Biden Gaza Aid Update! | Judicial Watch

Tom Fitton’s Judicial Watch Weekly Update
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May 09, 2025

Federal Court Orders Additional Information on Biden USAID Gaza Aid
Biden Administration Covid Vaccination Mandate Revealed
Judicial Watch Sues IRS over Potential Targeting of January 6 Protesters
ICE Takes Custody of Only 14% of Illegal Immigrants in Local Jails

Federal Court Orders Additional Information on Biden USAID Gaza Aid

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has ordered the State Department to explain its claim that the recipients of a Biden-era United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Gaza aid grant cannot be disclosed because the agency’s workers could be put at risk by Israel.

This week at a court hearing on the issue Judge Walton was incredulous at the State Department’s argument, as it necessarily implied that it is the U.S. Government’s position that U.S. ally Israel would purposely target and kill innocent aid workers in Gaza The order comes in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records from USAID regarding $27 million in grants allocated to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees” for use in Gaza.

Judge Walton’s order calls for a supplemental explanation regarding USAID’s reliance on FOIA Exemption 6, which protects against unwarranted invasions of personal privacy, in order to hide the recipients of the Biden USAID grant made shortly after the Hamas mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of Israeli and American citizens:

[T]he defendant shall file at least one supplemental declaration explaining the defendant’s basis for asserting that its grant recipient— information about which the defendant seeks to withhold from disclosure citing Exemption 6 to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552—and its affiliates could be targeted if the information requested by the plaintiff were released. Specifically, the Court requires more than a general assertion that aid workers have been targeted or harmed in the Gaza Strip in order to make a determination as to whether FOIA Exemption 6 should apply to the information at issue here, including for example, an explanation of who might target the grant recipient or its affiliates, and the kind of targeting about which the defendant is concerned. It is further ORDERED that, on May 27, 2025, at 11:00 a.m., the parties shall appear before the Court for a motion hearing.

This is incredible. I attended the court hearing. The State and Justice Departments continue to cover up who in Gaza received American tax dollars from the Biden administration. The government has turned a simple FOIA case into a foreign policy scandal.

Were terror-linked groups funded by USAID? It sure looks that way. Moreover, why are the State and Justice Departments pushing leftist smears against Israel in federal court? Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi need to ride herd and stop this cover-up justified by a sly Deep State libel of Israel.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization—invaded southwest Israel, killing over a thousand people and kidnapping hundreds of others.

We sued in July 2024 after the USAID failed to respond to an April 2, 2024, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Agency for International Development (No. 1:24-cv-02159)) that asks for:

• All records identifying the recipients of USAID funding under the $7,000,000 grant allocation awarded on or about November 15, 2023, and associated with Federal Award Identification Number 720BHA24GR00005.
• All proposals, applications, scope of work documents, or similar records related to any grant award or sub-award associated with Federal Award Identification Number 720BHA24GR00005.

USAID has produced records but refuses to disclose what organizations received the money.

On November 15, 2023, the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, a component of the USAID, issued a $7 million grant for “multisectoral response in Gaza.” The grant was awarded to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees.” The same day a “continuation” grant of $20 million was also issued for “multisectoral response.” USAID reported that over $282 million was obligated to the West Bank and Gaza in fiscal year 2023.

It was recently discovered that USAID provided millions of dollars in funding to extremist groups tied to designated terrorist organizations and their allies, according to a report published by Middle East Forum, a U.S. think tank.

In July 2024, the Office of the Inspector General for USAID issued a report titled “Assessment of USAID’s Oversight Policies to Prevent the Diversion of Assistance to Hamas and Other Terrorist Organizations” in which it states:

The USAID Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) provides independent oversight of USAID’s programs, operations, and personnel and has previously identified USAID-funded assistance to Gaza as being at high risk for diversion and misuse.

***

Regarding the UN’s processes for vetting their own staff, USAID Administrator Samantha Power noted—following allegations that officials working for UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] engaged in the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel—“obviously the vetting is something that has to be significantly strengthened.”

We have also sued USAID for records regarding waste, fraud and abuse tied to aid money sent to Ukraine.

In 2018, we obtained State Department documents showing top Soros representatives in Romania collaborating with the State Department in a program jointly funded by, among others, Soros’s Open Society Foundations – Romania and USAID, called the “Open Government Partnership.”

Additional State Department records uncovered in 2018 showed USAID funding for George Soros’s left-wing nonprofit organizations in Albania. The documents dealt primarily with the activities of Soros’ top operative in Albania, Andri Dobrushi, the director of Open Society Foundation-Albania, who was actively engaged in channeling funding to what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calls Soros’ “mercenary army.” The documents showed U.S. grant money flowing through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that profess to promote “civil society,” while in fact attacking traditional, pro-American groups, governments and policies.

Other records related to the USAID’s activities in Albania showed that the Obama administration sent U.S. taxpayers’ funds to a group backed by Soros, which used the money to fund left-wing political activities in Albania, including working with the country’s socialist government to push for highly controversial judicial “reform.” The records also detailed how the Soros operation helped the State Department review grant applications from other groups for taxpayer funding.

 

Biden Administration Covid Vaccination Mandate Revealed

We continue to uncover the Biden regime’s maliciousness on Covid vaccine mandates.

We received 91 pages of records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that reveal its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million health care employees.

Moreover, the documents show that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.

We filed the September 2024 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Health and Human Services failed to respond to a July 2024 FOIA request for the records of Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine and other officials regarding the removal of the minimum age for the treatment of children in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) 2022 standards of care (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:24-cv-02588)).

They include a November 4, 2021, “Memorandum for the Cabinet Secretary” prepared for Biden administration Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra that reveals a “CLOSE HOLD” (emphasis in original) disclosure that Health and Human Services planned to mandate that 17 million health care employees receive the Covid-19 vaccine:

On November 4^th, CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] will release an emergency regulation requiring staff vaccinations for 15 specific health care provider and supplier types participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs to address the urgent need to protect patients against COVID-19. These requirements will apply to approximately 50,000 providers and cover more than 17 million health care workers…. Sixty days after the publication of the regulation, staff for all health care provider and supplier types included in the regulation must be fully vaccinated.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandated the Covid vaccine for all its facilities in November 2021.

The memo additionally describes “Covid-19 Compensation Claims:”

As of November 1st, 4,682 claims alleging injuries/deaths from COVID-19 countermeasures have been filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, including 2,229 claims alleging injuries from COVID-19 vaccines; an increase of 133 in total claims over the prior week. About 90 percent of claims are awaiting medical records for review. To date, 91 claims are in medical review, 3 claims have been denied compensation, 1 claim has been determined medically eligible for compensation; however, the program is still working with the claimant to obtain the necessary information to determine the compensation amount.

The memo discusses an “Office of Population Affairs” (OPA) that is involved in “family planning.” The office was to receive $35 million “to support telehealth enhancement and expansion in the Title X program to mitigate access barriers to quality family planning services for clients, especially for vulnerable and hard to reach populations.”

The memo describes a special Covid vaccine testing program in “Indian Country” within the United States:

Vaccines and Testing in Indian Country: IHS [Indian Health Service], tribal, and urban Indian program sites receiving the vaccine through the IHS have reported administering 1,722,756 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of October 31^st

The memo makes multiple references to the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” initiative. In discussing “underserved communities,” the memo references “ACF ECD [Administration for Children and Families / Early Childhood Development] Discusses Build Back Better Agenda at Tribal Consultation.”

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

• Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”
• Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.
• Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
• Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.
• Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformities 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.
• Our four-part documentary regarding the coordinated effort by the government and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates is available here.

 

Judicial Watch Sues IRS over Potential Targeting of January 6 Protesters

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the IRS to obtain records related to possible improper targeting of January 6, 2021, Capitol protesters, their supporters, and related nonprofits (Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:25-cv-01290)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the IRS failed to respond to a January 22, 2025, FOIA request for the records of IRS officials, including former Commissioner Daniel Werfel, Acting Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell, Chief Tax Compliance Officer Heather Maloy and others that mention President Trump or his pardons of the Capitol protesters plus all records referring to plans for audits of the protesters, their supporters or related nonprofits.

On January 19, 2024, National Public Radio published “IRS is called to look into nonprofit for Jan. 6 rioters,” in which it reported:

Democratic Congress members are calling for the IRS to scrutinize a nonprofit that supports defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has close ties to the Trump campaign…. The Patriot Freedom Project provides financial help to January 6 defendants and describes them as, quote, “political prisoners.” The group is organized as a charity under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) also sought a broad IRS investigation of groups allegedly associated with the January 6 protests.

The IRS has a demonstrated record, as proven by Judicial Watch, of abusing taxpayers at the behest of politicians. The IRS obviously has the January 6 documents – so, why the cover-up?

In 2022, we obtained sealed court documents revealing that former IRS officials Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, who led efforts targeting Tea Party groups, acknowledged internally that most of those organizations were legally entitled to tax-exempt status in the lead-up to President Obama’s 2012 reelection.

In 2018, we obtained IRS records that contained material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including Lerner, to “audit so many [conservative groups] that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as special counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.

We had previously reported on the 2013 meeting. Senator McCain then issued a statement decrying “false reports claiming that his office was somehow involved in IRS targeting of conservative groups.” The IRS had blacked out the notes of the meeting but we found the notes among subsequent documents released by the agency.

We separately uncovered that Lerner was under significant pressure from both Democrats in Congress and the Obama DOJ and FBI to prosecute and jail the groups the IRS was already improperly targeting. In discussing pressure from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to prosecute these “political groups,” Lerner admitted, “it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity.”

The April 2013 meeting came just under two weeks prior to Lerner’s admission during an American Bar Association (ABA) meeting that the IRS had “inappropriately” targeted conservative groups. In her May 2013 answer to a planted question, in which she admitted to the “absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate” targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups, Lerner suggested the IRS targeting occurred due to an “uptick” in 501 (c)(4) applications to the IRS but in actuality, there had been a decrease in such applications in 2010.

In May 2013, a report by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed: “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status” (e.g., lists of past and future donors). The illegal IRS reviews continued “for more than 18 months” and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” in advance of the 2012 presidential election.

ICE Takes Custody of Only 14% of Illegal Immigrants in Local Jails

We’re puzzled by something that appears in the government’s figures on illegal aliens detained by local law enforcement. As our Corruption Chronicles blog reports, ICE appears far behind in picking them up.

Inconsistent with the Trump administration’s actions of securing the southwest border and mass deportations to crack down on illegal immigration is a strange failure to take custody of illegal aliens arrested by local police under a federal-local partnership known as 287(g). Under the policy local and state law enforcement agencies notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of jail inmates in the country illegally and honor ICE requests—detainers—to hold undocumented migrants for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily release them so the agency can take custody and deport them. The Biden administration drastically diminished the measure but under Trump cooperation has skyrocketed and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently celebrated a “317% increase in federal/state partner agreements” that has resulted in hundreds of migrant apprehensions, including violent gang members, murderers, rapists and drug traffickers.

The program, which currently has 517 participants in 39 states, operates under three models, including jail enforcement designed to identify and process removal of aliens with criminal or pending criminal charges, task force to allow law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority during routine police duties and a warrant service officer program that permits ICE to train, certify and authorize local officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens in their jail. The latest 287(g) monthly encounter report published by ICE includes alarming examples of criminal aliens deported under the program thanks to local authorities around the country—including in Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Massachusetts—and emphasizes how 287(g) enhances the safety and security of communities by creating partnerships with local police to identify and remove illegal aliens from the United States. “The mutually beneficial agreements allow state and local law enforcement to act as a force multiplier in the identification, arrest, and service of warrants and detainers on foreign-born individuals arrested on local criminal charges,” ICE writes in the report.

But government figures reveal that only 14% of illegal immigrants in local jails with ICE detainers have been taken into custody by the federal agency, despite the sharp increase in detainers issued since Trump took office. During Trump’s first presidency ICE assumed custody of 62% of illegal immigrants in local jails, according to the stats, which are featured in a new report published by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan data research center dedicated to studying the inner workings of the federal government. The data shows that, during the first 29 days of the second Trump administration the number of daily ICE detainers rose to 654 compared to just 380 during the same 29-day period under Biden. The average daily number of detainers issued rose from 654 during the first 29 days to 715 during the subsequent 29 days, through March 18, 2025, the records show. “Often, ICE did not follow through and take these individuals into custody,” TRAC researchers found.

Most ICE detainers (44%) were issued against illegal immigrants from Mexico, with Guatemalans second at 11% and Hondurans 10%. The TRAC report breaks down the government figures by state and city. During the period analyzed ICE issued 3,450 detainers in Texas but only took 428 of the illegal aliens into custody. California was second with 3,203 detainers during the first 29 days of the second Trump administration and just 63 taken into federal custody for removal. In Florida ICE issued 1,891 detainers and took 607 into custody and in Georgia the agency issued 922 detainers while taking 146 into custody. Cities with the most detainers include Houston, Texas (557), Miami, Florida (467), Phoenix, Arizona (394), Los Angeles, California (317), Dallas (268), San Antonio (241), and Austin (222) Texas. Strangely, ICE did not take custody of any of the hundreds of illegal immigrants held in local jails in Houston, San Antonio or Austin and took custody of only one of the 317 arrested in Los Angeles.

This appears to contradict the agency’s long-standing claim that detainers “are an essential tool needed to apprehend and deport individuals not authorized to remain in the U.S.” The TRAC report says, “ICE did not release any information that might explain why the number of individuals taken into custody precipitously dropped.” Nevertheless, the figures confirm that as the agency “cranked up the daily number of detainers it sent out,” fewer illegal immigrants were taken into custody from local law enforcement agencies compared to Trump’s first term.

Until next week,