PARDON SCANDAL: The Biden Family’s Arc of Corruption
JUDICIAL WATCH VICTORY: Court Finds Fani Willis in Default, Orders Her to Produce Records
Judicial Watch Sues Justice about Milley/Garland Meeting
$67.5 Billion Saved after Federal Agencies are Directed to Improve Efficiency
PARDON SCANDAL: The Biden Family’s Arc of Corruption
Joe Biden’s execrable pardon of Hunter perfectly fits the Biden family’s arc of corruption. The pardon seems to be all about protecting Joe Biden and helping ensure his son will be less likely to testify against him. Indeed, Joe Biden’s pardon statement is full of false allegations about how Hunter’s prosecution (hamstrung by his very own Justice Department) was selective and corrupt. The only “selective prosecution” involved here is the decision not to select Joe Biden for prosecution.
The Biden gang tried to rig the prosecution of Hunter. It failed largely because of honest IRS whistleblowers and one tough judge. Joe Biden has broken his “promise” and pardoned Hunter for his role in the treasonous Chinese and Ukrainian business relationships involved in the tax case.
President Biden arguably overstepped his constitutional authority on Sunday by issuing an unusual blanket pardon for Hunter Biden for any and all offenses (known and unknown) for a ten-year time period (up until this week!).
As Joe Biden did not pardon himself, he can and should face a serious criminal investigation for his family corruption ring.
Will Attorney General Garland resign in protest and outrage now that Joe Biden has stated Garland’s prosecution of Hunter Biden was corrupt and selective? Are Biden’s criticisms of the Justice Department’s employees as corrupt and “dangerous” or is that only true when Republicans, Trump, and conservatives criticize the Justice Department?
In the meantime, we have already expanded our Biden family corruption investigations to include this latest pardon scandal.
We have multiple federal lawsuits focused on Biden family corruption:
In June 2024, we received records from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) showing Mike Morell, former acting CIA director under President Obama, requesting CIA permission to publish a letter by former intelligence community leaders stating that they believed the laptop emails exposing Hunter Biden’s connections to Ukraine were Russian disinformation. Morrell’s request for prepublication review was approved in just six hours by the CIA.
In May 2023, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the National Archives for Biden family records and communications regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as communications between the Bidens and several known business associates.
On October 14, 2022, we sued the Justice Department for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’ investigation of Hunter Biden.
In December 2020, State Department records obtained through a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit showed that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings.
In October 2020, we forced the release of State Department records that included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings.
Given the record, one can expect more corruption to emerge from the Biden crime family. And one can expect Judicial Watch to be there to pursue the truth.
JUDICIAL WATCH VICTORY: Court Finds Fani Willis in Default, Orders Her to Produce Records
The lawfare against Donald Trump has not only been corrupt but also sloppy.
The Superior Court in Fulton County entered an order granting a motion for default judgment against District Attorney Fani Willis in our lawsuit for communications Willis had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. In doing so, the court grants our request for attorneys’ fees and orders Willis to search for and provide releasable records to us within five business days.
We filed our March 2024 lawsuit in the Superior Court of Fulton County, GA, after Willis and the county denied having any records responsive to an August 2023 Georgia Open Records Act (ORA) request for communications with the Special Counsel’s office and/or the January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).
In our lawsuit we stated that Willis’ “representation about not having records responsive to the request is likely false.” We referred to a December 5, 2023, letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to Willis that cites a December 2021 letter from Willis to then-House January 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS). In that letter Willis requested assistance from the committee and offered to travel to DC.
In May 2024, we asked the court to declare a default judgment, noting that Willis was served with the lawsuit in March 2024 and had “not filed an answer,” which “was due 30 days after service.”
The recently issued default judgment states: “The Court finds Defendant [Willis, in her official capacity] is in default and has been since 11 April 2024.” Further, Willis “never moved to open default on any basis (not even during the period when she could have opened default as a matter of right), she never paid costs, and she never offered up a meritorious defense.”
Plaintiff is thus entitled to judgment by default as if every item and paragraph of the complaint were supported by proper and sufficient evidence. O.C.G.A. § 9-11-55(a). Here, this means Plaintiff has established that Defendant violated the ORA by failing to either turn over responsive records or else notify Plaintiff of her decision to withhold some or all such records.
In its complaint, Plaintiff sought the following relief:
1) a declaration that Defendant has violated the ORA;
2) an order for Defendant to search for all records responsive to Plaintiff’s request without further delay;
3) an injunction ordering Defendant to cease withholding non-exempt public records responsive to the request;
4) an award of attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(b);
5) a writ of mandamus, ordering Defendant to provide the requested records; and
6) any other relief the Court deems proper.
By finding Defendant in default, the Court has in effect declared that she has violated the ORA. The Court also hereby ORDERS Defendant to conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials within five business days of the entry of this Order. Within that same five day period, Defendant is ORDERED to provide Plaintiff with copies of all responsive records that are not legally exempted or excepted from disclosure. If Defendant is required or decides to withhold all or part of a requested record, she should follow the procedures set forth in the ORA (see O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71(d)). If the records are stored electronically, they may be produced electronically in a commonly used format such as PDF. The Court expects that such production will include the correspondence identified by Plaintiff in its complaint. If it does not, Defendant is further ORDERED to provide an explanation why such correspondence does not exist in Defendant’s records (or why it is being withheld). Beyond that, no other relief, injunctive or otherwise, is necessary at this time (to include striking Defendant’s answer, which is of no effect based on the Court’s finding of default).
The court set a hearing on our attorneys’ fees for December 20.
Fani Willis is something else. We’ve been doing this work for 30 years, and this is the first time in our experience a government official has been found in default for not showing up in court to answer an open records lawsuit. We look forward to getting any documents from the Fani Willis operation about collusion with the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress on her unprecedented and compromised “get-Trump” prosecution.
We have several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits related to the prosecutorial abuse targeting Trump:
In February 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court to allow the agency to keep secret the names of top staffers working in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office that is targeting former President Donald Trump and other Americans.
(Before his appointment to investigate and prosecute Trump, Smith was at the center of several controversial issues, the IRS scandal among them. In 2014, a Judicial Watch investigation revealed that top IRS officials had been in communication with Jack Smith’s then-Public Integrity Section about a plan to launch criminal investigations into conservative tax-exempt groups. Read more here.)
In January 2024, we filed a lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, for records regarding the hiring of Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor by District Attorney Fani Willis. Wade was hired to pursue unprecedented criminal investigations and prosecutions against former President Trump and others over the 2020 election disputes.
In October 2023, we sued the DOJ for records and communications between the Office of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney’s office regarding requests/receipt of federal funding/assistance in the investigation of former President Trump and his 18 co defendants in the Fulton County indictment of August 14, 2023. To date, the DOJ is refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records, claiming that to do so would interfere with enforcement proceedings. Judicial Watch’s litigation challenging this is continuing.
Through the New York Freedom of Information Law, in July 2023,we received the engagement letter showing New York County District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg paid $900 per hour for partners and $500 per hour for associates to the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm for the purpose of suing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an effort to shut down the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight investigation into Bragg’s unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Be sure to check back next week to find out what, if any, documents Fani Willis finally does turn over to Judicial Watch!
Judicial Watch Sues Justice about Milley/Garland Meeting
In what looks like military coup-like behavior, it seems that Joe Biden’s Joint Chiefs Chairman was busy colluding with other administration apparatchiks, specifically Merrick Garland, against Donald Trump and countless other Americans.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for details of a reported meeting between Attorney General Merrick Garland and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark A. Milley in which they discussed President Trump and during which Milley pressured Garland to target American “far right” militia movements (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-03380)).
We sued after the Justice Department failed to respond to an October 15, 2024, FOIA request for:
Records and communications including emails, email chains, email attachments, text message meeting minutes, outlook calendars, voice recordings, video recordings, correspondence, statements, letters, memoranda, letters, reports, briefings, cables, presentations, notes, or other form of record, regarding a meeting between Merrick Garland, Attorney General, DOJ, and General Mark Alexander Milley, former, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concerning:
(1) President or former President Donald J. Trump
(2) Domestic Violent Extremism
(3) Far-right Militia Movements.
The request asks that records be provided for the period from January 7, 2021, to October 15, 2024.
In his recent book, journalist Bob Woodward wrote that in early 2021 Garland and Milley met for lunch at the Department of Justice. They discussed then-former President Donald J. Trump, and Chairman Milley pressed the attorney general to investigate domestic threats and “far-right militia groups.” Woodward described the meeting as “highly unusual, if not unprecedented.”
Milley and Garland’s reported meeting about targeting President Trump and other American citizens further demonstrates the Biden administration was and is at odds with the foundational principles of our constitutional republic. And that the Justice Department would flout FOIA law to hide the details of this conspiracy meeting speaks volumes about its contempt for the rule of law.
$67.5 Billion Saved after Federal Agencies are Directed to Improve Efficiency
President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) lieutenants can’t come soon enough, as our Corruption Chronicles blog points out.
Demonstrating the need for President-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, the investigative arm of Congress had to direct some government agencies to “improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs” in order to save a colossal $67.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, which ended in September. Otherwise, American taxpayers would be forced to pick up the tab for yet more government waste, which is rampant and has long persisted under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
To save the tens of billions, seemingly a drop in the bucket considering the government spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024, the few federal agencies involved had to receive instructions from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The nonpartisan and independent Congressional watchdog examines how taxpayer dollars are spent and provides lawmakers with objective and fact-based information to help the government save money and work more efficiently. Here are some examples that led to the latest savings. The GAO directed Medicaid to better align states’ estimates for demonstrations with recent costs, saving $13.4 billion. The Department of Energy (DOE) halted construction on a facility that is no longer necessary for treating nuclear and hazardous waste, saving $6 billion. The Department of Defense (DOD) was instructed to identify improper payments, errors, and fraud, resulting in $4.8 billion in savings. The Small Business Administration (SBA) was forced to crack down on the rampant fraud of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that doled out monstrous sums of money to small businesses recovering from the pandemic, resulting in the decline of $2.1 billion in ineligible or fraudulent applicants.
The list of examples continues and can be viewed in detail in the GAO’s lengthy report, which was recently released to the public and covers the agency’s overall performance and accountability for 2024. The watchdog estimates that the questionable programs it is currently targeting will save American taxpayers at least $50 billion in fiscal year 2025. The GAO has cracked down on tens of thousands of reckless government programs since 2002, saving approximately $1.45 trillion. However, many federal agencies have blown off thousands of recommendations that could result in $106 billion to $208 billion in financial benefits, according to GAO estimates. The congressional watchdog implies that it more than earns its keep with a budget that is a lot smaller—$811.9 million in fiscal year 2024—than the money it saves taxpayers by promoting better management throughout government, which should occur without the GAO’s mandates.
Careless spending has long been an issue for government agencies, which are typically bloated and mismanaged, and the problem has worsened significantly under the Biden administration illustrating a need for the Department of Government Efficiency. The office will be headed by billionaire Elon Musk, the head of electric car company Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and social media platform X and Vivek Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and Yale Law School graduate. Besides cutting wasteful spending the new department will be tasked with dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing excess regulations, and restructuring federal agencies. It will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, according to Musk.
Judicial Watch has for decades exposed enormous amounts of government waste and this year alone has reported on well over a billion dollars in reckless spending, just a snippet of a widespread issue. That does not include mandatory spending such as Social Security, Medicare or military and homeland security, areas that are also plagued by waste. There is a category listed as “other” in which the government doled out an astonishing $238 billion in fiscal year 2024 and some of the allocations are downright outrageous. Examples range from $15 million to fight climate change in an Islamic nation that hates America and serves as a recruiting ground for terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to half a billion dollars to build electric vehicle charges in mostly underserved communities to $2 million to combat corruption in Mexican sports betting.
Until next week,
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