Justice Department Records
Detail Biden Pressure on Special Counsel Hur
We received 49
pages of records from the Department of Justice detailing pressure by
the Biden White House and Joe Biden’s personal lawyers on Special Counsel
Robert Hur regarding the October 2023 interviews
of then-President Biden in the criminal investigation into his theft,
retention, and disclosure of classified records.
These records show
how desperate the Biden gang was to hide the full truth about Biden’s
failing memory and criminality.
We filed a July 2024 FOIA lawsuit
against the Department of Justice for all communications about the Hur
report with the Office of the White House Counsel and Biden’s personal
lawyers (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-02179)).
We
have several ongoing FOIA
lawsuits about Biden’s document scandals and the related unprecedented
partisan prosecutorial and judicial abuses of former President Donald J.
Trump.
In April 2025, we uncovered Justice Department records
showing White House staffers suggesting edits to transcripts of President
Biden’s interview with Hur.
In February 2025, a federal
court ordered
the Department of Justice to declare whether it intends to continue denying
our request for the full audio of the Hur interview. The Trump Justice
Department has until May 20, 2025, to report its position on the release of
the videotape.
In June 2024, the Biden administration was forced
to admit
that the
transcripts of audio recordings of Biden’s interviews had been altered
and are not accurate.
The new records include an October 18,
2023, letter,
just a few days after Hur’s interviews of Biden, from the Special Counsel
to the President Richard Sauber and Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer
to Hur, in which they express concerns about the release of the
report:
At our meeting last Friday, we requested that you
provide an overview of where matters stand in this case, particularly any
remaining questions or concerns we should address. We also asked for the
opportunity to discuss
your expected report to the Attorney General at the conclusion of the
investigation, including time to review it prior to its submission to the
Attorney General. You advised us that you were not prepared to engage with
these requests at that time but would take them under consideration.
***
Moreover, to the extent that your
report touches in any way upon procedures in this or prior administrations
for the handling of sensitive national security information, your report
will also be read with intense interest in every foreign capital. It could
affect the national security interests of the United States in ways that
none of us can anticipate.
An October 31, 2023, email
from Sauber to the Special Counsel’s Office documents the repeated
efforts by the Biden legal team to review the report before its release.
The letter states:
In our October 18 letter to you, we
asked to have the opportunity to review and comment on a draft of the
“confidential” report that you are required to write under the Special
Counsel regulations. We also noted that we would follow up on the subject
of the Special Counsel’s “final report” requirement more
broadly.
***
At a minimum, the
report should adhere to the kind of product
contemplated by the Special Counsel regulations. As discussed, in contrast
to the detailed independent counsel reports setting forth a “full and
complete” description of their work, the Special Counsel regulations
contemplate only that the Special Counsel will “explain[] the prosecution
or declination decisions.” … We support your faithful fulfillment of
this requirement. But, consistent with the Department’s description of a
“limited” and “summary” product, … , the report should be
economical. It should include the factual information necessary to the
charging decision, but facts or events that are not essential to the
decision have no place….
In a December 15,
2023, letter
Sauber and Bauer reiterate the request and also ask for access to the
classification review of the materials found and the return of the records
of a personal nature to Biden.
In a January 3, 2024, letter
Sauber and Bauer again reiterate the request for a pre-release
review and express concern that the final report provide an “appropriate
public presentation” of the facts of the case.
Non-disclosure
agreements signed by the president’s lawyers are included in the
records.
On January 5, 2024, “RKHSC,” (Robert K. Hur, special
counsel) sends an
email to Bauer and others discussing “nondisclosure agreement and
certification.” The non-disclosure agreement and certification
state:
NON-DISCLOSURE
AGREEMENT
- This agreement applies to the
review by members of the White House Counsel’s Office and
personal counsel of the report of the Special Counsel’s
Office.
- Review will be limited to the following people: Ed Siskel
(White House Counsel), Richard Sauber (Special Counsel to the President),
Rachel Cotton (Senior Counsel to the President), Robert Bauer (personal
counsel), and Jennifer Miller (personal counsel). This agreement refers to
this group collectively as
“counsel.”
CERTIFICATION
By
this certification, I affirm to the Department of Justice that I have and
will continue to adhere to the terms of the attached non-disclosure
agreement …
I understand that Title 18, United States Code, Section
1001, makes it a felony to knowingly and willfully make a materially false
statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of
the Government of the United States.
On January 9, Bauer
emails his and Jennifer
Miller’s non-disclosure agreements and certifications to Hur and
others.
In a February 5, 2024, letter
to Hur, Sauber and Bauer outline their complaints about the draft report.
The first concern they raise is the report’s characterization of
Biden’s failing memory:
We do
not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is
accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to
describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of
years-old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice
report, particularly one that in the first paragraph announces that no
criminal charges are “warranted” and that “the evidence does not
establish Mr. Biden’s guilt.” If the evidence does not establish guilt,
then discussing the jury impact of President Biden’s hypothetical
testimony at a trial that will never occur is entirely
superfluous.
In the February 5, 2024, “Report of the
Special Counsel on the Investigation Into Unauthorized Removal, Retention,
and Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered at Locations Including
the Penn Biden Center and the Delaware Private Residence of President
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.”
Hur called Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”
and declined
to charge Biden with a “serious felony:”
We have
also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a
jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic,
well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct
interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many
jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to
convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president
well into his
eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of
willfulness.
Prior to the finalization of the report,
the White House issued a
letter to the Special Counsel’s office attacking the report’s
“treatment of President Biden’s memory,” and added “there is ample
evidence from your interview that the President did well in answering your
questions …”
We expect the Hur tapes will finally be released to
Judicial Watch at any time now, so come back here for more
details.
Five Million Names Cleaned from Voter Rolls
Thanks to
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch is the leader in restoring
integrity to our election system. In Investigative Bulletin,
Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, provides an overview
of our historic work.
Judicial Watch made history last
month when new developments in landmark legal actions led to the
inactivation, processing, or removal of more than five million ineligible
names from voter rolls nationwide. “Judicial Watch’s clean-up of over
five million dirty names from voter
rolls is a historic achievement for clean elections,” said Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton. “I have no doubt that Judicial Watch’s election
integrity heavy lifting helped stop the steal in 2024. But there are
millions of more names to be removed from voter rolls.”
Clean
elections matter. Dirty voter rolls—the presence of voters who have been
disqualified from voting due to death or a change of address—create
opportunities for fraud, opening the door to illegal votes swinging close
elections. A key weapon in the battle for clean elections is the National
Voter Registration Act. The NVRA directs the states to make “a reasonable
effort” to remove from voting rolls “the names of ineligible voters”
who have been disqualified from voting due to death or change of
residence.
Judicial Watch has been deploying the NVRA for years in
courts across the land, pressuring state governments to clean up their
voter
rolls. Recent developments in cases in Kentucky and New York put Judicial
Watch past the five million milestone.
In Kentucky, state election
board officials reported
that “roughly 735,000 ineligible voter registrations” have been removed
from voter rolls, as part of a 2018 consent decree settling a Judicial
Watch lawsuit. “Since the consent decree was entered,” election
officials notes, “a lot has changed. The State Board of Elections has
worked overtime to comply with the consent decree and to clean up
Kentucky’s voter rolls.”
A lot has changed in New York
City too. As part of 2022 settlement
with Judicial Watch, New York City began removing the names of ineligible
voters from its voting rolls. Following the settlement, New York removed
440,000 ineligible names. New
data for March 2023 to February 2025 show the removal of another
477,000 names—a total of more than 900,000 names.
Judicial Watch
has notched victories in election integrity cases across America. In Los
Angeles, county officials confirmed the removal of more than 1.2 million
names from voter rolls as part of a settlement
of a 2017 Judicial Watch lawsuit. Judicial Watch legal pressure also
resulted in election roll clean-ups in Pennsylvania,
Colorado,
North
Carolina, Kentucky,
and Ohio.
Judicial
Watch continues to pursue cases in Illinois,
Oregon,
and California.
President
Trump recognized the importance of election integrity efforts with a March
25 Executive Order, “Preserving
and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The sweeping
order notes two key areas where
Judicial Watch has long been a national leader.
One is voter roll
clean-up under the National Voter Registration Act. “Maintaining accurate
voter registration lists” through the NVRA and other federal laws “is a
fundamental requirement in protecting voters from having their ballots
voided or diluted by fraudulent votes,” the presidential order notes. It
directs “the Attorney General [to] take appropriate action with respect
to states that fail to comply with the list maintenance requirements” of
the NVRA.
The presidential order notes a second area where Judicial
Watch has long been active: fighting to ensure that Election Day remains
just that—a single day. “Federal law establishes a uniform Election Day
across the Nation for Federal elections,” the order says. But “numerous
States fail to comply with those laws by counting ballots received after
Election Day. This is like allowing persons who arrive
three days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to
vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be
absurd.”
Judicial Watch has mounted numerous legal challenges to
states seeking to stretch Election Day into Election Week or Election
Month.
In Mississippi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit sided with Judicial Watch. The full Fifth Circuit court declined to
revisit the appellate panel ruling that ballots arriving after Election Day
cannot be counted.
The appellate panel ruled
that
“Congress statutorily designated a singular ‘day for the election’ of
members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors. Text,
precedent, and historical practice confirm that this ‘day for the
election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and
received by state officials.”
In an Illinois case, Judicial Watch
has asked
the U.S. Supreme Court to review lower court rulings that allow the
state to count mail-in ballots as late as fourteen days after
election day.
And in California, Judicial Watch filed a federal
lawsuit to prevent state officials from transforming Election Day into
Election Week. The Judicial
Watch lawsuit was filed on behalf of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa
to prevent state election officials from extending Election Day for seven
days beyond the date established by federal law.
“Despite
Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding a single and
uniform national Election Day,” says the Judicial Watch lawsuit,
“California modified and extended Election Day by allowing seven
additional days after
Election Day for receipt of vote-by-mail ballots.”
The lawsuit
notes that late-arriving ballots can “change electoral outcomes in
California.” Two of Rep. Issa’s Republican colleagues were leading on
Election Night 2024 “but ultimately lost reelection due to late-arriving
[vote-by-mail] ballots.
Issa called on California to fix its
“broken systems of elections.” In California, he told
Breitbart, “Election Day has become Election Month and ballots are
counted until Democrats are declared the
winner.”
Corruption
at Border Agency Still a Problem a Decade after Expose
An
agency we created to protect our borders is still hamstrung by corruption,
as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
A
decade after a Homeland Security Advisory Council determined that “true
levels of corruption within CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are not
known,” a myriad of cases, including several in the last few weeks
alone, indicates the problem is as serious as it was ten years ago at the
nation’s biggest law enforcement agency. With more than 60,000 employees,
CBP is the country’s frontline border conglomerate charged with keeping
terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. The agency, which includes Air
and Marine Operations and the U.S. Border Patrol, was created after the
2001 terrorist attacks to protect the American people and safeguard our
borders. In
its 20th anniversary celebration,
CBP proclaimed that it continues to grow stronger, more dynamic and capable
of taking on our nation’s most important challenges.
But corruption
among its agents is persistent, inevitably compromising its critical
mission of protecting the nation from potential terrorist threats. The
problem is so serious that the agency conducted a widespread, multi-year study
of
corruption in CBP that includes “detailed information on its nature and
prevalence in the workforce.” The probe found that only one quarter of
one percent of the CBP workforce is corrupt—defined as engagement in
criminal activity that involves the misuse of an agent’s official
position for personal gain—but the impact has had “significant and
damaging implications for CBP’s reputation, ability to execute its
mission, and on employee morale,” according to investigators. Corrupt
agents use knowledge, access, or authority granted by virtue of their
official position to personally engage in criminal activity or to
facilitate the criminal activity of others. In exchange, they receive
material and non-material benefits or advantages such as money, goods,
services, power, influence, or relationships.
In many of the cases
officers either infiltrate CBP with the express intent of engaging in
criminal activity or are
recruited by drug cartels, officially known as Transnational Criminal
Organizations (TCOs), to do so. “They facilitate drug and human smuggling
exclusively at the Southwest Border by failing to perform a function of
their inspection or enforcement responsibilities,” the extensive probe
found. Investigators documented that 173 employees were convicted or
entered guilty pleas for corruption related activities. That includes drug
smuggling, money laundering, illegal alien smuggling, fraud, theft, and
misuse of government technology. The overwhelming majority of cases
involved illegal activity in direct opposition to the CBP mission with
national security implications and crimes occurred at dozens of duty posts
in 19 states with Texas leading the pack, followed by Arizona. More than
half of the crimes involved the illegal smuggling of drugs, migrants, and
other contraband into the United State.
In recent cases that had not
yet
occurred when the study was published, a Border Patrol agent in El Paso,
Texas was sentenced
to 18 months in prison for soliciting bribes from illegal immigrants
from El Salvador and Mexico in exchange for paperwork that would permit
them to remain in the U.S. The disgraced federal agent, Fernando Castillo,
made false entries in the migrants’ immigration file and printed the
fraudulent documents. In another recent case a Border Patrol agent was
sentenced to over seven years in prison after getting convicted of
taking bribes to smuggle narcotics and migrants across the U.S.-Mexico
border while on duty. The corrupt agent, Hector Hernandez, pleaded guilty
to receiving bribes and attempted distribution of methamphetamine and
admitted to using his official position to open restricted border fences to
allow people to illegally enter the U.S. in exchange for cash payments. A
CBP officer in San Diego, California was recently sentenced to 23
years in prison for accepting bribes to allow unauthorized
migrants and vehicles containing methamphetamine and other illicit drugs to
pass through the border into the U.S.
Less than halfway into 2025, at
least six CBP agents have been criminally charged, four of them in the last
few weeks. In February the FBI El Paso West Texas Border Corruption Task
Force arrested a veteran CBP officer named Manuel Perez for human and
cocaine smuggling over many years on the El Paso border. In March a CBP
officer was sentenced to over four years in prison
for accepting bribes
to smuggle illegal immigrants into the U.S. In late April a jury
convicted a Border Patrol agent of conspiring with Mexican nationals to
allow “load” vehicles to pass through border crossings without
inspection. Earlier this month three CBP officers in San Diego were indicted
for allowing illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. through their inspection
lanes at the San Ysidro Point of
Entry.
DC Government Makes LGBTQIA+
Queer Training Mandatory
Your nation’s capital has taken a
headfirst dive down the rabbit hole of leftist mania, as our Corruption
Chronicles blog explains.
In
the latest move to advance leftist policies in local government adjacent to
the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia is forcing every
department manager—and highly encouraging all employees—to undergo a
special training on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (or
Questioning), Intersex, Asexual, and more (LGBTQIA+). The course is titled
“LGBTQIA+ Cultural Humility: A Space for Queer Life Training,”
according to a memorandum
distributed to “all District Government Personnel” by Charles Hall Jr.,
the director of the DC Department of Human Resources. “We’re excited to
introduce a vital new training initiative from the Mayor’s Office of
LGBTQ Affairs, designed to foster a more inclusive and understanding
workplace,” the memo, which was obtained by Judicial Watch this week,
states. “This training is MANDAORY for all managers and highly encouraged
for all DC Employees to complete by July 30th. 2025.” It is worth noting
that the directive specifically excludes the 13-member DC
Council, which is comprised of representatives from each of the eight wards
and four members elected at large.
Attached to the human resources
director’s memo is a short video message from a “workforce
specialist” at the DC Mayor’s
Office of LGBTQA Affairs, which is dedicated to connecting LGBTQA
residents with city services, advocating on behalf of policies that benefit
them, providing grants to organizations that serve them and hosting events
that enrich, promote and bring together the LGBTQA community. The workforce
specialist, Rae Dyson, is a former Biden administration official and was
recently hired by the DC Mayor’s office
because her skills to empower individuals will be instrumental in leading
trainings and expanding opportunities for DC’s LGBTQIA+ workforce,
according to an announcement posted on social media. In the video attached
to Hall’s memo Dyson introduces herself and promotes the new LGBTQIA+
training for all public employees, especially licensed health professionals
who she says can receive two continuing education credits for completing
it.
The training promises to go beyond surface-level awareness by
delving into critical areas such as intersectionality, health disparities,
legal protections and creating inclusive environments. Intersectionality is
described in Hall’s memo as “understanding the complex interplay of
various social identities.” The health disparities training recognizes
and addresses the unique health challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community
and the portion on legal protections will clarify relevant laws and
policies for the demographic. Practical strategies for building a
respectful and supportive workplace for all will be covered in the section
dedicated to creating inclusive environments. “Why is this training
important?” the HR memo asks. “By participating, you’ll gain valuable
insights that will contribute to a more equitable and welcoming environment
for your colleagues and the community we serve.” The HR document further
states that the training “provides the tools necessary to create a
workplace where everyone feels valued and respected.”
Besides
widespread corruption among elected officials, DC government is notorious
for its excessive leftist policies, which are typically described as
progressive in the mainstream media. A few years ago, the DC Council
passed legislation
allowing incarcerated convicted felons to vote and months later a jailed
murderer won public office in a DC election that featured five inmate
candidates from the same prison. DC also established a Council
Office of Racial Equity (CORE) to tackle racism as part of a
broader initiative
to establish a racial equity framework across the entire DC government by,
among other things requiring mandatory racial equity training for DC
government employees as well as conducting racial
equity impact assessments on council measures. A few years ago, DC’s
Racial Equity Office ruled that installing an Abraham Lincoln Spirit of
Freedom Emancipation Statue at the African American Civil War Museum would
widen racial inequity.
With DC crime out of control, local leaders
wasted over a quarter of a million dollars to promote the extremist Black
Lives Matter movement after days of protests and riots, allowing artists,
residents, DC employees and demonstrators to paint “Black Lives Matter”
in 50-foot-tall yellow capital letters and the District’s crest, which
resembles three stars above an “equals” sign, on 16th Street NW near
the White House. Judicial Watch obtained records
from the DC Department of Transportation that show it cost taxpayers
$271,231 to repaint the Black Lives Matter slogan on a street in the
nation’s capital.
Until next week,
