560 )).

Here are some of the details.

A message on September 29, 2020, from “[email protected]” to “Misinformation Reports” at CIS (Center for Internet Security, a CISA-funded non-profit) has the subject line: “EIP-257Case #CIS – MIS000019: CT [Connecticut] Misinformation related to absentee ballots and fraud” and states:

Analysts at the EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] looked for cross-platform spread of this post, including in local media, but it appears contained to Facebook at this point.

The issue has been raised with Facebook to see if additional steps can be taken on the platform.

Included in the chain from [redacted] to “Misinformation Reports” is a reply:

Hey [redacted]

The platforms may or may not take action, and they sometimes take action without notifying EIP [Election Integrity Partnership]. “Done” is a signal to other EIP analysts that no more analysis needs to be done on their end at this time.

What we can be sure about at this stage is that Facebook have been notified, but nothing else it seems. EIP will periodically re-check the link to see if the content has been removed and will update the ticket if it has. Facebook may also be investigating the misinformation and may update the ticket itself if an action is taken.

A response from a person at Stanford whose name is redacted reads:

Just wanted to add in, it seems like the links are now down. I agree that this should not have moved into Done without sending a summary to the reporting partners (you all) and I’ve talked to the team about this, we will have that for the next one! Facebook doesn’t tell us specifically when they take action sometimes so we just have to keep checking the links. I’ve asked the team to go write a summary for this incident, let us know if we can provide further help here.

Also, on September 29, 2020, “[email protected]” writes to [redacted] regarding Connecticut absentee ballots:

Thanks for flagging this. Our analysts looked into the claim – the specific post was spread through a personal network but didn’t take off further across social media platforms. We flagged the post to Facebook for removal and the link is no longer active which means it has either been taken down or made private to the individual’s Facebook. We are monitoring similar narratives in case this kind of message comes up again

An October 1, 2020, message from a person at CIS using the “[email protected]” address responds:

Thanks EIP. We have kept the election official updated on the steps you took. We also received confirmation from Facebook (by way of CISA) that Facebook took action on this case.

The records include a September 26, 2020, email from Trevor Timmons, chief information officer of the Colorado Secretary of State, to Central Cyber [redacted] @cisecurity.org, using the subject line “Reporting Twitter post with misinformation on recent Colorado mailing:”

We’d like Twitter to review recent posts from a Denver news channel that contain misinformation about a recent mailing from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

[Redacted Twitter posts]

The posts have been highlighted as containing false information by personnel from our office, other media sources, and others. At best, we’d suggest they be removed as promoting inaccurate and false information. At a minimum, we’d request they be labeled as “false.”

Brian Scully, who was head of the Mis-, Dis-, Malinformation (MDM) branch at the National Risk Management Center at DHS, forwards this to an individual whose name and email address are redacted, commenting: “This came in from Colorado over the weekend. Twitter did not take either down.”

On October 1, 2020, “[email protected]” writes to someone whose name is redacted using the subject line “Fraudulent Facebook Site Hood River County, OR:”

I’m adding Facebook to this ticket, and recommending that they take action on this page.

We believe that this page was automatically generated after someone running for Mayor inHood River County repeatedly tagged themselves at the “Hudson River County Elections Office”. This person uses two Facebook accounts with different names [redacted] which is why two people have checked into this location. Their repeated check-ins triggered the creation of this page, which now exclusively features their location–tagged posts with their commentary about local politics.

Our understanding is that another verified page, such as the Hood River County page, could claim or request deletion for this page. However, we recommend that Facebook takes immediate action on this page (and similar unofficial pages for election-related organizations), due to its potential for spreading misinformation about voting processes in Hood River County.

On the same day “[email protected]” comments on the same string:

Additionally, Facebook should more generally review exploitation of the “unofficial pages” feature in the context of elections. Can page creation see a lag or delay in order to prevent brigading in the final weeks of the election?

In this case, the tagging activity began in May 2019, initially by a mayoral candidate, then by others who have turned it into an unofficial town forum. It may not always be benign.

On October 5, 2020, a person whose name is redacted writes to Matthew Masterson [formerly with DHS and Stanford Internet Observatory], and Brian Scully of the DHS, plus numerous other redacted individuals, using the subject line “EIP-CIS Sync:”

Hi all,

The [email protected] reporting system is now up and running, as is EIP’s inbound and outbound tip system. This call is to discuss how this process has gone so far, and to nail down the EIP <> ISAC SLA moving forward.

On October 27, 2020, Scully writes to “[email protected]” and other redacted individuals, using the subject line “Duplicate reporting to Twitter:”

Twitter asked if we could have reports coming through misinfo reports only be reported to them via CISA. I know the EIP is sharing some of the reports with them as well and they are trying to cut back on duplicates. Any issues with this approach? From a process standpoint it would look like – election official> [misinformationreport]s > CISA/EIP/Others > CISA sends to Twitter> rest of process is the same.

On October 28, 2020, someone whose name is redacted responds:

Hello Brian,

Sorry for the delayed response here – took a day to settle this out on the EIP side. We are doing our best effort on the CIS reports to not duplicate notifications to Twitter when its (a) marked as Twitter being notified (assumption is everything sent with CIS #XXXXX has made it to Twitter) and (b) we have no substantial research to add to the matter. There have been a couple cases in the last week where we did not escalate CIS reports due to this, and we will continue to push on this front. Given how close we are to the election, I think this is the best option so that every report goes through CISA to the platforms, and EIP also sends over the relevant information only when we have further analysis to add which might be of help (more links, evidence of origination or coordination, etc.). We don’t want to overwhelm them, but on the day of, I think we’d kick ourselves more for not alerting than for double reporting.

Does this sound okay? We have communicated this to our Twitter partners through our channel with them.

Scully responds in part:

I’m not sure how we’d go from double reporting to no reporting in a scenario where a report comes through CIS as CISA will always report those to Twitter, but agree more reporting is better than less.

On November 2, 2020, Scully writes to a redacted recipient:

Is EIP open to receiving reports from civil society groups? Was asked by our friends at Harvard.

A person whose name is withheld responds:

Hey Brian,

EIP takes tips from many civil society partners – I’m sure they’d welcome intake from Harvard. The same tip address should be fine.

On November 8, 2020, a message from “[email protected]” is sent to individuals whose names have been redacted, using the subject line “Antrim County, MI election results error in reporting:”

Hello ISAC [Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a CISA-supported collaboration]- We are moving you to https://2020partnership.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/5/EIP-949 whichFacebook, Twitter, and Google are also on. We tweeted about this claim last night (here),and continued to track the growth of this narrative through today.

This narrative, which started around the situation in Antrim, has now been used to throw doubts on the results in Georgia and other regions.

On November 9, 2020, someone at CIS using “[email protected]” writes to people whose names are withheld, using the subject line: “Million MAGA March – Nov 14th -Telegram:”

Thanks. I have spoken to [redacted] and this to make sure they are keeping the right authorities in sync.

On November 9, 2020, “[email protected]” sends a message to individuals whose names are redacted, using the subject line “Nevada GOP claims in Twitter thread they found ballots that could have been filled out by anyone”

Thanks, Twitter has received and is reviewing.

[Page 14] A November 10, 2020, message from “[email protected]” to persons whose names are withheld, using the subject line ‘Million MAGA March – Nov 14th – Telegram,” includes a chart showing the number of tweets on the subject and the message:

ISAC, please find an updated graph showing viral spread of this event on Twitter. Growth Is linear and does not yet show signs of diminishing. We will continue to monitor.

In August 2023, we filed two FOIA lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for communications between the agencies and Facebook and Twitter regarding the government’s involvement in content moderation and censorship on the social media platforms.

In June 2023, we sued DHS for all records of communications tied to the Election Integrity Partnership. Based on representations from the EIP (see here and here), the federal government, social media companies, the EIP, the Center for Internet Security (a non-profit organization funded partly by DHS and the Defense Department) and numerous other leftist groups communicated privately via the Jira software platform developed by Atlassian.

In February 2023, we sued the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech.

In January 2023 we sued the DOJ for records of communications between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

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

In May 2022, YouTube censored a Judicial Watch video about Biden corruption and election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The video, titled “Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security,” was falsely determined to be “election misinformation” and removed by YouTube, and Judicial Watch’s YouTube account was suspended for a week. The video featured an interview with me. Judicial Watch continues to post its video content on its Rumble channel (https://rumble.com/vz7aof-fitton-impeach-biden-corruption-threatens-national-security.html).

 In July 2021, we uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the COVID narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies.

In May 2021, we revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In April 2021, we published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.

Let’s hope the new Trump administration further exposes (and prosecutes where appropriate) this dangerous government censorship of millions of Americans.

 

After 19 Years Defense Department Releases Details on Gov’t Operation That Could Have Prevented 9/11 Attacks

After almost 19 years, the Department of Defense produced 62 pages of records out of hundreds of previously withheld documents regarding the U.S. intelligence program “Operation Able Danger.”

Able Danger was formed in 1999. It compiled publicly available information regarding al Qaeda and other targets.

The Defense Department identified hundreds of pages of responsive records but withheld them, claiming the overwhelming majority are still classified to this day.

In August 2005 interviews, other experts and I reported that the operation identified four future September 11, 2001, hijackers as al Qaeda members in the United States well before the attacks.

The Senate Intelligence Committee began its investigation of the program in August 2005. In September 2005, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing on Able Danger, but members of the data-mining team were blocked from testifying.

In December 2005, we submitted a FOIA request to the Defense Department for related records, as well as information on “U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and/or counterterrorism projects and/or programs utilizing data mining software/techniques to search open-source records in the public domain.”

The Defense Department response on August 24 from the U.S. Special Operations Command identifies hundreds of pages of responsive records but claims the overwhelming majority are still classified and, over 20 years later, remain exemptedfrom disclosure:

[S]pecifically, Sections 1.4(a), military plans, weapon systems, or operations; 1.4(c), intelligence activities (including covert actions), intelligence sources or methods, or Cryptology; 1.4(g), vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security; and Section 1.7(e), for compilation of items of information that are individually unclassified, but may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship.

The records we obtained include an unredacted, declassified Top Secret/SCI record containing a 17-page listing of unclassified, open-source internet resources listing websites and URLs for topics such as terrorism news stories; Office of the Coordinator of Counterterrorism; and “Albanian Terrorism in Kosovo,” among many others. Across the bottom of page three of the lists of open-source records is a statement: “Began to understand the status of ongoing efforts!” The author of the exclamation is not identified.

Small passages of what seem to be declassified Top Secret/SCI analytical reports (unnamed and undated) featurecommentary such as:

Arab countries in North Africa especially, Algeria, Tunisia, Morrocco, Libya, Egypt, and almost all other Arab countries have been annoyed for the high profile of Osama bin Laden first in Pakistan and later in Afghanistan especially, when he publicly claims that he trains Arab fundamentalists to overthrow most of Arab regimes in the Middle East.

The records also cite journalist Jason Burke’s December 1998 reporting that Osama bin Laden decided to get into drug trafficking as a new weapon and approached (through intermediaries) major opium and heroin dealers, as well as major landowners in the opium-growing districts of Afghanistan, and offered to buy all of the opium they grow.

Drug trafficking was also featured in an undated/unsourced, declassified TOP SECRET/SCI record that stated:

In fact, heroin is the major source of income for the Taleban [sic] government that has seized power in Afghanistan. It is not the Taleban government alone; heroin is also a major source of earning for the Inter Service Intelligence ISI of Pakistan, which has been providing support and assistance for the Taleban government which has seized power in Afghanistan. The lion’s share of the funds earned through heroin smuggling is spent on intelligence service and also on subversive activities carried out by the ISI in neighboring countries.

Another undated/unsourced excerpt states:

Opium is traded at large bazaars in Afghanistan that are the treacherous domain of criminal syndicates. One of the more notorious is located in the town of Sangin, a three-hour drive west of the Taliban capital of Kandahar. ‘Sangin is known as a dangerous place,’ says Bernard Frahl, head of the U.N. drug-agency office in Islamabad, who visited the market town in October. “It is known for people going in and not coming out.” Of about 500 shopkeepers crowded along one main street, and two or three footpaths off it, he says, almost half sell opium.

The records include the homepage of a Swedish construction firm and what appears to be a worker complaint from someone employed in Saudi Arabia.

It shouldn’t take two decades to decide that the American people can’t see documents about a military investigation that could have prevented 9/11. What an insult to the American people and the victims of 9/11.

 

After $107 Billion Taxpayer Bailout, U.S. Postal Service Reports $9.5 Billion Loss
Nothing illustrates bureaucratic waste better than the United States Postal Service, which seems to be throwing our tax dollars to the wind. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports the latest.

The famously mismanaged U.S. Postal Service (USPS), also plagued by scandals for secretly spying on Americans, lost a staggering $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, which ended in September. The loss marks a substantial increase of $3 billion over the previous year when the agency reported an already hefty $6.5 billion deficit. In the meantime, taxpayers continue bailing it out despite a well-documented history of transgressions and exorbitant debt. Just two years ago Congress provided the long troubled USPS with a clean slate, relieving it of $107 billion in obligations. In its latest year-end financial statement the USPS blames 80% of the fiscal year’s net losses on the “amortization of unfunded retiree pension liabilities and non-cash workers’ compensation adjustments” due to inflation.

Laughably, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy claims that a transformation and modernization plan issued in the spring of 2021 has made significant progress since its implementation and assures the initiative is driving the USPS forward to financial stability. “Our pricing and product strategies are continuing to improve our revenue picture and fuel market share gains in our package business, demonstrating the increasing competitiveness of the Postal Service,” said DeJoy, who was unanimously selected Postmaster General by the USPS Board of Governors in 2020 after being appointed by Donald Trump. In a statement the panel describes DeJoy as “an accomplished business executive with more than 35 years of experience” who transformed a small, family-owned transportation company into a nationwide provider of highly engineered, technology-driven contract logistics solutions. A 2001 federal audit found that DeJoy’s North Carolina-based firm, a USPS contractor for over two decades, overbilled the government by at least $53 million after receiving no-bid contracts that should have been competitively awarded. That did not stop him from getting the job, however.

Though the USPS has performed horribly under his leadership, DeJoy remains optimistic, saying at a recent Board of Governors meeting that he has “complete confidence that in 2025 we will accomplish more meaningful progress as we accelerate our execution and refinement of Delivering for America strategies.” He describes the project as the “only comprehensive plan that attempts to rescue the United States Postal Service in the last 25 years” and “the only plan that focuses on growth and viability.” It is worth noting that the Postmaster General recently came under fire for referring to public sector unions as his “comrades” and proclaiming his goal of achieving a “100 percent unionized” operation at the nation’s ailing postal service. In a recording published online, DeJoy says “I was actually with our supervisors’ union yesterday, and I said ‘comrades, how come you’re not celebrating me?’”

The colossal 2024 loss marks the latest of many scandals for the USPS, long a bastion of mismanagement and frivolous spending that has fleeced American taxpayers out of enormous sums in the last few years alone. In 2021, the USPS reported a net loss of $4.9 billion and in 2020 a net loss of $9.2 billion. One federal audit slammed the agency for blowing the opportunity to save nearly $22 million had it bothered to maintain its fleet of vehicles more efficiently. A few years before that the USPS blew hundreds of thousands of dollars on professional sports tickets, alcohol, and fancy meals while it claimed to be crippled by an $8.3 billion deficit. The items were purchased by USPS managers and employees with special charge cards issued to U.S. government agencies. The USPS’s top executives have also been found to receive illegally high salary and compensation packages that should outrage the public.

The nation’s postal service has also been caught conducting surveillance operations unrelated to its official duties. In the summer of 2021 Judicial Watch sued the USPS for information about a secret program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts and flags the posts as “inflammatory” or otherwise worthy of further scrutiny by other government agencies. The USPS’s law enforcement arm, U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), has also admitted using sophisticated hacking devices that can breach cell phones to spy on Americans. The hacking tools, known as Cellebrite and GrayKey, have been used by the agency to extract previously unattainable information from seized mobile devices. Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the USPS for information on the devices used by the agency to hack cell phones.

Until next week,