Judicial Watch Sues for Gain-of-Function Records

Tom Fitton’s Judicial Watch Weekly Update
|
March 06, 2026

Hearing Set in Judicial Watch Lawsuit on NIH Royalty Payments
Judicial Watch Sues Defense Department for Gain-of-Function Records
Judicial Watch Sues Treasury on Covering Larry Summers’ Portrait
Public Schools Use Federal Violence Prevention Grants for Illegal Immigrants

 

Hearing Set in Judicial Watch Lawsuit on NIH Royalty Payments

We have sued the government to expose royalties paid to government scientists for their inventions.

Now, a federal court has scheduled an evidentiary hearing in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on behalf of Open The Books. The lawsuit seeks records of royalty payments made to scientists and employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

It specifically asks for records concerning former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose institute participated extensively in the NIH royalty program.

The hearing will take place March 10, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. ET before U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the case American Transparency (OpenTheBooks.com) v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02821).

The hearing will address a key dispute over whether the NIH improperly withheld records showing how much individual government scientists received through royalty payments tied to taxpayer-funded inventions.

Mehta 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 government patents. The NIH argues that outsiders could allegedly “back-calculate” confidential royalty rates and payments made by licensees if the amounts paid to government inventors were disclosed.

Judicial Watch and Open The Books dispute that claim and argue that disclosing the amounts paid to government employees does not reveal confidential commercial information and is required under the Freedom of Information Act. We contend that the NIH’s theory is speculative and improperly used to conceal how much taxpayer-funded government employees received in royalty income.

In earlier rulings in the case, Mehta rejected the NIH’s effort to broadly shield the royalty program using employee privacy claims, writing that “federal government employees have a limited privacy interest in information concerning their compensation.”

The court also emphasized the strong public interest in disclosure, noting that transparency regarding royalty payments could help the public assess whether inventors’ financial interests in licensed technologies “could potentially bias the design, conduct, or reporting of clinical research.” Mehta further concluded that the public interest in understanding these financial arrangements is significant, particularly where government scientists involved in taxpayer-funded biomedical research may receive payments tied to the commercialization of those technologies.

The October 2021 lawsuit was filed after the NIH failed to adequately respond to FOIA requests seeking records about royalty payments and financial arrangements involving NIH personnel.

The FOIA requests sought records including:

• Employment contracts for NIH employees
• Financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest records
• Confidentiality agreements
• Job descriptions for senior officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci
• Records regarding royalty payments received by NIH scientists and employees

Over $2.685 billion was paid to NIH institutes or scientists – of which more than $1 billion was marked for inventors – between 2010-2023 from pharmaceutical companies and other private entities licensing government-owned patents. Those payments were obtained only after we and Open The Books forced the NIH to release previously hidden royalty payment records through FOIA litigation.

The disclosures include royalty payments connected to inventions developed across multiple NIH institutes, including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which was led for decades by Fauci and played a central role in federally funded biomedical research.

This upcoming hearing will determine whether the NIH can continue withholding records showing how much individual government scientists received in royalty payments. Judicial Watch and Open The Books already forced disclosure of more than $1 billion of dollars in NIH royalty payments marked to inventors, like Fauci. The court will now examine whether the agency can keep secret key details about the payment amounts tied to those taxpayer-funded inventions.

We recently filed a separate FOIA lawsuit on behalf of Open The Books seeking records concerning whether statutory limits on royalty payments to federal employees are being effectively bypassed (American Transparency v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:26-cv-00432)).

The new lawsuit seeks records including:

• Emails referencing royalty payments that may exceed the statutory cap
• Records concerning royalty payments placed in reserve when payments exceed statutory limits
• Internal guidance and procedures governing the NIH Public Health Service Technology Transfer Policy Manual

The records requested cover the period January 2020 through December 2025.

Federal law limits the amount individual government employee-inventors may receive in royalty payments to $150,000 per year. NIH scientists may receive royalty payments when inventions developed with taxpayer funding are licensed to private companies. These payments originate from license fees paid by pharmaceutical companies and other entities seeking to commercialize government-developed biomedical technologies.

The disclosures already forced through our litigation have raised questions about whether government scientists receiving royalties may have financial interests connected to technologies or products they help develop, test, or promote using taxpayer funds.

OpenTheBooks.com, operated by American Transparency, maintains one of the largest independent databases of public-sector spending in the United States, promoting transparency by putting government spending records online for public review.

 

Judicial Watch Sues Defense Department for Gain-of-Function Records

Gain-of-function proposals were likely active in the Defense Department’s pipeline prior to the pandemic. We’re suing to find out what these proposals entail.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense for records on funding proposals submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office prior to the Covid-19 outbreak (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:26-cv-00433)).

Judicial Watch sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a component of the Defense (War) Department, failed to respond to a November 7, 2025, FOIA request for:

All biodefense and gain-of-function (GoF) funding proposals submitted to the DARPA Biological Technologies Office (BTO) prior to December 2019.

The Biological Technologies Office was launched in 2014 with DARPA, claiming the office’s programs “push the leading edge of science” and “will sometimes be society’s first encounter with the ethical, legal, or social dilemmas that can be raised by new biological technologies.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in April 2024 announced that it sent letters to several agencies requesting:

[I]nformation on their knowledge and involvement regarding the DEFUSE project, a 2018 grant proposal led by EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The DEFUSE project was submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the PREventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT) program and proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), then the ranking member of the committee wrote: “[A]t least 15 federal agencies knew from the beginning of the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were seeking federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically very similar if not identical to COVID-19.”

We are the national leader in exposing key information about fraud, abuse, and government secrets about Covid-19:

• In June 2025, we sued the War Department for all records regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October 2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China. The lawsuit cites a December 2022 report issued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games” which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their attendance at the games.
• In May 2025, we received records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that revealed its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million health care employees and that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.
• Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”
• Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.
• Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
• Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.
• Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.
• Food and Drug Administration records detailed pressure for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.
• NIH records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
• HHS records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
• NIAID records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
• HHS records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci ” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international counsels as high level commitment from China.”
• HHS records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
• HHS records showed the State Department and NIAID knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding COVID data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.
• University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.
• HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
• Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
• HHS records included emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19.
• HHS records showed that NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
• Fauci emails included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.
• Judicial Watch’s four-part documentary regarding the coordinated effort by the government and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates is available here.

 

Judicial Watch Sues Treasury on Covering Larry Summers’ Portrait 

A source inside the Treasury Department informed a Judicial Watch lawyer that the official portrait of former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers had been covered, reportedly after his name surfaced in records connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

That’s a curious response, and we want to know more.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Treasury for records regarding the covering portrait in the Main Treasury Building in Washington, D.C., (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Treasury(No.1:26-cv-00446)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Treasury Department failed to respond to a January 8, 2026, FOIA request for:

All records, including communications, about the covering up of former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers’ portrait in the U.S. Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. Mr. Summers served as Treasury Secretary from July 2, 1999, to January 20, 2001.

In November 2025, soon after his name arose in connection with Epstein, Summers said, “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused.… I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

An exchange of emails between Summers and Epstein contained in a trove of Epstein records released by the House Oversight Committee, Epstein called himself Summers’ “wing man.”

Covering Larry Summers’ portrait won’t make the Epstein scandal disappear. Covering the portrait raises obvious questions. Transparency—not cover-ups—is the proper response.

We have been actively pursuing details of the Epstein case.

In November 2025, we filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department for records subpoenaed by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding accused sex trafficker Epstein.

In October 2025, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for records involving any role Epstein might have played in connection with the agency, his business dealings, travel, victim or witness information, and records concerning his death.

In September 2025, we sued the Justice Department for communications the department had with the media outlet Axios regarding the outlet’s “exclusives” on the release of audio of then-President Joe Biden’s August 2023 interview with then-Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding Biden’s handling of secret documents and the July 2025 memo that stated there is no Epstein “client list.”

In a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit, a “joint status report” filed on July 7, 2025, in federal court reported that the Justice Department and the FBI were continuing to search for and review records in response to our FOIA lawsuit for records regarding Epstein. The lawsuit requests any records on the identities of clients or associates of Epstein. The Justice Department’s disclosure is at odds with the leaked, unsigned and undated Justice Department/FBI memo that suggests no more Epstein records would be disclosed to the American public. The memo was first disclosed late on July 6.

Also in July, we sued the Justice Department for all interviews and other records provided to the FBI by Epstein victim Virginia Louise Giuffre, who reportedly committed suicide on April 25, 2025.

 

Public Schools Use Federal Violence Prevention Grants for Illegal Immigrants

Tax dollars aimed at preventing violence are being used instead for the benefit of illegal immigrants, our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.

A multi-million dollar federal program launched to prevent school violence after 17 students and staff were shot dead at a south Florida high school is instead being used to fund special projects to help overwhelmed campuses deal with the onslaught of illegal immigrants. Known as Student Teachers and Officers Preventing (STOP) school violence, the Department of Justice (DOJ) created the safety plan after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland Florida on Feb. 14, 2018. Through its Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) the DOJ dedicates millions of dollars annually to STOP to make schools around the country safer. The goal is “to improve school security by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and prevent acts of violence,” according to the DOJ’s official description, which further states that the grants are disbursed “to improve security within our Nation’s schools and on school grounds through evidence-based programs.”

Instead, over a dozen STOP grants worth $13.5 million have been used to fund programs that “explicitly aim to serve foreign students or their families in some way,” according to a report issued recently by a Florida-based nonprofit that runs a vast database of public spending for all to see. The group, Open the Books, lists 15 STOP grants that were wrongfully spent to accommodate illegal immigrants instead of security, but focuses on one in particular because the offender is also in south Florida, not far from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre that inspired Congress to pass the 2018 law that led to the safety program’s creation. It involves a $1 million grant intended to stop violence in the public school district of Monroe County Florida diverted to offset the cost of illegal immigration. “Monroe County has experienced an influx of migrant families with a concurrent increase in juvenile crimes,” the DOJ grant announcement states. “This has overwhelmed local resources such as law enforcement, community mental health, and schools. There has been a steady increase in community crimes, and in the last two years there has been a 119% increase in school arrests. Immigrant youth represent high percentages of offenders, children’s shelter occupants, and students with disciplinary actions.”

The Monroe County grant announcement goes on to explain that immigrants coming into the area have been exposed to high levels of trauma then are met with high cost of living, lack of housing and no community resources. “Youth then have to navigate an educational system that is foreign to them while not having the English skills to do so. This leads to immigrant students having multiple risk factors for juvenile delinquency,” the document states, adding that “it also creates a system where teachers feel ill equipped to meet the educational, behavioral, and mental health needs of our immigrant students, thus leading to low perceptions of school climate.” Therefore, the security grant will be used for a program called Project Wings that will welcome illegal immigrants and nurture their growth and success by providing a four-week trauma informed orientation for students who have “experienced community, gang, and/or familial violence in their home countries, and/or violence during their journey to the United States.” The school climate will also be improved for the illegal aliens with a trauma-informed cultural awareness training for teachers, activities for English language learners and the hiring of two certified teachers/counselors to provide social-emotional English language immersion as well as small group and individual therapy for students and the development of a community-based Spanish and Haitian Creole parent-school liaison program.

The other wrongfully spent STOP grants documented in the report include a $1 million allocation to the Sodus Central School District in New York for an initiative called “Place to Belong” that focuses on an “increasing number of English language learners” in the area. Another million-dollar STOP grant went to seven schools in Oxnard, California with the “highest numbers of suspensions due to incidents of violence with and without injury, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and English language learners.” Miami-Dade Public Schools in south Florida, where one-quarter of the student population does not speak English, also received a $1 million STOP grant that instead was used to accommodate its huge immigrant population. “Meeting the needs of such a richly diverse student body is a challenging task that has become even more difficult post-pandemic,” the district writes to justify redirecting funds that Congress specifically intended to improve campus security.

 

Until next week,