Judicial Watch (JW) is an is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservative activist group It works on government oversight through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and lawsuits. It describes its mission as promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity in government.
Judicial Watch has primarily targeted Democrats, in particular the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton's role in them. It was founded by attorney Larry Klayman, and has been led by Tom Fitton since 2003.
History
Judicial Watch was founded in 1994 by attorney and conservative activist Larry Klayman. Before leaving the organization in 2003, Klayman hired Tom Fitton, who became president of the organization. In October 2016, The New York Times wrote: "Judicial Watch's strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits."
As of 2024, the organization had 63 employees. Judicial Watch calls itself a nonpartisan educational foundation as well as a media organization. According to the Times, "the group has forced the release of government records that would otherwise have been kept from the public." Critics accuse JW of "weaponizing the Freedom of Information Act for political purposes."
Clinton administration Judicial Watch came to public attention after filing eighteen lawsuits against the administration of Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton and other figures in the Clinton administration. An early lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of the Western Center for Journalism (WCJ) in 1998. The lawsuit alleged a retaliatory audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The WCJ was investigating the death of Clinton deputy White House counsel Vince Foster at the time.
The organization received considerable financial support from prominent Clinton critics, including US$7.74 million from conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. This led Clinton administration officials to accuse Judicial Watch of "abusing the judicial system for partisan ends".
Bush administration Judicial Watch was involved in a legal dispute with Vice President Dick Cheney in 2002 when the group filed a shareholder lawsuit against Halliburton. The lawsuit, which accused Halliburton of accounting fraud, alleged that "when Mr. Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton, he and other directors inflated revenue reports, boosting Halliburton's share price." As reported by The Wall Street Journal the court filing claims the oil-field-services concern overstated revenue by a total of $445 million from 1999 through the end of 2001.
In July 2003 Judicial Watch joined the environmental organization Sierra Club in suing the George W. Bush administration for access to minutes of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.Bill Moyers Interview with Larry Klayman, PBS, July 11, 2003.
Obama administration Judicial Watch filed over twenty FOIA lawsuits involving the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails.
In February 2016, District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted Judicial Watch's motion for discovery into whether the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deliberately thwarted the FOIA by using a private email server to obscure her communications from public records requests.
In March 2020, federal district court judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Clinton must provide a deposition. A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned Lamberth's ruling in August. The full DC Circuit Court unanimously declined to hear an appeal in October, allowing the panel decision to stand. In March 2021, the United States Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal by Judicial Watch.
Trump administration In 2020, Judicial Watch obtained copies of emails related to the Steele Dossier through a FOIA lawsuit.
In the months prior to the 2020 election, Judicial Watch filed or threatened lawsuits against several states related to alleged inaccuracy of their voter rolls, demanding that nearly two million names be purged.
In October 2020, the group sued the state of California, claiming a law requiring corporations doing business in the state to have directors from sexual or racial minorities is unconstitutional, asserting "The legislation's requirement that certain corporations appoint a specific number of directors based upon race, ethnicity, sexual preference, and transgender status is immediately suspect and presumptively invalid and triggers strict scrutiny review by the court." In April 2022, a California judge agreed. In December 2022, a California appeals court also agreed.
A 2020 study by researchers from Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern and Rutgers universities found that Judicial Watch was among the top five most shared fake news domains in tweets related to COVID-19, the others being The Gateway Pundit, InfoWars, WorldNetDaily, and Natural News.
Activities and controversies
Judicial Watch's main targets have been Democrats, particularly Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration.
Commerce Department trade mission scandal
In 1995, Judicial Watch, Inc. filed an action in the District Court under the FOIA, seeking information from the Department of Commerce (DOC) regarding DOC's selection of participants for foreign trade missions. In May 1995, following a search in response to Judicial Watch's FOIA requests, DOC produced approximately 28,000 pages of nonexempt information and withheld about 1,000 documents as exempt. Disputes arose between the parties over the adequacy of DOC's search, and Judicial Watch charged that some DOC officials had destroyed or removed responsive documents. In December 1998, following discovery, the District Court granted partial summary judgment to Judicial Watch and ordered DOC to perform a new search. During the investigation, Nolanda B. Hill, a business partner of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown testified that Brown had told her that first lady Hillary Clinton was the driving force behind the efforts to raise as much money as possible for President Clinton's reelection and the DNC. And further that, "...companies were being solicited to donate large sums of money in exchange for their selection to participate on trade missions of the Commerce Department."
Vince Foster conspiracy theory
Judicial Watch helped promote the conspiracy theory that Vince Foster was murdered by the Clintons, and still has yet to provide convincing proof.
White House visitor logs
August 10, 2009 Judicial Watch sent a FOIA request to the US Secret Service asking that official White House visitor logs be made public. In August 2011, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the agency to process the group's data request. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia partially affirmed the decision, holding that the Secret Service did not have to produce records of visitors to the president's office.
Pelosi air travel FOIA releases
Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Air Force on January 25, 2009, for records of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's use of military aircraft for official travel. The Air Force provided the requested documentation and Judicial Watch reported the findings and posted the 2000 documents onto their website.
Judicial Watch reported findings from the documents that 85 trips involving Pelosi, family members and staff. Total cost $2,100,744.59 from 2009 to mid-2010. The in-flight and non transport expenses (included food and alcohol) totaled $101,429.14. Judicial Watch called it a scandal.
Factcheck.org reviewed the claims made by Judicial Watch and argued that the claims were overstated and one sided. The FOIA documents remain publicly accessible via the archived Judicial Watch pages.
Operation Neptune Spear
Osama bin Laden, leader of the terror group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 1, 2011, in a joint operation by the United States Navy SEALs and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This operation was code-named Operation Neptune Spear. On May 2, 2011, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the Department of Defense and the CIA for photographs and videos of bin Laden taken during or after the operation.
The government failed to produce any records within the required twenty days. In order to force compliance, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the DOD and CIA on June 8, 2011. On January 31, 2014, after legal wrangling, the Pentagon released Operation Neptune Spear documents to Judicial Watch. One email had the subject line OPSEC Guidance / Neptune Spear and showed that, after the date of the original FOIA request, U.S. Special Operations Commander, Admiral William McRaven, ordered his subordinates to immediately destroy any Osama bin Laden photos they may have had.
Bill Clinton/Taylor Branch tapes
In 2012, Judicial Watch sued the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in an attempt to force NARA to declare audio tapes held at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum of Bill Clinton to be presidential records, seize them, and release them to Judicial Watch. During Clinton's tenure in office, he had allowed historian Taylor Branch to interview him privately for a book Branch was planning to write. It was published in 2009 under the title "The Clinton Tapes". NARA had declined to deem the tapes to be "presidential records", and the federal judge dismissed the lawsuit stating that "the relief that plaintiff seeks – that the Archivist assume 'custody and control' of the audiotapes – is not available under the PRA." This case was called the "Clinton socks case" by former president Trump because the tapes were said to have been stored in Clinton's socks drawer.
Kennedy assassination records
Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to obtain the records from Robert F. Kennedy's time as the Attorney General. The records covered sensitive intelligence operations conducted during the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations.
Hillary Clinton email lawsuits
Judicial Watch has currently filed twenty FOIA lawsuits involving the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails.
On February 8, 2016, the FBI confirmed it was investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. The Bureau was forced to formally acknowledge the investigation due to an ongoing FOIA lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch. FBI director James Comey had previously referenced the investigation, although the FBI had declined to confirm or deny it in court filings.
A federal judge ruled on February 23, 2016, that top aides to Hillary Clinton could be questioned under oath by Judicial Watch about her use of a private email server as secretary of state. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted Judicial Watch's motion for discovery into whether the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deliberately thwarted the Freedom of Information Act by using a private email server to obscure her communications from public records requests.
In May 2016 U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted "discovery" to Judicial Watch into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email system. This ruling allowed Judicial Watch to question two close Clinton aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, under oath. In a separate FOIA lawsuit concerning Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi terrorist attack, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Judicial Watch can conduct discovery into the email practices of Clinton and her top aides.
In a separate case, on March 29, 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth granted Judicial Watch limited discovery, citing potential bad faith by the government in responding to requests for documents related to talking points provided to Susan Rice in response to the Benghazi attack.