Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for FBI Secret Room Records!

[INSIDE JW]

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FOR FBI RECORDS FOUND IN SECRET
ROOM

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Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
against
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the U.S. Department of Justice for “hidden” records from former
FBI Director James Comey’s era that were referenced during a Fox
News interview with Deputy Director Dan Bongino (_Judicial Watch v
U.S. Department of Justice_
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(No.1:25-cv-04047)).

We know Comey was spying on Donald Trump. He was the Obama
administration’s go-to guy, trying to set Trump up to be toppled
from the campaign and then from office. These hidden-room documents
may contain additional smoking guns.

Judicial Watch sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia after the FBI failed to respond to a June 2, 2025, FOIA
request for:

> 1. All documents referenced by Deputy Director Dan Bongino as having
> been discovered in a room “hidden from us and not mentioned to
> us,” discussed in a Fox News interview at
>
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>
> 2. All internal FBI communications among officials in the offices of
> FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino related
> to the discovery of these documents; and
>
> 3. All directives sent to officials from the offices of the Director
> and/or Deputy Director regarding the handling and disposition of the
> documents.

The May 29, 2025, X post about the Fox News interview
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with Bongino
has the headline “The FBI just discovered that James Comey had a
whole room of secret documents! We found it in bags, hiding under Jim
Comey’s FBI, you're going to be stunned. - FBI Deputy Director Dan
Bongino.” Bongino states:

> There was a room [in FBI Headquarters], and we found stuff. A lot of
> stuff … hidden from us at least and not mentioned to us. And then
> found stuff in there. A lot is from the Comey era. We are working
> … right now to declassify. And just so you know, because I get the
> public—I totally understand people saying “well do it now.”
> The process is: not all of the information is ours to declassify.
> Some is other intelligence agencies’…. We literally can’t do
> it. Once that gets done … and you read some of the stuff we
> found—that, by the way, was not processed through the normal
> procedure, digitizing and putting in FBI records. We found it in
> bags, hiding under Jim Comey’s FBI. You’re going to be stunned.

Comey was indicted in September
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on charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice
regarding the Trump-Russia investigation.

In August 2025, we sued
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the
Justice Department for all records regarding the FBI, under
then-Director James Comey, initiating an investigation of then-2016
presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In May 2023, we recapped
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our investigative findings regarding the “Steele Dossier” and the
FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which was launched during
the Obama administration in July 2016
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under
Comey.



JUDICIAL WATCH SUES EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OVER UNIVERSITY’S CHINA
TIES

We are keeping an eye on tax-supported universities with connections
to hostile foreign governments. China in particular has been very
active in infiltrating our campuses.

In the latest development, we filed a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) lawsuit
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against the U.S. Department of Education seeking records on the
University of Michigan’s connections to China, including related
communications with the U.S. Department of Justice (_Judicial Watch
Inc. v. U.S. Department of Education_
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(No. 1:25-cv-03895)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Education Department failed to provide records in response to a
June 4, 2025, FOIA request for:

* All records of funding received by the University of Michigan from
the government of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese
Communist Party, any Chinese national or associated entity, including
records created or received by the department pursuant to section 117
of the Higher Education Act of 1965 [foreign gift and contract
reporting
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* All records of communication between any official of the Department
of Education and any official of the Department of Justice or any
component thereof regarding the University of Michigan’s Molecular
Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory and Working Group, employee, or
student affiliated with the laboratory or working group.

On June 5, we narrowed the scope of the request for information on the
lab to include the following officials:

* Secretary McMahon
* Chief of Staff Oglesby
* White House Liaison Warzoha
* International Affairs Office Director Hong
* General Counsel Wheeler
* The Deputy General Counsel for Postsecondary Education
* Office of Postsecondary Education Assistant Secretary Bergeron
* International and Foreign Language Education Senior Director Gibbs

In January 2025, the university announced it was ending its
partnership
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with a prominent Chinese university, a few months after five Chinese
students in a joint program were charged with lying to federal
investigators regarding suspicious activities
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outside a remote military site.

In June 2025, two Chinese nationals — Yunqing Jian, a postdoctoral
researcher in the University of Michigan’s Molecular Plant‑Microbe
Interaction Laboratory, and Zunyong Liu, her partner, — were
charged with conspiring to smuggle
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a fungus considered to be a potential agroterrorism agent into the
U.S. Jian later pleaded guilty
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to smuggling and making false statements and was sentenced to time
served. Liu was stopped at Detroit Metro Airport in 2024 with
concealed fungal samples and later deported. Separately, four other
Chinese nationals have been charged with smuggling biological
materials.

In January 2025, we sued
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the
Education Department on behalf of the Zachor Legal Institute for
records concerning Qatar’s funding and operations of five U.S.
universities, including the University of Michigan. Qatar had given or
contracted nearly $6 billion to American universities since 2007,
according to a February 2024 report
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The money was said to have “enabled Qatar to have outsized influence
in American politics and academia, efforts [that] have mainstreamed
anti-Israel propaganda and silenced criticism about Doha’s
longstanding ties to Hamas, the Iranian regime, and other terror
groups.”

We and Zachor previously had spent more than five years successfully
fighting the Qatar Foundation in Texas courts for information about
the funding of Texas A&M. The records that were produced showed that
over $522 million was given by Qatar to the state university from
January 1, 2013, to May 22, 2018, including more than $485 million
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from the Qatar
Foundation. In addition, because of our court victory, Texas A&M
produced contracts that suggest
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Texas A&M provided an assignment of sensitive intellectual property to
the Qatar Foundation.

JUDICIAL WATCH FILES CLAIM FOR MONK ARRESTED BY BIDEN DOJ/FBI

Judicial Watch filed a Federal Tort Claims Act
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claim on behalf of a Massachusetts Greek Orthodox monk and his
monastery’s general counsel, who were maliciously arrested and
charged after a 2022 FBI raid. Our claim includes allegations of
malicious prosecution, false arrest and imprisonment, and assault and
battery.

In the early morning hours of October 13, 2022
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heavily armed federal agents raided the St. Nicholas monastic complex
in Marblehead, MA, and arrested Father Brian Andrew Bushell, 50, and
General Counsel Tracey M.A. Stockton, 66. The Biden Justice Department
accused Bushell of being a "purported" monk and alleged that he and
Stockton improperly used Covid relief funds.

The case against Bushell and Stockton fell apart
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and the charges were dismissed on November 9, 2023. Bushell accused
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former Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins of weaponizing
“the DOJ, FBI and other federal agents to manufacture a pack of lies
to destroy St. Nicholas, me and intimidate God-fearing Orthodox
Christians.”

Biden appointee Rollins was publicly reprimanded
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by state bar regulators in 2025 for violations
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outlined in a 2023 Justice Department report (an archived version is
available here
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that found Rollins improperly attended a Democratic fundraising event
in her capacity as a prosecutor with then-First Lady Jill Biden.
Rollins also “knowingly and willfully made a false statement”
during her interview with former Inspector General Michael E.
Horowitz’s office.

Acting Biden U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy reportedly said
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that “based on evidence developed in the course of the
investigation, the government determined it was in the interests of
justice to dismiss the complaint.”

The claim alleges:

> Father Brian Andrew Bushell, Tracey Stockton, the Shrine of St.
> Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. Paul’s Foundation, the Annunciation
> House, and the Marblehead Brewing Company, as victims of the acts of
> federal government employees acting in the scope of their official
> duties, suffered economic and non-economic damages as a result of
> the intentional acts, including … malicious prosecution, false
> arrest and imprisonment, assault and battery, and intentional
> infliction of emotional distress … [by] federal agents who
> participated in the preparation or execution of the warrants on
> October 13, 2022. The victims also suffered economic and
> non-economic damages as a result of the negligent acts, including
> … negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and
> negligent training and supervision, of … federal agents, who
> participated in the preparation or execution of the warrants on
> October 13, 2022, as well as the negligent acts … of the U.S.
> Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Veterans
> Affairs Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Marshals Service, and
> the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Excellence, of
> which the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee and its
> Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Task Force is a part.
>
> St. Paul’s Foundation demands at least $1,777,124.66, representing
> the legal fees of Father Bushell and Ms. Stockton related to the
> intentional and negligent acts of the individuals and entities
> listed above, which the foundation covered or reimbursed because of
> their status as unpaid officers and employees of the religious
> foundation.
>
> The Shrine of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker demands at least
> $518,700, representing economic and non-economic damages …

We are honored to stand up for Father Andrew and Ms. Stockton for
their horrendous anti-Christian mistreatment at the hands of the
weaponized Biden Justice Department.



APPEALS COURT: STUDENTS CAN USE TRANSGENDER CLASSMATES’ BIOLOGICAL
PRONOUNS

Parents with traditional views about gender won a victory in one Ohio
school district. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog has the details
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> Is the learning environment disrupted when students in kindergarten
> through high school refer to all classmates—including those who
> identify as transgender—by their biological pronoun? A public
> school district in Ohio claims it is and a few years ago enacted an
> “anti-harassment” policy that punishes students who refuse to
> use the preferred pronouns of transgender classmates. This is widely
> known among leftists as “misgendering” and the Olentangy Local
> School District Board of Education in the northern suburbs of
> Columbus created a measure to discipline students who use language
> that inaccurately represents another person’s gender identity as
> part of a series of speech codes in support of the district’s
> preferred viewpoints. This includes prohibiting “discriminatory
> language” considered derogatory towards an individual or group
> based on, among other things, “transgender identity.” The public
> school district policies prohibit “purposely referring to another
> student by using gendered language they know is contrary to the
> other student’s identity.”
>
> With an enrollment of 24,531
>
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> Olentangy is the fourth largest school district in Ohio, with 16
> elementary schools, five middle schools, and four high schools. Many
> of the students’ parents were outraged about the policies and sued
>
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> the district, claiming they violate the First Amendment’s
> guarantees to free speech and unconstitutionally compel speech
> because they force students to alter their speech or use other
> students’ “preferred pronouns”—despite the students’
> firmly held beliefs that sex is immutable. The Policies are also
> unconstitutional because they punish students based on the viewpoint
> and content of the speech, according to the parent’s lawsuit, and
> they are overboard because they restrict a substantial amount of
> constitutionally protected speech and transgress the fundamental
> rights of parents to raise their children. A Clinton-appointed
> federal judge, Algenon L. Marbley, in the southern District of Ohio
> ruled against them
>
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> writing in a 2023 opinion that the intentional misgendering of
> students constitutes “verbal bullying” and the Constitution
> likely does not guarantee a “right to bully transgender
> students.”
>
> The parents appealed and a three-judge panel of the United States
> Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit heard the case and upheld
> Judge Marbley’s decision in the summer of 2024, ruling
>
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> that free speech rules for schoolchildren must take into account
> consideration of the sensibilities of fellow students and schools
> are entitled to regulate speech that “would undermine the
> school’s basic educational mission.” The three-judge panel
> agreed with the school district that speech criticizing the identity
> of specific classmates, including the use of non-preferred pronouns,
> is more likely to cause disruption than speech about social issues
> in the abstract. “The District is entitled to recognize that
> speech about specific students’ identities is particularly harmful
> and likely to disrupt the educational experience, and to regulate
> that speech accordingly,” the appellate panel wrote in its
> decision. The 55-page document also says, “studies show that
> intentional, repeated use of non-preferred pronouns is more
> disruptive than discussions about transgender issues.”
>
> The parents appealed again asking the full Sixth Circuit appellate
> court, which has 16 judges, to hear the case and the court agreed
> and held oral arguments last spring. This month the court came back
> with a lengthy ruling
>
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>
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> favor of the parents. Students who refer to all classmates by their
> biological pronouns—whether they are transgender or not—do not
> disrupt the learning environment and cannot be forced to use
> preferred pronouns, the court ruled. In the decision the court’s
> majority determined that Olentangy public schools failed to
> demonstrate that the use of the pronouns to refer to transgender and
> nonbinary students would “materially and substantially disrupt
> school activities or infringe on the legal rights of others in the
> school community.” The appellate court also issued a preliminary
> injunction banning the school district from punishing students for
> the commonplace use of biological pronouns involving transgender
> classmates though it still allows officials to enforce other
> anti-harassment policies to protect all students, including those
> who identify as transgender. “Our society continues to debate
> whether biological pronouns are appropriate or offensive — just as
> it continues to debate many other issues surrounding transgender
> rights,” the ruling notes. “The school district may not skew
> this debate by forcing one side to change the way it conveys its
> message or by compelling it to express a different view.”

Until next week,



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