Justice Department Files Statement of Interest in Judicial Watch’s Lawsuit to Compel Oregon to Clean Voter Rolls

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in our lawsuit that calls on Oregon’s secretary of state to make “a reasonable effort to remove” the registrations of ineligible registrants from the voter rolls as required by federal law (Judicial Watch, et al. v. The State of Oregon et al. (No. 6:24-cv-01783)). U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. McShane set a hearing in the case for June 18 at 10:00 a.m.

We applaud the Trump Justice Department’s decision to join our effort to expose dirty voter rolls in Oregon. Judicial Watch, for years, has done the heavy lifting alone.

The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the official voter rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence. The law requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections. Judicial Watch’s lawsuit alleges Oregon’s voting rolls are among the worst maintained in the nation.

In a Justice Department press release Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon said: “Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in Oregon are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud…. States have specific obligations under the list maintenance provisions of the NVRA, and the Department of Justice will vigorously enforce those requirements.”

Our lawsuit pointed out that the federal “NVRA supersedes and preempts any Oregon law or practice” that claimed to limit or delegate the state’s obligations under federal law. The Justice Department’s statement of interest explains, “This case presents important questions regarding enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act,” adding, “Congress has vested the Attorney General with authority to enforce the NVRA on behalf of the United States.” The statement takes the same position as Judicial Watch when it argues that “[b]y its plain terms, the NVRA identifies one entity, the state, that is required to carry out obligations for voter registration administration[.]” The Justice Department focuses on the state’s obligation to make voter registration lists available to Judicial Watch and the public, as federal law requires.

We filed the lawsuit in October 2024 to enforce basic voter list maintenance provisions under Section 8 of the NVRA after uncovering a broad failure to clean up voter rolls in dozens of Oregon counties.

In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory.

Judicial Watch’s lawsuit argues that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law. Judicial Watch asserts that Oregon and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%; and that Oregon has the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation. In combination, all of these facts show that Oregon is failing to remove inactive registrations pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oregon, Eugene Division, to compel the defendants to comply with their voter list maintenance obligations under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

In April 2025, we announced that our analysis and use of voter registration lists has led to lawsuits and legal actions under the NVRA that have resulted in the removal of five million names from voter rolls in nearly a dozen states and localities over the last several years.

We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights.

In March 2025, we sent a notice letter to Lt. Governor Deidre M. Henderson, notifying her that Utah is currently in violation of the NVRA’s public disclosure requirements. The notice letter warns of a lawsuit after 90 days if the issues are not resolved

In May 2024, we sued California to clean up its voter rolls. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Judicial Watch and the Libertarian Party of California, similarly asks the court to compel California to make “a reasonable effort” to remove ineligible registrants from the rolls as required by federal law.

In July 2024, we asked a federal court to reject the State of Illinois’ motion to dismiss Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to compel the state to clean up its voter rolls. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, on behalf of Judicial Watch, the nonprofit organizations Illinois Family Action and Breakthrough Ideas, and Carol J. Davis, a lawfully registered Illinois voter.

Judicial Watch Sues Pentagon on Reported Covid Infections at Wuhan Games

We’re still uncovering the truth about Wuhan and Covid.

We filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense for all records regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October 2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:25-cv-01807)).

Our lawsuit cites a December 2022 report issued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games” which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their attendance at the games.

The report was not made public until April 2025, after former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) asked the Defense Department for a full investigation. While the report had been provided to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in December 2022, the Biden administration apparently suppressed it.

We sued the Defense Department after it failed to respond to an April 28, 2025, FOIA request for:

All reports, studies, memoranda, and/or analyses produced by or sent to the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of Defense, and/or Deputy Secretary of Defense related to US military personnel contracting a SARS-like or Covid-19-like virus at the Wuhan Games in October 2019.

In the 2021 documentary “What Really Happened in Wuhan,” Sky News Australia reported that a month after evidence emerged that the virus leaked from the Wuan Institute of Virology, the city of Wuhan hosted the Military Games, with more than 9,000 athletes from around the world in attendance. “The opening ceremony was held on October 18, 2019, and two weeks later, athletes begun returning home to more than 100 countries.”

The National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine published a January 2021 article, “The impact of the World Military Games on the COVID-19 pandemic,” which cites a study published on January 19, 2021 that “examined the hypothesis that the large gathering in a pandemic epicenter was a factor in the spread of COVID-19 disease.”

Let’s cut to the chase: the Pentagon should release each and every document about military personnel possibly being infected by Covid in 2019 in Wuhan, China – months before the public learned of Covid. The time for FOIA games is over.

We are the national leader in exposing key information about fraud, abuse, and government secrets concerning Covid-19. In the book “Rights and Freedoms in Peril: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on America” Tom Fitton examines the impact of Covid-19 related policies on electoral processes, and expresses concerns about the potential for increased voter fraud and chaos.

In May 2025, we received records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that reveal its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million healthcare employees and that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.

Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”

Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.

Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”

Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.

Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.

Food and Drug Administration records detailed pressure for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.

NIH records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.

HHS records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.

NIAID records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.

HHS records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international counsels as high level commitment from China.”

HHS records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.

HHS records showed the State Department and NIAID knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding Covid data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.

University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.

HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.

Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.

HHS records included emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19.

HHS records showed that NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.

Fauci emails included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.

Our four-part documentary regarding the coordinated effort by the government and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates is available here.

 

FBI’s Patel and Bongino: Hostages of the Deep State?

As many Americans do, we look at President Trump’s FBI and wonder what’s going on. Too many questions arise about the performance of its leaders. Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, takes a look in Investigative Bulletin.

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have been stalwart allies of the conservative movement—and good friends of Judicial Watch—for many years. Judicial Watch applauded their appointments as director and deputy director of the FBI. Expectations were high. In a statement following Patel’s confirmation as FBI director, JW President Tom Fitton noted that Patel has “his work set out for him.”  He called on Patel to “bring transparency and accountability back to an agency that became irredeemably corrupt and the tip of the spear in unfettered lawfare against any American seen as a threat to the ruling class. From sitting on Hunter Biden’s laptop in order to influence the 2020 election, the raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and the censorship of Americans, to the targeting of traditional Catholics, the FBI has shown itself as a tainted domestic and intelligence service.”

Veteran Washington reformers like Fitton understand that Patel’s time for true change is limited. The Deep State, the forces of inertia, and the political calendar are all working against him. These days, as well, conservative insiders are alarmed by mounting signs that Patel and Bongino have been taken hostage by the Deep State consensus and are failing to bring meaningful change to the FBI.

An early warning sign came in April when Patel plucked Steven Jensen from exile in Columbia, South Carolina, and appointed him head of the FBI’s powerful Washington Field Office. Conservatives were aghast. As chief of the Domestic Terrorism Section at FBI headquarters in 2020 and 2021, Jensen led a highly damaging law-enforcement campaign against the January 6 protestors, raising the specter of domestic terrorism.

Jensen was “a true believer in Joe Biden’s domestic terrorism narrative,” retired FBI supervisor George Hill told Miranda Devine of the New York Post, “…that every Trump supporter in and around Capitol Hill [on January 6] was an insurrectionist, a white supremacist and probably violent.”

Jensen “set up the infrastructure for that [domestic terrorism narrative],” Hill told Devine. “He made the decisions, set up the mechanisms whereby all the cases would be opened around the country to give the picture that this was a nationwide problem. Previously it would have been opened up [as one case with multiple suspects] in Washington — but by opening it that way, you allowed [then-FBI Director] Chris Wray to sit in Congress and say domestic terrorism was a nationwide problem.”

Patel and Bongino vigorously defended Jensen. Appearing on Fox News, they urged patience. “Just wait,” Bongino said, “and you’ll see. Nothing we’re doing—nothing—is by accident.”

Two months later, we’re still waiting.

Meanwhile, more concerns have surfaced. Media reports about Patel’s jet-setting lifestyle and love of sporting events can largely be dismissed as sour grapes from the opposition press. But the disquiet about the FBI’s lack of transparency and failure to mount significant investigations is not easily ignored.

Exhibit A is the uproar over the Jeffrey Epstein files. In February, following a much-ballyhooed campaign promising new disclosures, Attorney General Pam Bondi released an underwhelming batch of documents, most of which turned out to be already in the public domain or heavily redacted. Bondi pinned the blame on the FBI and promised more documents to come as soon as the next day. No documents were forthcoming. Judicial Watch repeatedly asked the FBI to turn over the Epstein files under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI did not respond to the JW requests and in April, Judicial Watch sued for the records. “The Justice Department needs to respond to public demands for transparency under law and release the Epstein files under FOIA,” said JW’s Fitton.

The Epstein case is not the only instance of a troubling lack of transparency at the Justice Department and the FBI. Officials have been stonewalling Judicial Watch—the national leader in FOIA actions related to government corruption—in some cases for years.

Seven years ago, for example, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit for text messages between FBI agents involved in the bogus “Russia Collusion” investigation of Donald Trump. The FBI has refused to turn over many of the texts and related documents—or even disclose what they are withholding.

JW sued the Justice Department—twice, in 2023 and 2024—for communications surrounding the controversial Hunter Biden laptop story. And in October 2024, JW sued the Justice Department for communications among top officials about anti-Trump social media posts by a senior agent involved in an investigation of a Florida  assassination attempt against Trump.

The Justice Department and FBI response to these requests? Stonewalls, silence, and foot-dragging.

Installation in key positions of Deep State actors like Jensen and lack of transparency are not the only strikes against Bondi, Patel, and Bongino. Perhaps most disturbing is their failure to act decisively to reduce the vast powers of the Justice Department and the FBI.

“President Trump was almost jailed by his own Justice Department in his first term,” Steve Bannon recently reminded viewers in a War Room interview with Fitton. It’s a segment worth viewing in its entirety.

“There’s no evidence the FBI thinks it is subject to the rule of law,” Fitton said. “Kash Patel and Pam Bondi need to take a much more aggressive [approach] and have an expansive understanding as to what their opportunities and roles are.”

“It’s a systemic problem,” Bannon said. “It’s not just a personnel problem. [The FBI] has to be taken apart brick by brick.”

The outlines of an aggressive inquiry that would set the stage for reducing the power of the Justice Department and FBI are obvious: get to the bottom of the targeting of Trump and his allies in the Russiagate scandal; look at the FBI role in the Hunter Biden laptop case and the limiting of the story’s media circulation at a critical moment in the 2020 election; expose the roots of the 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid; connect the dots of FBI targeting of conservative Catholics, parents attending school board meetings, and pro-life groups.

Doubtless Bondi, Patel, and Bongino have their hands full managing the day-to-day affairs of their giant bureaucracies. Conservatives still wish them well, but time is running out. And the president who promised to “demolish the Deep State” is watching from the White House. They will not be forgiven for bungling a historic opportunity.

L.A. Rioters Fight to Keep Rapists, Murderers, Gangbangers on City Streets

We’ve reported for years on the dangerous criminals among those who have illegally crossed our southern border. Now, those on the Left are pretending they don’t exist. Our Corruption Chronicles blog sets the record straight.

Rioters in Los Angeles are fighting to keep rapists, murderers, gangbangers and other violent criminals loose on city streets, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirms this week contradicting open border groups, media outlets and California Democrats who claim only hard-working, law-abiding immigrants were cruelly arrested in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICEO) sweeps that ignited pandemonium in the City of Angels. Federal agents and local police officers have been violently attacked, cars set on fire, businesses looted and roads blocked. Elected officials in the Golden State condemn the ICE operations as an attack on immigrant families and mainstream media outlets downplay the riots as protests and civil unrest. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed rioters burning cars and breaking windows as being caught up in “the exuberance of the moment.” The mainstream media coverage has also focused on the family men arrested by ICE and the spouses and children suffering over their sudden absence. A local newspaper story features an arrested migrant’s wife who joined a peaceful protest held by families of other detained men to make a public plea for help and due process.

DHS is setting the record straight by releasing detailed criminal information about the illegal immigrants—all men—recently arrested in the L.A. sweep, which started about a week ago. California sanctuary politicians and rioters are defending heinous illegal alien criminals including child pedophiles and other violent offenders at the expense of Americans’ safety, the agency created after 9/11 to safeguard the nation writes in a statement issued this week. Instead of rioting, Californians should be thanking ICE officers who make our communities safe, DHS further points out, questioning why California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass care more about violent criminal illegal aliens than they do about protecting their own citizens? While federal agents were getting assaulted in Bass’s city, she sided with lawlessness over law enforcement, according to ICE Director Todd Lyons, who reveals the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) took over two hours to respond when his agents, vastly outnumbered by over 1,000 rioters, were surrounded and attacked. “The brave men and women of ICE were in Los Angeles arresting criminal illegal aliens including gang members, drug traffickers and those with a history of assault, cruelty to children, domestic violence, robbery, and smuggling,” Lyons said.

DHS assures that ICE will continue to “arrest vicious illegal alien criminals” even as rioters disrupt law enforcement. Fortunately, President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to maintain order. Bass, L.A.’s leftist mayor, finally implemented a curfew after several nights of extensive looting and vandalism. She insists most of the rioters are peacefully demonstrating and called the curfew an effort to “curb bad actors who do not support the immigrant community.” She also demands that the immigration raids stop along with nearly two dozen other elected officials in the region. “When you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you deploy troops to our streets, you’re not trying to keep anyone safe – you’re trying to cause fear and panic,” said Bass, who was on a trip to Africa while her city burned earlier this year. She accused Trump of triggering a “chaotic escalation” by sending federalized troops and initially described the rioting as “reports of unrest.”

Here are some of the illegal immigrants arrested in the recent L.A. operation, which the feds say is ongoing. The DHS announcement includes photos of the perpetrators as well. They include Cuong Chanh Phan, who committed a notorious gang-affiliated murder of two teenagers at a graduation party; Eswin Uriel Castro, previously deported with criminal convictions for child molestation and being armed with a dangerous weapon. He has also been arrested for robbery and domestic violence; Anastacio Enrique Solis-Salinas, a Nicaragua convict, has convictions for domestic violence and hit and run and has been arrested for willful cruelty to a child; Rafael Gamez-Sanchez has been convicted of vehicular manslaughter; Miguel Angel Palafox-Montes, previously returned to Mexico twice, has been convicted of grand theft, narcotics violations and identity theft and has been arrested for battery and burglary; Dzhakhar Aslambekov, a Russian illegal immigrant, was recently arrested for fraud related to government assistance programs. The list of criminal offenders goes on and on, the “worst of the worst illegal alien criminals in Los Angeles,” DHS assures.

U.S. Subsidizes Illegal Immigrant Money Transfers Via Federal Reserve

Your Federal Reserve (a creature of the federal government) is helping illegal aliens in our country send billions back to their countries of origin. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.

As Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounces the proposed remittance tax and calls for protests in this country, she conveniently fails to mention that the United States government has for two decades subsidized the money transfers through a Federal Reserve program called “Directo a Mexico.” Remittances are the largest single source of foreign income for Mexico and last year migrants in the U.S. sent a historic $62.5 billion to family back home. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, recently passed by the House and pending Senate approval, remittances from noncitizens in the U.S. will be taxed 3.5%, igniting fury among Mexican government officials, especially Sheinbaum who threatened to “mobilize” a fight against the tax. Mexico’s president has publicly called on fellow Mexicans in the United States to send senators letters, electronic mail and social media posts expressing their disagreement with the additional assessment.

The U.S. is the top source of remittances worldwide and the money sent by migrants to help support family back home has long provided Latin America—especially Mexico—a critical economic lifeline. President Trump recently proposed a 5% tax on remittances and House Republicans reduced it to 3.5%. Omitted from mainstream media coverage, mostly critical of the proposed tax, is the “Directo a Mexico” program run by the Federal Reserve, the government agency that serves as the nation’s central bank. It was launched 20 years ago and uses government resources to subsidize and help illegal immigrants transfer cash to Mexico. Back in 2006 Judicial Watch obtained Federal Reserve marketing materials created for the program, which was designed to facilitate the transfer of funds from immigrant workers in the U.S.—regardless of legal status—to relatives in Mexico. The marketing materials, from the Retail Payments Office of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta, Georgia, were prepared by the government for presentations to financial institutions in California in November 2006.

The “Directo a Mexico” marketing materials were targeted to banks, credit unions and other financial institutions in the U.S. and include information on payment channels and benefits to Mexican recipients. The marketing materials also detail the number of Mexican migrants in the United States—at the time 9,328,405—with no distinction between those here illegally. A separate list identifies Mexican banks receiving “Directo a Mexico” transfers by branches (8,578) and total bank accounts (41,313,157). After viewing all the records, Judicial Watch determined that the taxpayer-subsidized program seems designed to facilitate the transfer of wealth by illegal immigrants outside the United States, undermining our nation’s immigration laws and creating a potential national security nightmare. At the very least Judicial Watch called on the Federal Reserve to limit the program to legal residents and American citizens, which has not occurred.

In its first year, 2005, remittances sent through “Directo a Mexico” topped $20 billion and the Federal Reserve reported “double-digit percentage growth” in the next several years. Over a decade later Judicial Watch reported that most of the $33.48 billion in remittances to Mexico at the time flowed through “Directo a Mexico” amid a growing immigration crisis in the U.S. Remittances are transferred through the Federal Reserve’s own automated clearinghouse linked directly to Mexico’s central bank (Banco de Mexico). When the program was created Federal Reserve officials acknowledged that most of the Mexican nationals who send money back home are illegal immigrants, so a Mexican-issued identification is the only requirement to use the government banking service. In fact, the government’s colorful brochure promoting “Directo a Mexico” has a frequently asked question section that says: “If I return to Mexico or am deported, will I lose the money in my bank account?” The answer is “No. The money still belongs to you and can easily be accessed at an ATM in Mexico using your debit card.” Decorated with American and Mexican flags, the Federal Reserve’s two-page brochure also offers to help immigrants who do not have bank accounts open one and assures the best foreign exchange rate and low transfer fees. It is not clear if the proposed remittance tax will impact money transfers sent via “Directo a Mexico.”

Until next week,