Judicial Watch Sues to Reveal Biden Cover-Up on Iran Nuclear Program

[INSIDE JW]

THE MOST IMPORTANT SUPREME COURT ELECTION LAW RULING IN A GENERATION

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This week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a sweeping 7-2 decision
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in our historic election case, Rep. Michal J. Bost et. al. v. Illinois
State Board of Elections, broadly affirming candidate standing to
bring election disputes to federal court.

As you know from my prior updates, we filed this lawsuit on behalf of
Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors who were seeking
to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law which allows
the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.

This is the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a
generation. Too many courts have denied candidates the standing to
challenge unlawful election rules such as the outrageous accepting of
ballots that arrive after Election Day. American citizens concerned
about election integrity should celebrate this victory. I thank our
legion of supporters and our election law team that helped achieve
this historic result.

The Supreme Court decision broadly affirmed candidate standing to
bring election ballot disputes to federal court:

> Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules
> that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless
> whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the
> cost of their campaigns. Their interest extends to the integrity of
> the election — and the democratic process by which they earn or
> lose the support of the people they seek to represent.

“I’m thankful the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled strongly in our
favor and concluded we have standing to challenge Illinois’
unconstitutional law allowing vote-by-mail ballots to be counted two
weeks after Election Day,” said Congressman Bost. This is a
critically important step forward in the fight for election integrity
and fair elections. I look forward to continuing to pursue this case
as we navigate the next stages of the legal process. It’s vitally
important that we restore the people’s trust in our elections.”

We originally filed
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this on May 25, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois. The lower court dismissed the claim for lack of
standing, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld
the lower court ruling in August 2023 (_Rep. Michael J. Bost, Laura
Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of
Elections and Bernadette Matthews_
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_(No.
1:22-cv-02754, 23-2644, 24-568)).

We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As
part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting
rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii and
cleaned up voter rolls across the country, among other achievements
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Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads our election
law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil
Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting
rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements
in dozens of states.

T. Russell Nobile, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, is part of our
voting integrity efforts and focuses on campaign and voting issues,
civil rights issues, constitutional law, official misconduct by public
institutions and officials, and other issues.

Eric Lee is an attorney at Judicial Watch, where he focuses on
enforcing federal and state laws that promote transparency and
integrity in the electoral process. Eric graduated with his B.A. from
St. Mary’s College of Maryland and received his J.D. from the
University of Maryland School of Law. He is licensed to practice in
California, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and in federal courts
in Illinois and Colorado.

Paul Clement, who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme
Court, represented Congressman Bost and the electors with Judicial
Watch before the Supreme Court. Clement is former solicitor general
under President George W. Bush from 2005-2008 and is widely regarded
as among the top Supreme Court litigators in the country.

In November 2025, the Supreme Court granted review
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in a landmark election integrity case brought on behalf of the
Libertarian Party of Mississippi. The case seeks to uphold a ruling by
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which struck down a
Mississippi law unconstitutionally allowing election officials to
count mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day.

Federal courts in Oregon
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California and Illinois
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recently ruled that our lawsuits against those states may proceed,
forcing them to clean their voter rolls.

We announced
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in May that its work led to the removal of more than five million
ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES TO REVEAL BIDEN COVER-UP ON IRAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM

The events in Iran today underscore the importance of preventing its
mad rulers from acquiring nuclear weapons, about which the Biden
administration seemed lackadaisical.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records
regarding the Biden administration’s failure to produce statutorily
required reports on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities (_Judicial
Watch Inc. v. Office of the Director of National Intelligence_
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_(No.
1:26-cv-00083-APM)).

The lawsuit also seeks all communications between the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence and the 2024 presidential campaigns
of President Biden and his replacement atop the Democrat ticket, Vice
President Harris, regarding the required reports on the Islamic
Republic’s uranium enrichment.

The Iran Nuclear Weapons Capability and Terrorism Act of 2022 requires
the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to submit semi-annual
reports to Congress on Iran's nuclear activities, including
enrichment.

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence failed to respond
to a June 30, 2025, FOIA request for:

* Any and all records concerning, regarding, or relating to the delay
of ODNI’s statutorily required reports regarding significant
enrichment activity by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
* Any and all communications between ODNI and the White House
concerning, regarding, or relating to the production and/or delay of
the above referenced reports.
* Any and all communications between ODNI and the Biden presidential
campaign concerning, regarding, or relating to the production and/or
delay of the above referenced reports.
* Any and all communications between ODNI and the Harris presidential
campaign concerning, regarding, or relating to the production and/or
delay of the above referenced reports.

The Biden administration pledged
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to engage in diplomacy with Iran and revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The
Biden team also pushed back against international attempts to censure
Iran for its nonproliferation violations, reports said. On May 27,
2024, _The Wall Street Journal_ reported that the United States was
blocking
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European states from pursuing a formal censure of Iran at the June
board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
despite a push by the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. According
to the Journal, the “U.S. has pressed a number of other countries to
abstain in a censure vote, saying that is what Washington will do.”
The IAEA ultimately passed
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the censure resolution on June 5, 2024.

A July 11, 2024, press release
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from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stated that then-Director of National
Intelligence Avril Haines had failed to produce multiple reports on
Iran’s nuclear threat, including uranium enrichment, that are
required by law. Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July
21, 2024, and endorsed Harris, who became the party’s nominee on
August 5, 2024.

In March of last year, the Trump administration’s Office of the
Director of National Intelligence reported in its Annual Threat
Assessment that Iran “possesses the highest uranium enrichment
levels of any non-nuclear state and remains capable of enriching
uranium to weapons-grade levels.”

Weeks after President Trump ordered the "Midnight Hammer" operation on
June 22, 2025, in which the United States Air Force and Navy attacked
three Iranian nuclear facilities, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, the
White House assessed
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that Iran before the attack had the capacity to enrich enough material
for a nuclear weapon within weeks if it chose to do so.

Our lawsuit is aimed at finding out why, as Iran was expanding its
dangerous nuclear weapons program, the Biden-Harris administration
failed to produce these vital reports documenting a clear and present
danger to the United States.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES OVER FIRING OF ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL OVER PROTECTED
SPEECH

We filed a federal lawsuit
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against Barnstable Public Schools in Massachusetts for violating the
First Amendment rights of a former associate principal who was fired
over lawful social media posts addressing matters of public concern.

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
on behalf of John Bergonzi, alleging retaliation for protected speech
in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as breach of contract and
promissory estoppel (_Bergonzi v. Barnstable Public Schools_
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(No. 1:26-cv-10059)).

Bergonzi is a long-time public school educator who left a tenured
teaching position after being hired as an associate principal at
Barnstable High School for the 2024–2025 school year. Prior to
extending an offer of employment, Barnstable Public Schools told
Bergonzi multiple times that no employment offer would be extended
unless and until the school district reviewed his social media
activity, including his Facebook page, for any issues or concerns. It
was explained to him that a social media check was a routine part of
the district’s interview process.

After Bergonzi completed the onboarding process, resigned from his
prior job, and began work, the school district fired him for Facebook
posts he had shared before he was hired. According to the complaint,
the Facebook posts addressed matters of public concern, were made in
Bergonzi’s capacity as a private citizen, and did not identify him
as a Barnstable Public Schools employee.

According to the lawsuit:

> As of the December 10, 2024 termination, Barnstable Public Schools
> had not identified any disturbance caused by [Bergonzi’s] posts.
> Other than the single email from the individual whose name was
> withheld from [Bergonzi], Barnstable Public Schools also had not
> identified any instance in which a parent, student, co-worker, or
> member of the public raised any concern about [Bergonzi’s] posts,
> his social media activity, or his fitness to serve as an associate
> principal. Nor did Barnstable Public Schools identify any concern
> about [Bergonzi’s] work performance or professionalism.

Bergonzi, the complaint alleges, was fired because his protected
speech did not “reflect the values of Barnstable Public Schools. As
a result of his termination, Bergonzi has suffered lost income and
benefits, reputational harm, emotional distress, and diminished
employment prospects.

Public schools do not get to silence employees simply because they
express opinions that administrators dislike. This lawsuit seeks to
hold Barnstable Public Schools accountable for violating the First
Amendment and for reneging on promises that cost our client his
tenured career.

In November 2021, we filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of
Kari MacRae, a Massachusetts high school teacher who was fired in
retaliation for posts on social media objecting to the inclusion of
critical race theory in schools (_MacRae vs. Matthew Mattos and
Matthew A. Ferron_
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_(No.
1:21-cv-11917). In June 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States
denied our petition that challenged
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a
lower court decision against MacRae. We argued that the Supreme Court
should take up the case as the lower courts misapplied the First
Amendment and Supreme Court precedent. (Justice Thomas authored a
statement respecting the denial
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suggesting the Supreme Court give serious consideration to addressing
the issue of how to better protect the free speech right for
government employees.)

In February 2021, we filed a civil rights lawsuit
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on
behalf of David Flynn, who was removed from his position as the Dedham
High School head football coach after raising concerns about biased
coursework on politics, race, gender equality, and diversity being
included in his daughter’s seventh-grade history class curriculum
(_Flynn v. Forrest et al._
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_(No.
21-cv-10256)). The case ultimately settled
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with the Dedham Public Schools Superintendent acknowledging in a
letter “the important and valid issues” raised by Flynn and
specific changes in school policies because of Flynn’s complaint.

JUDICIAL WATCH TAKES CASE OF TEACHER FIRED FOR SPEECH TO SUPREME COURT

Public employees don’t lose the right of free speech just because
administrators don’t agree with them, and we’re in the U.S.
Supreme Court to make this clear.

We filed a petition for a _writ of certiorari_
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asking the Supreme Court of the United States to review a decision of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that permits public
school officials to fire a tenured teacher for political speech made
privately, off duty, and far removed from the classroom.

The case arises from the termination of Jeanne Hedgepeth, a longtime
social studies teacher at Palatine High School in Illinois, who was
fired after posting commentary on her private Facebook page during
summer vacation in 2020, addressing riots and civil unrest following
the death of George Floyd. School administrators cited concerns about
“disruption” after receiving complaints—largely from members
of the public with no direct connection to the school. Hedgepeth
praised Thomas Sowell and other black conservative leaders in one of
the posts that got her fired.

Our 2021 lawsuit
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for
Hedgepeth asks for damages from the school district, Township High
School District 211, and district board members and officials who
participated directly in the firing of Hedgepeth (_Hedgepeth v.
Britton et al_
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(No. 1:21-cv-03890)).

Our _cert_ petition challenges the Seventh Circuit’s decision, which
held that the school district’s interest in “avoiding
disruption” — specifically, emails and phone calls from members of
the public (most of whom had no direct connection to the school)
“expressing concern or outrage” about Hedgepeth’s summer
vacation posts — “outweighs her right to speak.”

Under long-standing Supreme Court precedent, beginning with _Pickering
v. Board of Education_, courts must balance a public employee’s
right to speak on matters of public concern against the government
employer’s interest in maintaining the effective operation of the
workplace. We argue that _Pickering_ does not permit public employers
to punish employees based on disagreement with their political views:

> The viewpoint discrimination in this case is unmistakable. The
> district fired Hedgepeth because members of the community objected
> to the political views she expressed in core First Amendment speech
> on her private Facebook page while on summer vacation. Rather than
> condemn that blatant censorship, the court below sanctioned
> it—holding that vague and unsupported claims of ‘disruption’
> empower public school officials to silence disfavored viewpoints.

The petition further warns that the Seventh Circuit’s decision poses
a serious threat to free speech nationwide:

> If allowed to stand, the decision threatens to chill the political
> speech of millions of public employees nationwide. It teaches that
> lawful, off-duty speech on matters of public concern may be punished
> whenever enough people complain. That rule cannot be squared with
> _Pickering_, with this Court’s precedents, or with the First
> Amendment itself.

We argue that the Seventh Circuit misapplied _Pickering_ by
transforming a narrow balancing test into a broad license for
censorship—allowing government employers to discipline employees not
for workplace misconduct, but for expressing controversial political
opinions that provoke opposition.

This case goes to the heart of whether the First Amendment still
protects 22 million public employees from being fired for daring to
exercise their God-given First Amendment right to express views
outside the workplace. No teacher should lose her career because
outsiders object to political views she expressed privately and
lawfully.

We are being assisted in the case by former U.S. Solicitor General
Paul Clement
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who has argued over 100 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.



SCORES OF CRIMINAL ALIENS ARRESTED IN MINNESOTA AS MEDIA FOCUSES ON
PROTESTS

You wouldn’t know it from Gov. Tim Walz and other public officials
in Minnesota or from the national press, who seemed enamored of the
rioting in the streets, but federal agents are cleansing the state of
vicious criminals. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog reports
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> In just a few weeks Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has
> arrested around 2,000 dangerous criminal aliens in Minnesota,
> including murderers, pedophiles, rapists and gangbangers though you
> would never know it based on mainstream media coverage. That is
> because most news outlets are focusing exclusively on the ICE agent
> shooting of a woman who interfered with the federal deportation
> operation and the subsequent anti-ICE protests over the incident,
> which occurred last week in Minneapolis. “Anti-ICE Protests Spread
> Nationwide,” reads the headline of a major national newspaper
> story
>
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> that says, “mounting outrage over an ICE agent’s killing of a
> woman in Minneapolis spilled into streets across the country on
> Saturday, as crowds of protesters mobilized against what they called
> the excesses of the Trump administration’s mass deportation
> campaign.” Another national news network claims that outrage has
> grown
>
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> following the woman’s death with more than 1,000 demonstrations
> planned across the U.S. Minnesota’s largest newspaper reports
>
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>
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> thousands marched in south Minneapolis to protest the state’s
> ongoing immigration operation.
>
> Buried deep in some of these stories, though not all, is a quote
> from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official saying that
> thousands of illegal immigrants (most omit the word “criminal”)
> have been arrested during the Minneapolis crackdown, which began in
> December and is officially known as Operation Metro Surge. The
> pertinent information is portrayed as questionable in virtually all
> establishment media coverage and fails to elaborate on the alarming
> criminal histories of some of the apprehended illegal aliens even
> though DHS makes the information easily available. Instead, as has
> been the case with other immigration crackdown operations throughout
> the nation, media coverage has centered on victimizing the
> perpetrators. One national news network writes that an escalation of
> federal agents to Minneapolis is “
>
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>
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> fear in the city’s immigrant communities.
>
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>
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> It has also created “strong opposition among activists who are
> pushing back loudly against enforcement,” the piece states. Many
> outlets describe the activist shot by ICE as a mother and poet who
> represented freedom, love and peace while the Trump administration
> confirms she was a professional agitator engaged in an act of
> terrorism when the ICE agent shot her.
>
> DHS says violent rioters and Minnesota politicians are actively
> trying to protect some of the world’s worst criminal offenders.
> “While ICE fights to remove the worst of the worst criminal
> illegal aliens in Minnesota—including child rapists, murderers,
> and more—violent rioters and agitators are actively trying to
> protect these vicious criminals by interfering and obstructing ICE
> operations,” the agency writes in a statement
>
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> issued a few days ago. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis
> Mayor Jacob Frey are encouraging this behavior with their rhetoric
> of lawlessness while their sanctuary policies ensure that criminal
> aliens flock to their state to escape justice, according to DHS. ICE
> Director Todd M. Lyons says some of the criminal aliens recently
> arrested in Minneapolis have had removal orders for 30 years but
> have been free to “terrorize Minnesotans.” The arrests prevent
> recidivism and make communities safer, the ICE chief assures.
>
> Here is a small sample of the violent offenders that have been
> rounded up by ICE in the last few weeks in Minneapolis as the
> city’s lawmakers and activists continue impeding the agency’s
> critical operations. Mexican national Hernan Cortes-Valencia, with a
> removal order that dates back to 2016, and convictions for sexual
> assault against a child and four DUIs. A Laos illegal immigrant,
> Sriudorn Phaivan, ordered deported in 2018 with convictions for
> strongarm sodomy of a boy, strongarm sodomy of a girl, aggravated
> sex, nine counts of larceny, four counts of fraud, vehicle theft,
> two counts of drug possession, obstructing justice, possession of
> stolen property, receiving stolen property, burglary and check
> forgery. Another Laos national, Ge Yang, deported from the U.S. in
> 2012, who benefitted from Minnesota’s sanctuary protections, with
> convictions for strongarm rape, aggravated assault, domestic
> violence and other sex offenses. Mexican Aldrin Guerrero Munoz,
> removed back in 2015, with homicide and assault convictions and
> Gilberto Salguero Landaverde of El Salvador, who has been convicted
> of three counts of homicide and was ordered deported over the
> summer. This is just a snippet as the list of serious offenders
> apprehended in Minnesota recently as the list is extensive and
> readily available with mug shots on the DHS website.

Until next week,



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