Tom Fitton's Judicial Watch Weekly Update | July 13, 2018

Weekly Update: JW Gets Strzok-Page Docs

Judicial Watch Victory: FBI Begins Releasing Strzok-Page Documents!
President Trump’s Supreme Court Pick: A Victory for the Rule of Law
Another Obama scandal: ‘Unaccompanied Children’ Included Criminals, Smugglers, & Traffickers
The John Brennan-Harry Reid Collusion to ‘Get Trump’

 

Judicial Watch Victory: FBI Begins Releasing Strzok-Page Documents!

If you watched disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok bob and weave around the truth in his testimony to Congress this week you will understand our difficulty in getting Strzok’s official communications out of the FBI/Justice Department.

We don’t give up, however, and we are succeeding.

We just released 87 pages of records from the Department of Justice revealing former top FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page’s profanity-laced disdain for FBI hierarchy and policies. The DOJ, meanwhile, is resisting our request for a court order to preserve all responsive Page-Strzok communications.

Strzok and Page’s anti-Trump text messages became center-stage amid allegations of bias at the bureau, and both were subpoenaed to testify before the House Judiciary and the Oversight and Government Reform Committees.

We obtained the documents through a January 2018 Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 4, 2017, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)). The lawsuit is seeking:

• All records of communications, including but not limited to, emails, text messages and instant chats, between FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page;
• All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Peter Strzok;
• All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Lisa Page.

The new emails came in response to a May 21, order by U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton for the FBI to begin processing 13,000 pages of previously undisclosed records exchanged exclusively between FBI officials Strzok and Page between February 1, 2015, and December 2017. The first 500 pages of records are to be processed by June 29, 2018. This process will take over two years to complete.

Emails between Strzok and Page include conversations about a change in FBI policy that eventually would allow companies to discuss National Security Letters, which are secret non-court issued subpoenas for records:

From: Strzok, Peter P. (WF) (FBI)

Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 3:34 PM

To: Page, Lisa C. (OGC) (FBI)

Subject: FWD: FBI to Allow Companies to Reveal When They Receive National Security Letters

Sigh…are you f’ing kidding…

From: Page, Lisa C. (OGC) (FBI)

Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 3:36 PM

To: Strzok, Peter P. (WF) (FBI)

Subject: RE: FBI to Allow Companies to Reveal When They Receive National Security Letters

Sigh. This is the third conversation I will have had with him or someone on his staff about this.

On February 9, 2015, in a discussion of an article about how the Department of Defense may have unwisely used an Arabic translator in a Guantanamo hearing who had also been used as a translator at a CIA black site, Strzok says, “I cannot begin to describe the amount of f*ckupedness if true…” Page replies, “I know. I heard about it on npr on my way home tonight. Multiple mentions of the FBI’s infiltration of defense teams last year too.”

On June 1, we filed a motion for preservation order in this case asking the court to order the Department of Justice to prevent both Strzok and Page from deleting any incriminating records of their communications. We argue that several of the text messages produced to Congress reference work-related communications between Strzok and Page through personal accounts.

We noted that in January, the DOJ told Congress that the FBI had neither requested nor searched information from the personal accounts of Strzok and Page. We argued:

In a January 25, 2018 letter to Senator Charles Grassley, Charles Thorley, Acting Assistant Director of the FBI, wrote, “FBI has not requested from Ms. Page or Mr. Strzok any information from their personal email accounts, nor has the FBI conducted searches of non-FBI issued communications devices or non-FBI email accounts associated with Mr. Strzok or Ms. Page….”

Under the law, “[a]n officer or employee of an executive agency may not create or send a record using a non-official electronic messaging account unless such officer or employee- (1) ,copies an official electronic messaging account of the officer or employee in the original creation or transmission of the record; or (2) forwards a complete copy of the record to an official electronic messaging account of the officer or employee not later than 20 days after the original creation or transmission of the record.”

Not until May did the FBI say it had written Strzok and Page letters asking them to preserve the communications but there have been no assurances that this was even done:

[Judicial Watch] has asked for copies of those letters and of any responses it has received from Strzok and Page. [DOJ] refuses to provide any evidence supporting this assertion.

Because [Judicial Watch] does not know specifically what [DOJ] asked Strzok and Page to do and what, if any, steps Strzok and Page are taking to ensure preservation, [Judicial Watch] is concerned [DOJ’s] mere requests to Strzok and Page are insufficient. [Judicial Watch] therefore is concerned records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request will be lost or not otherwise searched.

[Judicial Watch’s] request is nothing out of the ordinary. At least three other judges of this Court have granted such requests in the last 18 months.

We are in court successfully getting Strzok-Page documents thus far denied to Congress. Yet the Justice Department is stonewalling and even protecting Strzok and Page by battling our request for preservation order to ensure that no government documents are destroyed.

 

President Trump’s Supreme Court Pick: A Victory for the Rule of Law

President Trump hit a home run with his nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The President stood up for the U.S. Constitution with this nomination. Judge Kavanaugh has a demonstrated record of applying the rule of law rather than legislating from the bench. His record shows that he will apply the U.S. Constitution as written and intended by our Founding Fathers.

This nomination is a great victory for constitutional government and a blow to politicized decision-making on the Supreme Court. We have too many politicians as it is in DC, and we certainly don’t need any more on the Supreme Court. Most Americans agree with Judge Kavanaugh that the Supreme Court should apply the law as it is written and leave the legislating to the people’s elected representatives in Congress.

The Senate should move quickly to work with President Trump to consider and approve Judge Kavanaugh. There is not much radical liberals can do to stop this excellent Supreme Court pick. We aren’t surprised by leftist smears, religious bigotry, and more threats of violence, but the votes are there for Judge Kavanaugh to be confirmed.

Please be sure to let your senators know what you think about the Kavanaugh nomination directly! You can reach your senators’ offices at 202-224-3121. Letters and emails work, too.  All their contact information is available at www.senate.gov.

 

Another Obama scandal: ‘Unaccompanied Children’ Included Criminals, Smugglers, & Traffickers

In 2014 a wave of “Unaccompanied Alien Children” swamped the southwest border, and we began investigating.

At that time, a controversial Health and Human Services contract with Baptist Children and Family Services (BCFS) to provide shelter to children at two military facilities came to light, thanks to Judicial Watch. Since then we have been investigating incidents of violence, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other criminal activities at the border, as well as whether innocent children were being abused while in U.S. shelters.

The latest information is shocking.

Judicial Watch investigators uncovered 224 pages of documents containing nearly 1,000 summaries of Significant Incident Reports (SIRs) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealing that “Unaccompanied Alien Children” (UAC) processed during the Obama administration included admitted murderers, rapists, drug smugglers, prostitutes, and human traffickers.

The documents, from the HHS Administration for Children and Families, and reported to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), are for the approximate six-month period May to November 2014. They were released to us after a three-year delay in response to a November 12, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for:

1. Any and all Significant Incident Reports (“SIRs”) and SIR Addenda, including but not limited to, Medical SIRs (both Emergency and Non-Emergency) and Medical SIR Addenda, submitted to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”) for Unaccompanied Alien Children (“UACs”) from May 1, 2014 to the present.

To the extent any information may be contained in the SIRs or SIR Addenda that is considered exempt from disclosure under 5 (U.S.C. § 552(b)(6), all non-exempt, segregable portions of the reports should be provided.

2. Any and all summary reports, which are derived from or based upon data contained in the SIRs, including daily, weekly, monthly or year-to-date reports, that were prepared by, provided to or are in the possession of the ORR.

The resulting documents show that, in fiscal year 2014, there were 24,680 Significant Incident Reports filed with Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Examples of incident reports below are organized into four general categories:

1. UACs admitting to murder, belonging to MS-13, threatening others with rape, admitting to drug smuggling, molesting other UACs and seriously assaulting other UACs or staff;
2. UACs who were raped and/or molested en route to the United States or in the United States;
3. U.S. Government contractors and employees allegedly assaulting or having sexual relationships with UACs; and
4. Other incidents, crimes, abuse and self-harm.

Examples of UACs admitting to murder, belonging to MS-13, threatening others with rape, admitting to drug smuggling, molesting other UACs and seriously assaulting other UACs or staff include:

• A male UAC at a BCFS shelter in Fairfield, CA admitted that he was “forced to kill” while working for the Gulf Cartel in Mexico
• A male UAC being cared for at the Heartland International RC Facility reported that he had been an MS-13 gang member for a year before coming to the U.S.
• A male UAC cared for at the Heartland ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) facility reported to staff that he had been “made to” kill three people by a drug cartel.
• A male UAC housed at the KidsPeace shelter (apparently a reference to the KidsPeace facility in Bethlehem, PA) reportedly told another male UAC there: “I am a rapist. I am going to rape you.”
• A UAC at Morrison Paso (Morrison Child and Family Services Center – Paso Secure in Portland, OR) informed a Youth Care Worker (YCW) there that “all of the kids here at Paso are snorting white pills” and that “some residents had brought [the pills] into the facility” and “all the residents are snorting the white pills and at all the times of the day”
• A male UAC in the care of Heartland ICRC reported that he was an MS-13 gang member who had been selling drugs. He told social workers that “the reason the gang members made the kids use drugs was to get them addicted.”
• A female UAC at the Sandy Pines (Jupiter, FL) facility attacked a staff member with a chair after being told to stop inappropriate sexual behavior toward another female UAC. After being restrained, she threatened to stab an unidentified person with a knife she kept in her room. The report concludes by saying, “UAC will continue to work on identifying and implementing coping skills to manage her mood.”
• A male UAC at a Baptist Child and Family Services (BCFS) shelter in Baytown, TX said he’d worked as a human smuggler, charging $6,000-$8,000 per person he crossed into the United States
• A female UAC at the BCFS shelter in Lackland AFB was alleged by other UACs to be the daughter of a coyote (human smuggler) and reportedly was passing information to her father via telephone from the shelter

Examples of UACs who were raped and/or molested en route to the United States or in the United States include:

• A female UAC at St. PJ’s shelter in San Antonio reported that another female UAC attempted to molest her and four other female UACs, including trying to “put her hand between her legs.”  The perpetrator was “redirected by staff”
• A female UAC at Southwest Key in Conroe, TX, reported she was repeatedly raped on her journey to the US resulting in her pregnancy and when picked up by U.S. Immigration, the guide claimed the UAC was his wife
• A male UAC being cared for at the Southwest Key Program Antigua facility admitted that he had been a human smuggler himself for the past two years, since the age of 13/14, and was “paid $100-$200 per person that he crossed over” into the U.S.
• A female UAC at Southwest Key El Presidente reported she was sexually molested by her guide throughout her journey to the U.S.
• A male AUC at the Morrison shelter in Portland admitted to being a drug smuggler and “line guard” for a drug cartel
• A male UAC at the Bethany Christian Service Shelter reported having been a drug smuggler for a Mexican cartel and making “18 or 19 trips since he started.” He also said that both his parents and his maternal uncle worked in drug smuggling as well, by welding secret drug storage compartments into vehicles and by transporting drug money
• A female UAC from the Shiloh RTC reported that the person who claimed to US authorities to be her grandmother in order to get the UAC into the US was not, in fact, her grandmother but had brought her into the U.S. from Honduras to make her work “as a prostitute”
• A male UAC at IES Driscoll claimed he was raped by another male UAC while in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol but claimed he didn’t report it because he was “told by border patrol not to ask so many questions or talk”

Examples of U.S. government contractors and employees allegedly abusing, assaulting or having sexual relationships with UACs include the following:

• A male UAC claimed a female teacher at Southwest Key shelter in Phoenix “seductively” massaged his leg, lay in his bed with him and exposed her genital area to him
• A female UAC at a Boystown shelter claimed she had been raped by English-speaking men after being taken into custody by U.S. immigration officials and being transported to a shelter
• A female UAC claimed that while at a Southwest Key shelter in Ventura County, CA, she and a group of other female UACs had been awakened early by staff members, taken outside and “wetted” [a slang term referring to vaginal touching] by staffers who told her it was a “normal activity”
• A female UAC reported an allegation of abuse by program staff at Sandy Pines [Residential Treatment Center, Jupiter, FL], claiming she had been in a “girlfriend relationship” with a female staff member
• A female UAC in the Bokenkamp facility reported that an immigration officer put “his hand in between the pants and stomach of another female minor.” She also claimed a few days later that the officer “touched her thigh in an inappropriate manner.”
• A 17-year-old male UAC in the Baptist Family and Children Services, San Antonio, TX, reported he was “in a relationship,” begun while he was a minor, with a 24-year-old staff member at IES Driscoll.
• A male UAC at IES Driscoll reported a “childcare worker who had been passing letters to him as well as having conversations” which made him believe the childcare worker “wanted to have sex with him.” The childcare worker reportedly made statements like “Let’s go to the bathroom; Let’s go to the house alone; He wants to suck it; I love you very much…. Really I do.” He also reported he was promised a $200 bracelet.
• A male UAC at the Baptist Family and Children Services Shelter in Fairfield, TX, told a staff member that when he was residing at the Union County facility (likely in New Jersey), “officers verbally abused the minors and encouraged them to fight whenever there were disagreements.” When a fight would break out, “staff would make bets and provide the ‘winner’ with outside food.”
• A male UAC at St. PJ’s Surge (apparently St. PJ’s Children’s Home in San Antonio) reported that he “had a relationship outside of boundaries” with “a program staff member at the facility where he was previously, Lackland AFB.”
• A male UAC at the Southwest Key Program Combes facility in Harlingen, TX, reported an allegation that a “Youth Care Worker” (YCW) there and a UAC were involved in an inappropriate relationship. He said that “he saw [redacted] crying and staff [redacted] hugging him” and overheard a conversation between the unidentified staff worker and the UAC, in which one of them said “this is not right between us.” The reporting UAC advised that other UACs were also aware of the relationship.
• A male UAC at the Southwest Key- Nueva Esperanza facility said that he’d had an “inappropriate relationship” with a female Youth Care Worker (YCW) at the Southwest Key-Casa Blanca shelter in San Antonio, including “physical contact at shelter”. The shelter staff member continued to “maintain contact” with the UAC after he left the shelter and had been to the UAC’s brother’s home in San Antonio.
• A male UAC at Catholic Charities in Houston claimed that his sponsor tried to force him to smoke pot, drink alcohol and snort cocaine

Other incidents include:

• A male UAC at a Friends of Youth facility asked a staffer that he be “put on soap restriction” because he “has snorted soap on 4 occasions”
• Social workers reported that a “sponsor’ of two UACs “might have provided false information to the IRS for unknown reasons”, and specifically, “included two Social Security numbers on her tax return”
• A female UAC was given an abortion on October 14, 2014. The pregnancy reportedly was a result of rape during her journey, which was previously reported in August. (The federal government’s facilitating an abortion might have violated federal law.)

The Obama administration presided over a humanitarian and public safety nightmare in its handling of “unaccompanied alien children.” The incident reports also support the Trump administration’s contention that the UAC crisis, which continues, includes murderers, rapists, drug smugglers and human traffickers being routinely allowed into the United States.

This is just pure horror, and it is not at all surprising that the Obama administration suppressed this information and it took Judicial Watch’s relentless pushing to uncover this scandal.

 

The John Brennan-Harry Reid Collusion to ‘Get Trump’

The FBI has been getting all of the attention in the Deep State’s slow-motion soft coup against President Donald Trump, but Obama CIA Director John Brennan was in up to his nose on this abuse.

And it will surprise no one that Brennan seems to have worked hand-in-hand with Senator Harry Reid, then-Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate.

We’re aiming to find out just how these two gentlemen worked their plan. We have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for records of communications with former Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and his staff regarding the anti-Trump dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:18-cv-01502)).

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid reportedly believed then-Obama CIA Director Brennan was feeding him information about alleged links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in order to make public accusations:

According to “Russian Roulette,” by Yahoo! News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of the left-wing Mother Jones magazine, Brennan contacted Reid on Aug. 25, 2016, to brief him on the state of Russia’s interference in the presidential campaign. Brennan briefed other members of the so-called Gang of Eight, but Reid is the only who took direct action.

Two days after the briefing, Reid wrote a letter to then-FBI Director James Comey asserting that “evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount.”

Reid called on Comey to investigate the links “thoroughly and in a timely fashion.”

Reid saw Brennan’s outreach as “a sign of urgency,” Isikoff and Corn wrote in the book.

“Reid also had the impression that Brennan had an ulterior motive. He concluded the CIA chief believed the public needed to know about the Russian operation, including the information about the possible links to the Trump campaign.”

According to the book, Brennan told Reid that the intelligence community had determined that the Russian government was behind the hack and leak of Democratic emails and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind it. Brennan also told Reid that there was evidence that Russian operatives were attempting to tamper with election results.

Indeed, on August 27, 2016, Reid wrote a letter to Comey accusing President Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russian government.

We filed our FOIA lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the CIA failed to respond to our simple February 12, 2018, FOIA request for:

• All records of communications, including but not limited to letters, emails, text messages, and instant chats, between former CIA Director John Brennan and/or officials in the CIA Director’s Office on the one hand, and Senator Harry Reid and/or members of Senator Reid’s staff on the other hand, regarding, concerning or relating to the Christopher Steele “dossier” and/or alleged “collusion” between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

• Copies of any reports, memoranda or other materials provided to Senator Reid and/or members of his staff by the CIA relating to alleged Russian “collusion” or cooperation between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
• All materials, including briefing reports and memos, audio/video presentations, PowerPoint presentations and any other records, used by CIA Director Brennan and/or other CIA officials to brief Senator Reid and/or members of his staff on alleged “collusion” between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

• All notes, minutes, transcripts, and audio and/or visual recordings made of any and all briefings provided by the CIA to Senator Reid and/or members of his staff regarding alleged “collusion” between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Brennan has come under public scrutiny as one of the suspected prime movers of the “Spygate” scandal against then-candidate Trump and his team during 2015 and 2016 and later against President Trump and members of his administration.

Brennan himself has revealed his deep-seated animus toward President Trump and used his media platform as an MSNBC commentator to repeatedly attack the president.

When President Trump tweeted about FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s firing in March 2018, Brennan retweeted and responded:

When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.

In response to the president’s tweet that former FBI director Comey is a “proven leaker and liar,” Brennan retweeted and responded in April 2018 that President Trump’s administration is a failing “kakistocracy.”

Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s unhinged attacks on President Trump help explain the Obama administration spying abuses targeting Trump. The mere fact that we had to file this lawsuit shows the CIA has something to hide on Obama-era abuses and collusion with Democrats in Congress to target then-candidate Trump.

We filed a separate FOIA lawsuit against the CIA on March 6, 2017, for records related to the investigation of former Trump National Security Advisor and retired United States Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency et al. (No.1:17-cv-00397)).

Per the usual stonewalling, the National Security Agency refused to confirm or deny the existence of intelligence records about communications between Gen. Flynn and Amb. Kislyak.

That our nation’s federal spy and police agencies were hijacked for partisan gain is frightening.

 

Until next week …