Massive Election Integrity Update! Supreme Court Election Integrity Showdown!

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:02][music] So, I have tremendous breaking news about uh a federal lawsuit that Judicial Watch filed in Oregon on behalf of the Constitution Party and others over their dirty voting roles.

[00:00:25]Oregon settled the lawsuit. It became that lawsuit settlement became official this week and as part of the settlement there's an agreement to review and remove up to 800,000 names from the voting roles in Oregon.

[00:00:41]Now what happened is that uh Judicial Watch uncovered that Oregon's voting roles were a mess. The National Voter Registration Act requires states to take reasonable steps to clean up the voting roles. And if they don't, groups like Judicial Watch and other grieved parties can sue.

[00:00:58]And so we did. And uh a new Secretary of State was elected, I think last year. He came to town. He saw obviously Judicial Watch's lawsuit and he realized that Judicial Watch was right. we uh that Oregon hasn't cleaned up its election roles in uh since 2017.

[00:01:26]In its complaint, Judicial Watch argued that this is our lawsuit when I say complaint. Uh, Judicial Watch argued that Oregon's voter roles contain large numbers of old and active registrations and that 29 of Oregon's 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law.

[00:01:50]Think about that. Think about all the people that move in and out of a jurisdiction at any year in any year and none of them get removed over years.

[00:02:01]In fact, we found that uh Oregon, the state, and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%. and that Oregon had the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation. So there are two points there.

[00:02:25]100 when you get the registration rate over 100% it's a pretty good indication that they're not cleaning the rolls. They've got more people living there or registered to vote than there are living there.

[00:02:40]And on top of that, the inactive rate is the the rate of people who quite obviously should be removed, meaning they haven't voted in years and years and years, in this case in Oregon, at least 10 years. So to the credit of the Oregon Secretary of State, a Democrat, he agreed to settle the case. We're removing the 800,000 names. We're going to uh confirm the removals.

[00:03:06]We're going to provide reports to Judicial Watch as required about our other steps to maintain the roles, make sure they're cleaner, and we're going to do it for years. And if things don't we don't if they don't keep their promises, we can go back to court.

[00:03:29]As we say in the in the in our press release, Oregon Secretary of State Toby Tobius Reid RE A announced earlier this year that Oregon has about 800,000 inactive registrations.

[00:03:44]So, as I I meant to say earlier is that that rate is I I think that's it's like 20 25%. You can look up Oregon's population and run the numbers, but it's a significant portion of the state of Oregon are registered improper. You know, there are names there that are registered improperly that should be removed.

[00:04:06]So, of the roughly 800,000 names, 160,000 or so already met criteria to be removed. They should be removed immediately. So, they're gone.

[00:04:17]The remaining 640,000 inactive names are going to be removed over time. [cough] It could be a few years before they're all removed, but they're they're on their way out. And if we hadn't taken these steps, they'd be on forever in a day. And what's also good about this uh settlement, as I read it, is that the process will continue. So it's not just the 800,000 names that are going to be removed. The process is going to be fixed in a way.

[00:04:47]that when dirty names arise again because people move or die and and they they need to be removed.

[00:04:57]there's the process in place to take care of that so it doesn't happen again at least over the term of uh this settlement agreement in its press release caused by judicial watch this admission Oregon acknowledged that routine removal of outdated records effectively stalled in 2017 so they haven't been cleaning the rolls since 2017, leaving a large pool of long, dormant registrations on the rolls without being fully processed for removal.

[00:05:37]And this is what the this is what the Secretary of State said, again, a Democrat, these directives that he issued to kind of get the ball rolling are about cleaning up old data that's no longer in use so Oregonians can be confident that our election voter records are up to date.

[00:05:55]Right on. That's the purpose of the law.

[00:05:57]That's the purpose of doing the process to provide assurance to voters and citizens that there's no there's going to be fewer opportunities for fraud because you have old and dead names on the rolls.

[00:06:15]As I say in our release, this is another historic election integrity success.

[00:06:21]Judicial Watch's lawsuit caused Oregon to finally clean up 800,000 outdated voter names, adding to the more than 6 million ineligible voters removed by Judicial Watch lawsuits and legal actions nationwide. Dirty voter roles can mean dirty elections. Oregon Secretary of State Tobius Reid is to be commended for responding to our lawsuit with a massive voter role cleanup and a commitment to continued voter list maintenance which will only increase voter confidence. This is just a fantastic development. So, we had 800,000 being removed in Oregon. We got word uh just two weeks ago uh that there's a total of uh nearly 400,000 names. I think it was 372 if I recall correctly. Uh dirty names being removed from the rolls in Colorado. So now it's over a million names in just the last month or two have been added to our cleanup totals now which are at 6 million. It's just remarkable. Justice Department hasn't gotten these numbers uh removed ever.

[00:07:33]I mean, they're taking some steps to u examine the roles and and help states clean up the roles, but of course, they're being sued for even doing that by the left.

[00:07:44]So, Judicial Watch has been able just to be persistent like you know, the the uh you know, slow and steady wins the race and we've been slow and steady and aggressive. Though, you can expect more litigation in California. We have ongoing litigation in Illinois.

[00:08:05]So, we'll see uh if we can get the roles cleaned in Illinois. And you'll be surprised because as I said, these settlements aren't with Republicans necessarily. People think, well, you're a conservative group. You're settled some sort of rat. No.

[00:08:21]New York City. We settled.

[00:08:23]You think we settled with Republicans in New York City to clean up nearly a million names up there in the District of Columbia. But we ended the lawsuit after they removed 138,000 names as I recall.

[00:08:41]But there's more that needs to be done cuz there are upwards of 24 million outdated names on the roles nationally.

[00:08:50]But Judicial Watch is going to keep on pushing. As I said, we've got ongoing litigation litigation in the offing plus other states are under our in under investigation by our team. And I expect there will be more legal actions and lawsuits to get those other states to clean up the roles.

[00:09:13]But this is again just another remarkable victory for Judicial Watch.

[00:09:18]And uh you know it's a settlement. Now Oregon didn't admit that they did anything wrong. That's what settlements are. But it's clear we got this 800,000 number of dirty names up for removal thanks to our litigation. And this is on top of our work uh to ensure that candidates have the right to sue to stop dirty elections from happening and make sure the rules are fair and honest. A Supreme Court victory just a few months ago in that regard. And we are on the cusp of another Supreme Court victory if all the analysts are right in our lawsuit on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi to ensure that states don't violate the federal election day statute or statutes by counting ballots that arrive late after election day. And that decision from the court is due, it could be any day, but it will likely be uh coming out next month.

[00:10:20]So, if there's anyone doing any more heavy lifting on election integrity than Judicial Watch, as I often say, I'd like to meet them. It's just great work by our team. And of course, we're only able to get this work done with your support. And uh it doesn't come cheap. Uh, and I can't tell you how uh the legions of patriot Americans who are Judicial Watch members who support us day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, make our work so much easier because we know we've got their backing that we can move forward on these cases and we have the resources to move forward on these cases. And there's going to be more cases.

[00:11:04]I mean, I'll talk about the gerrymandering issue in a little bit, but let's say the Supreme Court, we win in the Supreme Court over these election day issues. Well, there's going to be other litigation to enforce that decision.

[00:11:20]Then, of course, we've got other opportunities or requirements to sue. In my view, we can't h we can't help but sue over voter role cleanups.

[00:11:35]And there are other issues on our you know related to election integrity and not enough I don't have enough detail to make any promises yet as to whether we can sue over them but other election integrity controversies that we're we're looking at legally. It's just great work by Judicial Watch and uh I mean getting 800,000 names clean from a state the size of Oregon. It's just a remarkable remarkable development, a very important week uh for Judicial Watch and for America as uh the Judicial Watch legal team was able to make its plea in person to the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the federal law that sets an election day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the day that ballots are supposed to be received. Uh many states or too many states have allowed the counting or the receipt of ballots to uh occur days and weeks after election day and we had a court ruling in the lower courts the fifth circuit court of appeals that found that to be unlawful.

[00:12:54]Now the Supreme Court has taken the case up and is expected to rule in June.

[00:12:59]Judicial Watch led the way in the challenges to late election ballot counting. Uh we filed lawsuit in Illinois. We filed a lawsuit in Mississippi. Similarly, the RNC filed a lawsuit in Mississippi. So both judicial watch for the Libertarian Party of Mississippi and uh the RNC were before the court. We were also joined in court by the uh solicitor general of the United States on behalf of the US government who agrees with judicial watch his analysis that counting or allowing the receipt of ballots after election day is contrary to federal law.

[00:13:38]The lawyer who made the key argument for Judicial Watch, our clients, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, uh was uh Paul Clement. He did a wonderful job.

[00:13:49]Uh, and I can tell you, and let me give you some background what it's like to go into the Supreme Court and watch these arguments in person. It's pretty intense. The justices, all of them, all nine of them were very interested in the case. Uh, the oral argument went on for well over two hours, which is a pretty lengthy argument. And and as I said, the justices were paying close attention uh to both the lawyer from Mississippi that was seeking to uphold the Mississippi law that was an issue that allows the counting of ballots that arrive for up to 5 days after election day.

[00:14:28]and Paul Clement on behalf of um uh our client and in partnership with Judicial Watch made an excellent presentation uh and uh the way it looked uh well I'll tell you how it seemed to come out a little bit later but let's um look to see uh what Paul Clement's argument was.

[00:14:51]So, what happens is uh the Mississippi attorney um I think solicitor general or was it the attorney general or solicitor general? Now, now I'm confused. It's a solicitor general. He made his argument followed by our argument uh made by Paul Clement and uh the argument began with a statement by Paul laying out the nature of what what the issue is. And uh you'll see this clip from C-SPAN, which incorrectly labels him as lawyer for the RNC. Uh in fact, he was lawyer for our uh our client, the Mississippi uh Libertarian Party. Uh so let's listen to Paul's opening statement. Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court.

[00:15:35]All agree that elections for federal office have to end on the day of the election specified by Congress. and all agree that you can't have an election unless you receive ballots and there must be some deadline for ballot receipt. Nonetheless, Mississippi insists that ballots can trickle in days or even weeks after election day. That position is wrong as a matter of text, precedent, history, and common sense.

[00:16:02]Mississippi all but concedes that the original public meaning of election included both offering to vote and the receipt of that vote or ballot by election officials. And of course, the key distinction between voting and an election is that an election involves the combined action of voters and election officials as this court underscored in its decision against Foster against Love. And of course, Mississippi insists that at the time these statutes were passed, ballot receipt and uh the the casting of the ballot were so inextricably intertwined, no one would have thought of one without the other. That seems to me to be a damning admission, but it also ignores the advent of field and proxy voting in the Civil War and the enormous efforts that states went to to ensure that all of the ballots, whether by proxy or by field vote, were received by election day. In the state's view, all of those herculean efforts were for not or were entirely gratuitous. Now, the state's position actually works even worse as a matter of common sense. If somebody in Gulfport the day after the election asks, "Is the election over?" The common sense answer is, "No, it's not. The ballots are still coming in." And if somebody asks, "Who won?" The truthful answer is, "We don't know yet. The ballots are still coming in, and they may trickle in for weeks or months." And in fact, they may trickle in for weeks or months with or without a postmark in differing ways in differing states. that reality gives the lie to the idea that we have a uniform national election day.

[00:17:39]>> So, uh a great summary of the argument and uh what's even better uh because you imagine the intense preparations both sides make when prepping for a Supreme Court argument of such uh importance. uh you can't uh you can't dismiss the fact that you've got generally speaking nine pretty darn smart people with a lot of smart lawyers working for them who also bring something to the table. And uh and I got to hand it to Justice Alo who kind of summed up the argument in a very accessible way to pretty much any American in his commentary as to what election day means. listen to uh Justice Alo uh muse on what it is election day means.

[00:18:27]>> We have lots of phrases um that involve uh two words, the last of which the second of which is day. Labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington's birthday, Independence Day, uh birthday, and election day. And they're all particular days. So if we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase election day, um I think this is the day in which everything is going to take place and or almost everything. And then we have three points in time uh 1844, 1872, 1914 and we can ask what would people >> So you have a birthday right? No one thinks that when you get greetings after the birthday, the person's on time. That's why it's a late birthday greeting, right? It's a kind of a brilliant uh insight by although a simple insight, but a brilliant one nevertheless. And you know what's going on here is that Mississippi and those defenders of uh the late arrival of ballots say well you know the the voting the voting takes place uh prior to election day and that's and that should be enough even though the ballots aren't received till after election day. And the key response to that is putting your ballot in the mailbox is not the same as putting your ballot in the ballot box. And uh the powerful language of the straightforward law that federal election day is the date that is set by federal law uh raises all sorts of other interesting issues about early voting and such. And uh Justice Thomas asked um our our uh partner in this argument Paul Clement about that. And uh here's here's that [snorts] dialogue. How would you define uh the day of election?

[00:20:25]>> I would say that the day of the election is the day when it's the last day in which all the ballots are cast and they are received into official custody.

[00:20:34]>> So h how would you uh treat early voting uh as compared to re late reception of votes? So I would say I mean you know I think the best place to look for a treatment of early voting is the Chrysling the Chrysling decision um by Judge Kleinfeld in the Ninth Circuit because after Foster against love uh there was a suggestion in Foster against love that maybe o early voting is a problem. He rejected that claim based on two things. One is the distinct history of early voting and the second is the idea that was explicit in this court's decision in Foster against love that election day is the date of consummation. So I would say under our theory early voting is permissible largely because it has a different history and because of this idea that the election day is the date where the election is consummated.

[00:21:20]>> Would you uh spend a few more minutes on or at least a little bit more time on the uh voting during Civil War.

[00:21:31]uh there was some suggestion that that's an example of late uh reception of votes and I think in your uh intro and was my thinking that it was not that proxy voting uh was a way to make sure that the vote occurred on election day as opposed to afterwards.

[00:21:54]>> Well, not surprisingly, Justice Thomas, you were exactly right. So proxy voting is the thing that happened in the Civil War that is most analogous to absentee voting. And the thing that is most striking is I think five states had proxy voting. Every one of those five states required the votes, the ballots to be received by election officials back home by election day. Now that's an incredibly inconvenient thing that was done in the Civil War to ensure the ballots were received by election day.

[00:22:23]And under the state's view, they didn't need to do that. Now, that's really no different in the context of field voting because there were like maybe a dozen states, if you're not going to count the Confederate states, there about a dozen states that did field voting. Again, every one of those ensured that the ballots were received into official custody by election day. And of course, most of the states went to enormous efforts to replicate the machinery of the ballot box and everything else in the field. And but and and some variation in that. The one thing that didn't vary at all was the ballots had to be received into official custody by election day. So, uh, it's an important historical point, uh, and it's a fascinating issue, uh, because we didn't have mail in balloting essentially until, uh, or as as Paul Clement highlighted, uh, a version of it until the civil war. And immediately after the civil war, I think it was in 1872, was the first election federal election day statute. uh and and you know other statutes similarly have set election day for first the house uh then the presidency and then the senate uh with the direct election of uh direct election of senators in the early part of the last century as as the election day we all know the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and uh there's really no historic record that states thought otherwise until essentially co there have been exceptions like Washington state has that 21-day rule that goes back a ways and a state here or there that's an outlier. Uh but the idea that all you know there's this been this long tradition of states allowing the counting of ballots in large numbers after election day or that arrive late after election day is just a historical and and u even though even if it was quote historical the law says otherwise. So there were all sorts of things that had gone on for a long time that were uncon unh unlawful under federal law or unconstitutional that the Supreme Court says well you know too bad so sad too bad right you got to follow the law and uh then there's the issue as I said earlier of whether just dropping something in the mail is the equivalent of receipt and I don't think anyone seriously believes that but if you're trying to justify in my view the indefensible. You pretend that dropping in the mail uh uh therefore allows you uh as a as a state to receive that ballot any time after election day, which is in effect what they're saying because if it's not 5 days, should it be 21 days? Should it be 100 days? And here's a discussion about that issue uh again with Paul Clement, who's the lawyer, despite what the C-SPAN graphic says uh for uh um our Joint Judicial Watch clients, the U.

[00:25:26]Mississippi uh Libertarian Party.

[00:25:30]>> The reason I'm focused on ballot receipt is a it's what's directly at issue here, but also b it's the thing that to this day every state considers indispensable.

[00:25:39]No state. Washington is the one that lets 21 days go by. But no state says that you don't have to have a receipt ballot receipt deadline at all. And under Mississippi law, it's not. Despite what they want to tell you, the ballot is not final when it's submitted. The ballot is final when it's received by election officials within five days and you can have all the certifications that this was before election day and I have it notorized and if it comes in on the sixth business day, this is the November 11th problem. What the state does is they treat it as a nullity and under the state statute they direct it to be destroyed. So the ballot doesn't become final just when it's submitted. The ballot becomes final when it is submitted and under Mississippi law, it is received into official custody by the registar within five business days.

[00:26:28]That's finality under Mississippi law and our humble submission is finality should take place on election day.

[00:26:35]>> Pretty simple, right? And um now the three justices of the Supreme Court who were appointed by uh Democratic presidents, you know, took the opposition view and and aggressively questioned in a way that I didn't find persuasive at all or even making me nervous that they had a case that would be persuasive uh to their fellow conservative justices. And uh here's my initial reaction outside the Supreme Court uh to the oral arguments.

[00:27:07]>> Hey everyone, just walked out of the Supreme Court where uh the Judicial Watch team was making historic legal arguments to preserve the idea of election day. Uh the other side wants to allow the counting of ballots that arrive after election day. Our team made the argument to the court that it's contrary to federal law. It creates the issue of voter fraud and generally undermines voter confidence. Look, putting your ballot in the mailbox is not the same as putting your ballot in the ballot box. And federal law sets an election day, not on election month. And we're hopeful the Supreme Court will agree and bring back the rule of law uh to our elections in a way that restores confidence.

[00:27:53]>> So, a really interesting debate. I don't think the fact that this potential election day law raises issues about early voting is going to stop the court from saying in the in the least election day means the ballots have to be received by election day. I think the early voting issue is a bit more interesting. Uh you know, Paul made the argument that perhaps it's legal. Others may make the argument that perhaps it's not under the election day statute and that may come up later or the court may address it indirectly. So, you know, as I'm sitting there, uh, remember it's only the oral argument. So, no one no one's promising any vote at the oral argument. They don't take a vote at the oral argument about how they're going to vote. What literally happens is after the argument is over, they go back and have into their uh Supreme Court conference room with the nine justices and they and they meet with each other and they take a vote then and then um after that or contemporaneous with that they they start writing the decisions either the majority or or minority decisions or dissenting decisions and I couldn't tell whether we had the majority of the votes. Now, I could guess that we could, but I wasn't sure cuz I could count based on the questioning. And you can look at the full hearing and draw your own conclusions. This is what I love about the Supreme Court. It's designed in many ways to be accessible to the American people. You can watch the video below.

[00:29:19]We have a full link to the C-SPAN video.

[00:29:21]I I think the transcript is available now. I think we can find that transcript link and provide it to you as well, so you can just read through it. And you can see there are seemingly four um conservative votes to uphold the notion of election day. The two votes that I had questions about were Justice uh Chief Justice Roberts because he didn't really ask any questions and then uh Justice Barrett who asked tough questions of both sides but I wasn't quite sure where she was coming from or on what she wanted assurance. So, I walked out of the court thinking, "Oh, you know, I think we're I think things are looking good. We got at least four votes, and obviously we just need one more to win." But I wasn't prepared to say, "Oh, it looks like the voting uh is going to go our way." The funny thing is the media thought we won. I mean, when you see these media headlines from what is it CNN and there's uh which one is that? That's New York Times. Oh, wait.

[00:30:21]Well, we'll talk about that later. But there were several other stories.

[00:30:25]There's the Associated Press or NBC News. Supreme Court conservatives appear skeptical of mail and ballots that arrive after election day. Let's go to the other headline.

[00:30:36]Supreme Court appear appears skeptical of counting mail and ballots that arrive after election day.

[00:30:42]So, uh, and the other headlines I read about the hearing that I saw is these are people who don't agree with Judicial Watch on anything and they think we're going to win. So, I'm not going to second guess that, right? But the next day, I felt a lot more confident because I thought about the hearing because I was there watching it and I, you know, and I it occurred to me that the three left-wing justices provided no safe harbor for any sensible conservative justice to kind of vote with them.

[00:31:19]Because as you could see from the arguments, it's either we have election day set by federal law or we have chaos where there is no set election day. The states can choose and pick and choose when they have election day uh essentially or what the deadline is for mail and balloting. And I just don't think any of those judges uh or justices, even the ones who I'm not sure about are going to go on that side. So, I'm increasingly confident that uh that we are going to win in the Supreme Court and get an historic victory that will restore the rule of law on this key area of elections to upwards of 30 states.

[00:32:02]Ballots are going to have to get there on time if things go as I suspect they will go before the Supreme Court. Now, am I one reason I'm even more uh one more reason to even be even more optimistic is this uh story in the New York Times, which I thought was pretty incredible.

[00:32:23]And here it is. Some states already preparing for a potential Supreme Court ban on late ballots.

[00:32:30]And they highlight the skeptical uh the skepticism of the conservatives. And this is how the story opens up.

[00:32:38]Francisco Aguilar, the Secretary of State in Nevada, stepped out of the Supreme Court on Monday where just when justices had just heard arguments about the legality of counting mail ballots that arrive after election day. He immediately called his top deputy. The court's conservative majority had appeared deeply skeptical of the arguments for continuing the practice, so his message was urgent, he later said in an interview. He began listing things we need to start working on and answering. And in the middle of a midterm election season, they couldn't wait for a decision to land perhaps as late as June. We have to provide a roadmap for county clerks. Mr. Aguilar, a Democrat, is one of 18 top state election officials in states and territories across the country bracing for the possibility that the Supreme Court will require major changes to election law just months before the midterm elections. Part of the urgency getting the message out to voters that late arriving ballots may no longer be counted. And such decisions could affect hundreds of thousands of voters. So boy oh boy, New York Times says these left-wing politicians in the various states that wanted to keep on counting ballots late that arrive late, they see the writing on the wall, too. According to the uh New York Times, at least 725,000 ballots arrived uh in the time period after election day. So that is a lot of ballots. And what's the solution? As these um as these politicians are kind of prepping, which is what they're supposed to do to be fair to them, hey, we got to make sure that the public knows they need to get their ballots there on time. And so there's increased pressure to uh frankly vote in person and uh not rely on mailin balloting. I think that should be part of the pressure as opposed to you know making it even riskier to vote through mailin balloting. Uh but it's a strong indication uh that I'm correct in assessing uh that hey it looks like we're going to win before the Supreme Court. So, this has been um really a big week for the rule on elections. This is the most important election law case in a generation. Uh kudos to Paul Clement uh who argued uh uh for the Judicial Watch legal team.

[00:35:08]Kudos to the Judicial Watch legal team, Russ Noial, Rob Bob Paer, uh Eric Lee, Polar Finites, who leads the entire legal team here at Judicial Watch. And kudos to you, dear Judicial Watch supporter, because we would not be here before the Supreme Court making these arguments that will go down in history in terms of preser preserving the very idea of election day. It looks like we're on the cusp of victory. Of course, the fat lady has not sung yet. So, pray uh that our hopes are wellounded and uh are vindicated when the ruling comes out likely in mid June. Uh but uh it looks like uh we're going to have a significant uh uplift right for election integrity.

[00:35:55]Uh so that you know the allowing ballots to come in after election day and still be counted that will be no more if uh things go as it's uh the suggested they will go after this historic Supreme Court argument. And I'll say it once uh and I'll say it again. The only reason we're here at this moment on the cusp of this victory is because of Judicial Watch's heavy lifting. We were taking the lead on this election day fight with our litigation, with our legal strategy, with our legal theories, and everyone else followed our lead.

[00:36:35]And so we're pleased the RNC stepped up as well because the RNC used to kind of be awall on some of these election integrity issues. And so they played a role here and I kudos to them for standing. It's not because they're quote Republicans, it's because they're standing with the rule of law. Heck, early uh you know, getting the ballots there on time can impact Republicans, too. It will impact Democrats.

[00:37:00]Rural voters, you know, the New York Times points out rural voters, you know, face more impacts with election delay or mail and ballot delays. Uh and they tend to be Republican.

[00:37:12]And in Virginia, 73% of the ballots that arrived late in the last election went to the Democrat. So it it cuts both ways. This is a nonpartisan issue.

[00:37:24]And I want to know why aren't Democrats standing with us to uphold federal law that election day means election day?

[00:37:35]And of course, the Trump administration uh they're standing with this as well.

[00:37:39]President Trump had an executive order order early on and uh the solicitor general of the United States filed a brief an amikas brief an important amikas brief. Uh he made argument there on uh on Monday or you know before the Supreme Court recently as well. He was there with Paul Clement arguing for our side.

[00:37:59]So it's a team effort. Uh but the biggest part of the team are you dear supporters because we wouldn't be here without you. I mean, none of this ain't none of this is free. You know, you know, this litigation is uh costs money. Uh the education efforts around it uh costs money and the only reason we're able to do it is because we receive voluntary donations from our members, charitable donations. So, I encourage you uh to continue to support our work because I tell you, even if we win, there's still going to be battles.

[00:38:35]And there are other election integrity battles that are underway right now with Judicial Watch and cleaning up the election roles. We've cleaned six million names from the ROS. Thus far, there are 20 plus million more to be cleaned.

[00:38:51]And if if depending on how the ruling comes down, there may be additional litigation to ensure that the sanctity of election day is upheld under the law.

[00:39:02]But what a great day uh for Judicial Watch and the American people in the sense that it looks like victory may be at hand.

[00:39:12]Knocking on wood on on upholding the notion of election day and balloting uh make making sure that the ballots are supposed to get there on election day if they're to be counted. I mean, it's to me a rather obvious issue, right?

[00:39:28]Election day means what it means. You know, the ballot box closes on election day and I think the Supreme Court's been persuaded by Judicial Watch's legal argument and it it necessar you know it didn't mean it was going to go our way and I think it was our uh um our our wonderful legal argument aly and expertly presented by Paul Clement uh that uh secured to the degree we do get a victory, it will be because of uh the excellent legal work by the Judicial Watch team. So, uh, I'm I'm taking credit for it. I'm president of Judicial Watch, but as an American, I'm thankful for our work our work. That's for sure.

[00:40:13]You're not going to believe what we just found. So, you may have heard about the secret rooms and the burn bags and such that uh Dan Bonino, who was then FBI deputy director, and Cash Patel have disclosed. These were files that supposedly were hidden from the leadership and designed to be hidden from the leadership by the deep state, the Biden and Obama FBI, the anti-Trumpers, the Jack Smith people and all of that. And uh Dan disclosed last year uh material about um or information about what they found. We actually linked to this in the pre in the lawsuit. We wanted the information about what Dan is about to say here on Fox News or said on Fox News back in um looks like May of last year >> stuff that's coming out.

[00:41:04]>> Does he still but does he still have loyalists in the building? Because when I hear the FBI director saying you guys are finding boxes that are hidden okay how does that happen in the bureau?

[00:41:17]Well, we were there a couple of weeks and uh luckily there were a lot of people up there who grabbed us by the arm the minute we came in and said, "Thank you for being here. You know, we need to talk." Uh there were people there who were really horrified at what happened. And there was a room and we found stuff, a lot of stuff, >> a hidden room.

[00:41:38]>> I wouldn't call it hidden, but hidden from us at least and not mentioned to us. And then we found stuff in there and a lot of it's from the Comey era and we are working our our damned this right now to declassify and just so you know because I I get the public I totally understand people saying we'll do it now there the process is not all the information is ours to declassify some is other intelligence agencies it's not we we literally can't do it once that gets done and that gets out there and you read some of the stuff we found that by the way was not processed through the normal procedure digitizing it putting in FBI records we found it in bags hiding under Jim Comey's guy, you're going to be >> stunned.

[00:42:18]>> So, Judicial Watch thought, oh, isn't that interesting? So, our team filed a Freedom of Information Act request, literally just asking for the records Dan Bonino referred there, asking for the records Cash Patel was referencing, the boxes and things. And the FBI stalled, installed, and stalled.

[00:42:42]But they finally confirmed to judicial watch, yes, there are files there. And not only there are files, but there are a lot of files. One point upwards of 1.9 million records have been found in that secret room that Dan Bonino disclosed.

[00:42:58]Records about Jack Smith and other anti-Trump investigations and who knows what else. Here it is in black and white. And let's go to the Let's go to the uh this may date me. Let's go to the video tape.

[00:43:15]Even though I'm not going to the videotape. I'm going to uh uh the internet here. So, here you see our press release.

[00:43:24]Lawsuit uncovers FBI found up to 1.9 million Jack Smith and other records in hidden room.

[00:43:32]And I'll read you this section. and you probably can't see it, so I'll just read it to you. So, they explained the documents were found in a skip. So, at least they were kept in a secret facility, meaning a facility or room that has uh protections in terms of securing classified information, but as uh Dan Bonino disclosed, uh it was they were in it was in a room designed to be hidden from the new incoming leadership. You have to remember over in the FBI they have maybe five or six.

[00:44:04]I I literally don't know how many but it's a scary small number of people that are hired as quote politicals. You've got the FBI director who's appointed by the president. Dan Bongino even I don't think he was even technically a political appointment. I think he was a civil servant who was hired. So there are no typical political few typical political appointments there. It's all just deep sters or to be fair to some who are trying to do their work just civil service employees or FBI agents etc. So they found their records and uh they told judicial watch in the court. So this is a court filing it was in a I think it was in a joint status report uh filed uh in our lawsuit for these records. So this is the government talking in this part of u the joint status report for item one plaint of seek all documents referenced by deputy director Dan Bonino concerning a room located in FBI headquarters. So you just saw the video. The room references a sensitive compartmented information facility which is the short the shortand for that is skiff. The acronym that houses records related to both closed and open investigations.

[00:45:24]The FBI continues to assess the contents of the room and the total volume of records in the room. The FBI continues to determine what records, if any, are responsive to the request. Until all documents have been digitized and reviewed, the defendant, the FBI Justice Department, cannot identify the anticipated number of documents responsive to the request or the anticipated dates for release of the requested documents. The FBI can provide the following update about the status of the process.

[00:46:00]Specifically, the FBI has assessed that the room presently contains the following records that require digitization.

[00:46:07]Uh, meaning they I guess they get either moved over to an unsecure system digitally or if they're printed records, they have to be scanned before they can be scoped for responsiveness and process for production. several five drawer filing cabinets safes that the FBI estimates to include approximately between 950,000.

[00:46:35]There you have between 950,000 and 19 1.9 million pages which may fluctuate depending on whether there is material on both the front and back of the pages the so I guess they are uh there are actual uh I just noticed that there they're they're actual pages they're hard copies so they literally kept the paper files in that secret area away from, as Dan alleged, uh, leadership for, I think, nefarious purposes.

[00:47:11]So, they're going to need at least 10 to 12 months to even process the records, meaning digitize them and review them for potential release. So, what are the records about? The records appear to include the following.

[00:47:25]You can see on the screen here, legacy files. These records consist of older legacy records, the majority of which refer to two closed historical investigations.

[00:47:35]Though these records belong to the DOJ's Office of Inspector General and prior to release must be sent to the DOJ for consultation on its equities in the records. I mean, this is like absurdity of piled upon absurdity. The DOJ, so these are DOJ files and the DOJ is going to send DOJ files to another DOJ agency.

[00:47:57]It's like the DOJ is going to send files to itself so we can be told when we get the records.

[00:48:04]I mean, it's it's outrageous enough when they use, oh, these these could be uh CIA records or these could be Department of Transportation records. We're going to send them over there and wait forever in a day before we release them because it, you know, we have no control over them. I mean it's a way basically to ditch records effectively because you can't the time frame is ex incredibly long but I get distracted other files these records consist of more rec more recent records related to various investigations including for example active investigations and prior special counsel investigative records many of which are likely to require consultation with other government agencies prior to release.

[00:48:56]So these are Jack Smith records.

[00:49:00]They're probably Mueller records.

[00:49:01]They're probably Hillary records.

[00:49:04]They're probably Russia Gate records.

[00:49:05]They're probably Dorm records. Given the quantity of records, it's multiple cases. Um legacy cases. I don't know what that means. How far back it goes, I don't know.

[00:49:18]go back to Kennedy. I mean, I I say that half jokingly, but I have no way of knowing that. And they may not either because they haven't looked at them long. So, when I see numbers like 1.9 million records that have been hidden, I think, what do I think of? I think of the Epstein records, right? There were three and a half million records that were released. I mean, this is comparable. And dare I say it, I think they're probably more important than the Epstein records given the lawfare against Trump that could have destroyed our republic if indeed these records cover it.

[00:49:52]Uh this is this is an astonishing uh piece of information from the Justice Department and the FBI. It would not have come out but for Judicial Watch's heavy lifting in federal court.

[00:50:07]You know, you see these news stories and there's little to no followup. The followup from Congress is easily thwarted and ignored. It's a political back and forth. And I'm not saying Congress is wrong to ask the questions, uh, but it's relatively ham um it's it's relatively hless in its ability to get the records or at least all of them. and the value of the FOYA cases that Judicial Watch brings. We can't necessarily get all the records either, but there's a process for getting the records in a more timely way and understanding what's being withheld and the ability to fight and challenge them in a way that's much more direct than Congress. And in in the best of circumstances, you have Congress asking for records. You have Judicial Watch asking for records. And then you see what did Congress get? What did Judicial Watch get? What did Congress get? the judicial watch didn't and what did Judicial Watch get that the Congress didn't. And that's often what happens.

[00:51:05]And often what happens is Judicial Watch gets all sorts of records that Congress doesn't get. And it's infuriating. Uh and the and the and and just so you know, over time in recent years, Congress has noticed this. They say Judicial Watch gets these records and Congress isn't. We're done with it.

[00:51:26]Let's push harder.

[00:51:29]So, our work has encouraged Congress to do more. It's not enough, but to do more in terms of getting access to records.

[00:51:39]So, you can be sure that our friends in Senator Grassley's office and Senator Johnson's office and Jim Jordan's office and and Congressman Comr's office are going to look at this press release next week, say, "Wow, 1.9 million records. We haven't gotten half I I think they've gotten maybe 40,000 records at most. And I don't even know those records came from that secret room.

[00:52:06]So again, the headline is the FBI admitted there was a secret room hidden from FBI leadership appointed by President of the United States that contains essentially secret records, 1.9 million pages potentially on issues that are quite sensitive related to special counsel investigations and Office of Inspector General investigations and who knows what else.

[00:52:42]I mean, this is this is like why it's crazy to work at Judicial Watch cuz we're prepping for a Supreme Court uh hearing of historic proportions.

[00:52:53]And concurrently, we get this disclosure from the FBI and Justice Department in a joint status report, which is usually uh they're pretty um I shouldn't say boring, but they rarely have significant disclosures.

[00:53:10]This court filing that says they've been hiding 1.9 million records from the American people.

[00:53:16]It's just crazy town sometimes here at Judicial Watch because of all the work that we're doing and and it just comes in boom boom boom of disclosure after disclosure, evidence of corruption after evidence of corruption as we continue our cases to save our elections to preserve transparency and protect our constitutional republic. This is an astonishing and troubling revelation. I note in our press release, the FBI and Justice Department must go all out to release the nearly 2 million secret FBI and DOJ files on the lawfare against Trump and whatever else the Obama and Biden gangs don't want the American people to know about. And I have no doubt, as I said, that these records are far more important than the Epstein files. Now, you know, as Congress passed the law requiring the release of the Epstein files, so the FBI and Justice Department had to go to town, right? And they had hundreds of people looking through millions of records. I think they should take it the same approach here, and it shouldn't take a law. In fact, there already is a law. It's called FOYA. And they should take it seriously given the nature of the records that are likely here and re remove uh review them as quickly as humanly possible.

[00:54:36]I mean, when did we file this lawsuit?

[00:54:37]Well, I'm sure we asked for the records last year. So, we asked for the records in the summer of last year. We filed the lawsuit. I think it was in November.

[00:54:48]And now it's March and we still don't have any records and they want us to wait another year. Do you think that's acceptable?

[00:54:56]If you don't, you know who you should call? Call Pam Bombi.

[00:55:02]Paul Cash Patel. Remember what I said about petitioning your government? Ask ask them to, hey, give these records to Judicial Watch and the American people.

[00:55:17]These could be the keys to these scandals.

[00:55:23]Heck, they're not prosecuting anyone.

[00:55:26]The least they can do is release records on the corruption.

[00:55:31]This is just great work by Judicial Watch and you know I was looking at the release and at the end of the release sometimes we put uh at we let's say we do a press release on topic X you know we put the material in the press release and at the end we say by the way on topic X and related issues this is also what we're doing and so when you look at that in our release uh you'll see one two three four five, six, seven, at least eight major cases and disclosures that Judicial Watch has filed uh and and been part of. Uh the release of FISA warrants, the illegal lying FISA warrants. We exposed them. We got them public. First time ever FISA warrant applications have been made public thanks to Judicial Watch litigation.

[00:56:25]We've been suing for Hunter Biden records. uh shady FBI records, all the lawfare records, and we've been exposing so much of what we know about the abuses targeting Trump and American citizens. And I suspect we've hit the motherload here with the 1.9 million records, potentially could be a little less or could be a little more depending on what goes on that were in this secret room. Really incredible development.

[00:56:57]>> [snorts] >> And I and I and I do give credit to the Justice Department, FBI for being forthcoming in this regard.

[00:57:04]I mean, it's it it wouldn't be out of the realm possibility that they could come up with reasons not even to tell us the number. I mean, they have all sorts of reasons for not telling you information. They have all sorts of excuses. Oh, we can't tell you the number. We can't tell you what it's about.

[00:57:22]So, I don't want to um I I want them to do more, but I do applaud the transparency in this in this uh disclosure, however troubling it is, because it could have gone the other way. We may have been been kept in the dark by a prior administration, even under a Republican president. I mean, during the Trump first Trump administration, it was a disaster in terms of transparency. uh the DOJ was in some ways worse than Obama in terms of transparency.

[00:57:54]So very very interesting development to put it mildly.

[00:58:03]Another court um hearing took place in a key judicial watch piece of litigation. Uh it took place here in Washington DC before Judge Ma who u is a US District Court judge. I think he's been on the bench a while now. I think he was appointed by President Obama.

[00:58:23]But we've got this case that's been going on for five years. We sued on behalf of Open the Books. Uh you may have heard about um Open the Books. They publish government data and budgetary data, basic information about what the government's spending on on what. It's just great work. Just great work. So, they're really a perfect group for Judicial Watch uh to work with because they want information about what the government's spending and we want the transparency, too. And so, uh we represented them in a specific case trying to get records about royalty payments to government employees at NIH for inventions they've been involved in.

[00:59:03]I'm going to summarize what the issue is here generally. So, folks like Dr. Fouchy and other experts at NIH sometimes invent working for the government new vaccines, new medications, new new inventions generally. And the NIH tries to license those inventions for use because what good is it to have a development to help people if other people aren't being helped if if there's no way of getting it out uh to the marketplace? And what they do is they work with outside companies to license these uh these inventions. They get licensing fees once that deals those deals are set up. And a portion of those fees go to the inventors. And it's a relatively modest portion when you look into it.

[00:59:52]And it doesn't mean it's not an important issue to talk about, but the numbers are are limited, I think, to in theory $150,000 a year. That's the total number of license fees that any NIH researcher can get. So, in the greater schemes of things, is it a huge amount of money? No. But when you have the intersection of government employees with private sector um uh companies, there's opportunities for for conflicts of interest and other ethics issues that pop up, which is why we want full disclosure about who and how much is uh who who's getting royalty fees and how much.

[01:00:37]Like Dr. Fouchy gets royalty fees. We don't know how much and I think he said I he said I you I don't object to releasing it but the government objects to releasing it. So we've been in this case it's already covered and exposed pretty much everything you know about the issue.

[01:00:56]Senator Ran Paul's been big on this issue and you may have seen reports about it with open the books and right now their government's taking the position that if they release the specific license fees that people get the royalties then somehow we'll be able to walk back and figure out what the license fees generally are that are being paid to the government. And that information is supposedly confidential because it's government business. It's business information that's confidential, which I don't buy, but presumably, let's say that's the case. First of all, it's impossible to walk back the numbers practically speaking. So, it's not true.

[01:01:39]Uh, but Judge MA wanted to have a hearing on it to figure out, well, what's going on here? Is it true? What what's the thinking here? And so, we had a hearing on um just a few days ago. I think it was Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? I forget.

[01:01:55]And and it was really something else. You know, I knew the government's thinking was kind of washed was completely at odds with reality or with logic. Uh but there was a witness for the government who who's a senior official at NIH who's involved in contracting issues and uh she told the court she said look I took two licenses two royalty payments or a series of royalty payments single royalty payments and I easily walked it back to the actual licensing fee which is supposed to be secret. Now the only way she was able to do that supposedly was because she knew what the licensing fee was. So she could literally check her work. If you don't know what the license fee is, you're going to be guessing necessarily whether you got it right or not, assuming you followed her logic. But she goes up and she testifies that she did this and then our lawyer said, "Well, wait, did you see your math is wrong?"

[01:02:58]So the expert goes up and says how easy it is to get to point C from point A and the math from A to B to C is wrong.

[01:03:10]It was just an incredible frankly it was just incredible to see.

[01:03:16]And uh I was sitting there shaking my head and I'm sitting watching in the court audience uh and you know the person seemed perfectly nice but she got the math wrong and her testimony to me to me was not credible at all as a result and she repeat she's the expert for the government. She testified at least a half a dozen times. I'm no expert. So, I didn't know what she was uh going to I didn't know what value she was to the court who's trying to figure out whether or not to give us access to this information.

[01:03:50]And then a FOYA officer for NIH testified and you know she she wasn't all that much reassuring in terms of her knowledge of the way the FOYA process worked and such.

[01:04:02]And so I raise these issues because it's important to know that Judicial Watch doesn't just sue in court, but we're, you know, we're having to fight in court, literally fight in court against Robert Kennedy's NIH.

[01:04:17]I mean, it's been years we've been asking about these records, and you would think Robert Kennedy, given his skepticism of some of the public health things and trying to reinto restore, excuse me, restore confidence in the public in NIH and the way it operates there's no cons, you know, people think people are getting money on the side. Well, how is it you restore confidence? Well, you you're transparent about what money they get.

[01:04:46]I mean, the the NIH official who testified said the number of people who get $150,000 in NIH as a result of royalty fees annually, she said there's maybe 20 or 30 people And it may be no big deal or it may be a big deal but we don't know the detail who is getting the money.

[01:05:13]So we had our lawyers there you know we had three lawyers there. We had our witness, our witness from open the books client, and then the government had three or four lawyers plus two federal uh employee witnesses. So, your government under Robert Kennedy's Health and Human Services just spent a boatload of money fighting judicial watch in court to deny us basic information about who is getting royalty fees and how much.

[01:05:55]So, that's kind of my thumbnails. I know it's not a thumbnail, but my summary of the battle we had in court earlier this week.

[01:06:06]I want to make sure there's nothing interesting I'm missing to help you better understand it.

[01:06:14]So, this is the reason we had the hearing. He ordered the hearing after finding a genuine dispute of material fact regarding the NIH's claim that releasing the royalty payments made to individual employees would reveal confidential commercial information from third parties licensing agreements were patents. The NIH argues that the outsiders could allegedly back calculate confidential royalty rates and payments made by lences if the amount paid to the government inventors was disclosed. And as I discussed, the witness got up there and she didn't show that was the case.

[01:06:50]In fact, she highlighted that it would be nearly impossible to do so.

[01:06:56]We argued that disclosing the amounts paid to government employees does not reveal confidential commercial information and is required under FOYA, the Freedom of Information Act. The watchdog groups contend that any NIH's theory is speculative and improperly used to concealed to conceal how much taxpayer funded government employees receive in royalty income. This is compensation.

[01:07:20]So I'm calling them licensing fees or royalty fees. It's compensation. I only get the royalty fees through the sufference of the government. It's a it's a compensation amount. It's literally compensation. And NIH doesn't want us to know. HHS and the Justice Department doesn't want us to know what the full compensation is of NIH employees.

[01:07:43]And as I said, these numbers are not huge individually. It just doesn't make any sense they would be huge individually unless something else is happening, which I'll tell you about later.

[01:07:58]Now it's billions to the government because who gets the biggest cut of the NIH inventions? The NIH.

[01:08:06]Your tax dollars, right? But you want to they're trying to provide some incentive and recognition of the, you know, the expert NIH employees, doctors, scientists, etc. who are making these inventions.

[01:08:24]In earlier rulings in the case, Judge Meta rejected the NIH's effort to broadly shield the royalty programs using employee um privacy claims, writing that federal government employees have a limited privacy interest in information concerning their compensation. So, this is what this is, the compensation.

[01:08:44]So, Fouch's name shows up a lot in these in these documents. Uh you know, he's the most well-known individual here.

[01:08:53]So in the end this is about why can't we know how much Fouchi was making from royalty payments in NIH when he was working there. What?

[01:09:03]Why?

[01:09:08]And the court also emphasized a strong public interest in disclosure, noting that transparency regarding royalty payments could help the public assess whether inventors financial interest in licenses in licensed excuse me in licensed technologies could potentially bias the design, conduct or reporting of clinical research. Meta further concluded that the public interest in understanding these financial arrangements is significant particularly when government scientists involved in taxpayer funded biomedical research may receive payments tied to the commercialization of these technologies.

[01:09:51]I highlighted why there's useful public interest reasons for allowing these royalty programs to take place. But you don't need to be a rocket scientist or an NIH scientist to recognize the negative consequences of such programs.

[01:10:07]It could direct you know for instance if a scientist recog sees well the money is in topic A or invention A even though the public health impact is limited but the money is more likely there that may direct their efforts as opposed to invention B that could save a whole bunch of people but there isn't the big money involved with it. I mean, you we could go through all scenarios about how it could distort the process.

[01:10:43]And this isn't a free market. So, where where the market decides, this is government money that's being deployed as a result of where these inventors, where these scientists choose to uh focus their their um research and development.

[01:11:00]So, it's a really interesting issue and the more you know, the better. It's your money issue here.

[01:11:07]I mean, NIH could take the position. No one gets the royalty here. You're working for us. The public owns everything you invent. And uh to the degree there's any money coming in, it's coming in to help fund more inventions and more work here at NIH.

[01:11:23]Or maybe NIH should get no money at all.

[01:11:26]Why? why, you know, the government did it in the public interest, bid it out to a to a a company and that's the end of the relationship.

[01:11:39]Or you could take the more I would say principled position and say why is the NIH engaged in research at all but the just private companies do it and there'd be no issue in who gets paid in the public from the public payroll in what essentially is work designed to uh bolster the bottom line of corporations who benefit from the licenses.

[01:12:06]So, it's a real interesting case, but it's frustrating that we're fighting this administration over it.

[01:12:15]Again, we've been fighting it for 5 years.

[01:12:20]Over 2.685 billion was paid to NIH institutes or scientists, of which more than 1 billion was marked for investors, inventors, excuse me. So those royalty payments total up over time to a lot of money and that was just for the period 2010 to 2023.

[01:12:45]So I'm wondering if the stated limit is what it is and so are our clients open the books. So they started asking questions about that issue subsequently because as I said there are these annual statutory limits of supposedly 150,000 but it looks like there may be ways to evade that limit by rolling over royalty payments and just building and building and building them.

[01:13:13]And uh the test the testimony last week or this week suggested that's not the case. But we wanted to test it by asking for records about these royalty payments or overp payments exceeding or payments exceeding 150. Supposedly, if they get more than 150 in royalty licensing fees, uh the excess over 150 supposedly just goes to the government. Well, we think something else might be going on. So, we asked for the records. We got the proverbial hand to the face and so we sued. So, you know, I know we talk a lot about COVID and the accountability and the concerns about the public health issues and and conflicts of interest and such and everyone else wants to forget about it. But, Judicial Watch just doesn't forget.

[01:14:01]And of course, one of the reasons we don't forget is because we never get all the documents that were due. So, we're stuck litigating them for years and years trying to get this core information about the way NIH operates.

[01:14:13]Like I said, royalty payments to NAH employees may be a non-scandal, but the cover up of the amounts of those employees that we've been fighting in court, including in in a very expensive court battle just this week with a half a dozen lawyers, plus arguing on your dime, that is a scandal.

[01:14:37]And the fact that we can't get the numbers, maybe there is something to hide. That's what I conclude often. If you can't follow the law and come up with silly excuses to prevent public transparency, the first question I have is why are you hiding this? What are you concerned about?

[01:15:05]So, we have to file a brief the middle of next month on this evidentiary uh case of this evidentiary hearing and then presumably Judge Ma will decide shortly thereafter whether FOYA law requires uh the disclosure of this information to the American people through this judicial watch litigation on behalf of Open the Books.

[01:15:29]open the books.

[01:15:31]That's the least we can expect from our government. So, I'll let you know as things develop. Thanks for watching.

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