Judicial Watch Announces its September 14 Leadership Summit on Washington Corruption and the Transparency Crisis
We
are proud to announce that Judge Andrew Napolitano will be the keynote
speaker at our upcoming Leadership Summit on Washington Corruption and
the Transparency Crisis on September 14th.
The Summit will sell out soon, so I encourage you act quickly!
For
anyone who cares about constitutional limited government and the rule
of law, Judge Andrew P. Judge Napolitano needs no introduction. A legal
analyst for the Fox News Channel since January 1998, Napolitano is also
the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the
State of New Jersey.
A tenacious defender of natural law freedoms
guaranteed by the Constitution, Judge Napolitano is famous for his
candid remarks, signature wit, and personal anecdotes. Judge Napolitano
is the American media's most outspoken analyst of the legal system,
most fervent critic of government intervention into personal lives and
commercial transactions, and most passionate defender of the
Constitution. He is also the author of eight books on the U.S.
Constitution, two of which have been New York Times best-sellers.
Please
join us for a full day of panel discussions and the special luncheon
featuring Judge Napolitano. Other top flight speakers include Fox News
analyst Andy McCarthy, conservative Congressman Rep. Louie Gohmert,
former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova, and Steve Bannon, Executive
Chairman, of Breitbart News. Join us!
To learn more about this event and the opportunity to attend, please click here. Thank you!
http://www.judicialwatch.org/leadership-summit/
New Documents Raise Questions on Hillary Clinton and Classified Material
If
Team Clinton and Team Obama had their druthers, the American people
would know nothing about her non-government email system. But thanks to
numerous federal lawsuits and multiple federal court orders obtained by
your Judicial Watch, the Obama State Department must disgorge document
after document about this increasingly serious scandal. Sure enough, we
have another major breakthrough to report.
Your
JW forced the release of State Department emails that show
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top staff pushed for the
use of personal digital assistant (PDA) devices for secret and top
secret information. The records also show that the State Department
official rejected this "push" for the special PDAs. A court order forced this document release in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit. In a related court filing,
we made it a point to highlight the agency's failure to comply with the
court's orders regarding the production of the documents.
Let's discuss the new emails, first. A State Department email chain
shows a February 2, 2009, discussion by State Department security
staff, in which agency top security official (former Assistant Secretary
of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell) writes:
On
the off chance that [Clinton's] staff continues to push for [secret] or
[top secret]-capable PDAs [redacted]. I'll need a briefing on what we
know [redaction] Pls schedule.
The email was sent to another top security official - Donald R. Reid,
the State Department's security coordinator for security infrastructure
and Patrick Donovan, then-deputy assistant secretary of State and then
director, Diplomatic Security Service.
(In
a testament to government non-accountability, Mr. Boswell was placed on
administrative leave because of the security failures tied to the
Benghazi terrorist attack but reportedly was reinstated and reassigned to a new position by Secretary of State John Kerry.)
Getting
back to the email, recall that State Department Executive Secretary
Joseph E. McManus declared under penalty of perjury in another Judicial Watch lawsuit
that the agency "does not believe that any personal computing device
was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department" (and
possibly destroyed the BlackBerrys of her aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl
Mills).
You can also see how this week's big 7,000-page email dump that produced emails showing Hillary Clinton snagged an iPad with the help of State Department employees is seemingly at odds with this State Department statement.
The
State Department's release of the few emails highlighting Hillary
Clinton push for a classified PDA falls way short of the disclosure the
federal judge overseeing our case demanded. We informed the court of the State Department's failure to produce documents or information on its search for responsive records as ordered by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on July 7, 2015. Since its last report to the court on July 2, State has produced only these two pages of responsive email records - and they were a week late - delivered on August 27.
The State Department said that it had 250 potentially responsive documents, and didn't tell us or the judge much else:
[The
State Department] did not indicate when it located these records, where
it located these records and why it did not include these records in
its review of the initial production. [The State Department] also
stated that its search was ongoing, but did not give any indication when
it will complete its search of all potentially responsive records. It
also did not indicate the scope of the search or the volume of all
potentially responsive records. [Judicial Watch] requested that [the
State Department] supplement its response and provide this information
before today's Joint Status Report. [The State Department] did not do
so.
The July court order requires the State Department
to "make its first production of responsive records by no later than
August 20, 2015," and detail both the volume and scope of responsive
documents. So it is a contemptuous fail all around as the State
Department flouts court order after court order over the Clinton email
issue. This corruption wastes our resources (and the court's), as it
requires our legal team to spend precious time seeking relief again from
the court. Our attorneys had to ask the court to reorder the State
Department to provide details about its search and stop hiding the ball
about these documents.
One can see the motive for the
stonewalling as these two documents further confirm that Hillary Clinton
and her staff tried and failed to convince the State Department to
issue them smart devices that could handle classified data. This push
for a "Top Secret"-safe smart phone or tablet also blows up Hillary
Clinton's obvious lie that she set up a separate email system because
she didn't want to use two devices.
And, as we note, there are more documents to come!
Judicial Watch Lawsuits Take Center Stage in Clinton Email Scandal
Judicial Watch litigation most assuredly
led to the disclosure of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
separate email system. Judicial Watch's nearly 20 lawsuits touching on
the Clinton email scandal continue to be the best vehicle for the
American people to learn the truth, hold Mrs. Clinton accountable to
law, and actually pry out documents that Hillary Clinton or the Obama
administration have tried to keep secret contrary to law.
And we're not slowing down.
We just filed a new lawsuit
seeking access to two of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
emails in their original, native format. The "native" format contains
metadata, which provides details such as server information and hidden
email recipients.
In May 2015, the State Department posted on its
website several emails allegedly returned by Clinton to the State
Department late last year. In July, Judicial Watch submitted a Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) request asking for email "as it was sent" for
two of the emails - one by Clinton aide Huma Abedin on Sunday, August 21, 2011, from her AbedinH@state.gov address, and the other email "as it was received" by Jacob Sullivan on Saturday, July 7, 2012, at his sullivanjj@state.gov.
Being
reasonable folks, we offered the State Department an option. If they
could not produce the emails in their native format, the agency should
then produce records that would identify the information contained in
the email headers.
True to form, the State Department did not
respond as required by federal law to Judicial Watch's FOIA request,
even though it acknowledged receiving it on July 9.
So, we are pressing ahead. Again quite reasonably, JW's lawsuit also
requests that the court order the State Department to produce the two
emails promptly.
Here it is important to recall that a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit
forced the State Department to demand that Clinton's then-top State
Department aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, return all copies, both
electronic and paper, of government records in their possession.
Notably, the State Department had not demanded the same of Mrs. Clinton,
even though federal law also prohibits her from keeping government
records.
There remains a question of whether Mrs. Clinton used a "hrod17@clintonemail.com"
email address to conduct official State Department business. Although
Mrs. Clinton claims that email address was not created until 2013, the
paper copy of the email sent to Jacob Sullivan on July 7, 2012, that was
returned by Mrs. Clinton to the State Department shows the "from" email
address as "hrod17@clintonemail.com".
Interesting how an email address supposedly not created until 2013 is
used in 2012! The requested native format copy or metadata of the email
will definitely tell us whether Mrs. Clinton is also lying about this
other email account.
In refusing to respond to our simple request
about two emails that can answer many questions about Hillary Clinton's
email scandal, the State Department is not only violating FOIA but
helping provide protection for Hillary Clinton. The fact that Mrs.
Clinton only provided paper copies of her emails was not accidental.
Both she and the State Department have something to hide.
It was back in March
that the news initially broke that Hillary Clinton used a
non-government email during her four years as secretary of state. And
it was a JW FOIA lawsuit that forced Mrs. Clinton to do what no other
congressional committee, FBI, or Justice Department investigation has
been able to do - submit information, under penalty of perjury, about
her email system.
This new Judicial Watch lawsuit, if the past is
prologue, will enable the public to see documentary, first-hand
evidence about Hillary Clinton's email scandal.
Judicial Watch Asks Federal Court to Stop Racist Separatist Election in Hawaii
Washington,
DC, is not the only place where our government is off the rails and out
of control. Hawaii, the American paradise that is about as far as one
can get from DC, is hurtling down a path that could tear this nation
apart thanks to corrupt, racist moves by its government.
Given
the stakes, we are proud to represent concerned citizens who hold dear
long-standing American principles in the face of a dangerous attack on
the rule of law in Hawaii.
Your Judicial Watch just filed on behalf of these fine Americans an important legal brief,
specifically a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, to halt a native
Hawaiian election in which voter registration was restricted both by
race and by a strict adherence to specified political viewpoints. The
motion was filed on behalf of five Hawaiian residents and one Texas
resident of Hawaiian descent who oppose the discriminatory voter
registration requirements instituted under Act 195. The motion was filed
on August 28, 2015, as part of a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the State of Hawaii.
JW
filed the underlying lawsuit a few weeks ago against the state of
Hawaii, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), the Native Hawaiian Roll
Commission (NHRC), and other State officials alleging that the Hawaiian
"self-governance" vote violates the U.S. Constitution and federal voting
rights laws.
Hawaii State officials, through Act 195, which
became law in 2011, have tried to create a list of "Native Hawaiians"
who would be eligible to recommend amendments to the state constitution
at a planned constitutional convention and to vote on issues concerning
the sovereignty of the "Native Hawaiian people." The act defines a
"Native Hawaiian" as any person whom the government determines to be a
direct descendant of the State's aboriginal peoples.
On July 20, 2012, using taxpayer funds from the State's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the NHRC launched the Kana'iolowalu campaign,
opening a registration process strictly confined to native Hawaiians
who desire to vote for a new race-based sovereign government. The
process, besides being racially discriminatory, excludes registrants who
refuse to affirm all three of the following declarations:
Declaration
One. I affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian
people, and my intent to participate in the process of self-governance.
Declaration Two. I have a significant cultural, social or civic connection to the Native Hawaiian community.
Declaration
Three. I am a Native Hawaiian: a lineal descendant of the people who
lived and exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian islands prior to 1778,
or a person who is eligible for the programs of the Hawaiian Homes
Commission Act, 1920, or a direct lineal descendant of that person.
JW
attorneys represent citizens harmed by this outrageously discriminatory
Hawaii election process. Keli'i Akina and Kealii Makekau are
descendants of the Hawaiian aboriginal people, who cannot register to
vote because they will not affirm that they favor Native Hawaiian
sovereignty and self-governance. Joseph Kent and Yoshimasa Sean Mitsui
are citizens and residents of the State of Hawaii, who are prevented
from registering to vote in elections because of the race-based ancestry
requirements of Act 195. Melissa Leina'ala Moniz and Pedro Kana'e
Gapero are descendants of the aboriginal people of Hawaii and were
registered to vote without their knowledge or consent.
In asking
the court to halt the election process, Judicial Watch argues that the
racially exclusive campaign obviously violates the Fifteenth Amendment's
protection against voting restrictions based upon race. The U.S.
Supreme Court previously ruled
against another Hawaii attempt to restrict voting based on race, noting
that Hawaii's "position rests . . . on the demeaning premise that
citizens of a particular race are somehow more qualified than others to
vote on certain matters. That reasoning attacks the central meaning of
the Fifteenth Amendment."
Judicial Watch argues that an
injunction is warranted in light of the harm caused by the numerous
violations of the Constitution and federal law:
If
Defendants are allowed to proceed with the challenged activities under
Act 195, a great and substantial harm will be done to the constitutional
and statutory rights of Plaintiffs and of hundreds of thousands of
other citizens of the State of Hawaii. The deprivations involved,
moreover, concern such fundamental constitutional guarantees as the
First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom from compelled
speech, the Fourteenth Amendment rights to the equal protection of the
laws and to due process, the Fifteenth Amendment right to vote free from
denial or abridgment on account of race, and the basic
antidiscrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
There
is no doubt that Hawaii is abusing tax dollars on a separatist campaign
that discriminates on the basis of race and viewpoint. Right now, U.S.
citizens are being denied access to the right to vote explicitly
because of their race and their points of view. This dangerous,
divisive scheme can't be halted soon enough by the courts.
The
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a Hawaii-based think tank, has been
helping Judicial Watch investigate Hawaii's plan for a race-based
election. Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute
(and a plaintiff in this case) said, "It is imperative to stop draining
public funds on a racially discriminatory process that the majority of
native Hawaiians have chosen not to endorse, especially while the needs
of native Hawaiians for housing, jobs, education, and health go
underfunded."
Robert Popper, director of Judicial Watch's
Election Integrity Project, is Judicial Watch's lead attorney on the
lawsuit. Mr. Popper was formerly deputy chief of the Voting Section of
the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Michael Lilly of the Honolulu law firm Ning, Lilly & Jones is serving as Judicial Watch's local counsel for the plaintiffs.
We are by no means late to this dance. As usual, your JW is out in front. Already, in separate litigation, Judicial Watch forced the release of the actual enrollment list, which includes the names of Hawaiian residents placed there without their permission.
Of course, the Obama administration is a major proponent of what fundamentally is a race-based secessionist movement.
The Obama administration took controversial executive action towards "the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community. The plan seems to be to set up federal support just in time for the potential rump state that emerges from this separatist election.
The
Hawaii state motto, even before translation, is quite beautiful: "Ua
Mau ke Ea o ka 'Āina i ka Pono." This translates as, "The Life of the
Law is Perpetuated in Righteousness." I can think of few better ways to
sum up a guiding principle for both this civil rights lawsuit and for
your Judicial Watch generally!
Until next week...
 Tom Fitton President
|
Judicial Watch Announces its September 14 Leadership Summit on Washington Corruption and the Transparency Crisis
We
are proud to announce that Judge Andrew Napolitano will be the keynote
speaker at our upcoming Leadership Summit on Washington Corruption and
the Transparency Crisis on September 14th.
The Summit will sell out soon, so I encourage you act quickly!
For
anyone who cares about constitutional limited government and the rule
of law, Judge Andrew P. Judge Napolitano needs no introduction. A legal
analyst for the Fox News Channel since January 1998, Napolitano is also
the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the
State of New Jersey.
A tenacious defender of natural law freedoms
guaranteed by the Constitution, Judge Napolitano is famous for his
candid remarks, signature wit, and personal anecdotes. Judge Napolitano
is the American media's most outspoken analyst of the legal system,
most fervent critic of government intervention into personal lives and
commercial transactions, and most passionate defender of the
Constitution. He is also the author of eight books on the U.S.
Constitution, two of which have been New York Times best-sellers.
Please
join us for a full day of panel discussions and the special luncheon
featuring Judge Napolitano. Other top flight speakers include Fox News
analyst Andy McCarthy, conservative Congressman Rep. Louie Gohmert,
former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova, and Steve Bannon, Executive
Chairman, of Breitbart News. Join us!
To learn more about this event and the opportunity to attend, please click here. Thank you!
http://www.judicialwatch.org/leadership-summit/
New Documents Raise Questions on Hillary Clinton and Classified Material
If
Team Clinton and Team Obama had their druthers, the American people
would know nothing about her non-government email system. But thanks to
numerous federal lawsuits and multiple federal court orders obtained by
your Judicial Watch, the Obama State Department must disgorge document
after document about this increasingly serious scandal. Sure enough, we
have another major breakthrough to report.
Your
JW forced the release of State Department emails that show
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top staff pushed for the
use of personal digital assistant (PDA) devices for secret and top
secret information. The records also show that the State Department
official rejected this "push" for the special PDAs. A court order forced this document release in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit. In a related court filing,
we made it a point to highlight the agency's failure to comply with the
court's orders regarding the production of the documents.
Let's discuss the new emails, first. A State Department email chain
shows a February 2, 2009, discussion by State Department security
staff, in which agency top security official (former Assistant Secretary
of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell) writes:
On
the off chance that [Clinton's] staff continues to push for [secret] or
[top secret]-capable PDAs [redacted]. I'll need a briefing on what we
know [redaction] Pls schedule.
The email was sent to another top security official - Donald R. Reid,
the State Department's security coordinator for security infrastructure
and Patrick Donovan, then-deputy assistant secretary of State and then
director, Diplomatic Security Service.
(In
a testament to government non-accountability, Mr. Boswell was placed on
administrative leave because of the security failures tied to the
Benghazi terrorist attack but reportedly was reinstated and reassigned to a new position by Secretary of State John Kerry.)
Getting
back to the email, recall that State Department Executive Secretary
Joseph E. McManus declared under penalty of perjury in another Judicial Watch lawsuit
that the agency "does not believe that any personal computing device
was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department" (and
possibly destroyed the BlackBerrys of her aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl
Mills).
You can also see how this week's big 7,000-page email dump that produced emails showing Hillary Clinton snagged an iPad with the help of State Department employees is seemingly at odds with this State Department statement.
The
State Department's release of the few emails highlighting Hillary
Clinton push for a classified PDA falls way short of the disclosure the
federal judge overseeing our case demanded. We informed the court of the State Department's failure to produce documents or information on its search for responsive records as ordered by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on July 7, 2015. Since its last report to the court on July 2, State has produced only these two pages of responsive email records - and they were a week late - delivered on August 27.
The State Department said that it had 250 potentially responsive documents, and didn't tell us or the judge much else:
[The
State Department] did not indicate when it located these records, where
it located these records and why it did not include these records in
its review of the initial production. [The State Department] also
stated that its search was ongoing, but did not give any indication when
it will complete its search of all potentially responsive records. It
also did not indicate the scope of the search or the volume of all
potentially responsive records. [Judicial Watch] requested that [the
State Department] supplement its response and provide this information
before today's Joint Status Report. [The State Department] did not do
so.
The July court order requires the State Department
to "make its first production of responsive records by no later than
August 20, 2015," and detail both the volume and scope of responsive
documents. So it is a contemptuous fail all around as the State
Department flouts court order after court order over the Clinton email
issue. This corruption wastes our resources (and the court's), as it
requires our legal team to spend precious time seeking relief again from
the court. Our attorneys had to ask the court to reorder the State
Department to provide details about its search and stop hiding the ball
about these documents.
One can see the motive for the
stonewalling as these two documents further confirm that Hillary Clinton
and her staff tried and failed to convince the State Department to
issue them smart devices that could handle classified data. This push
for a "Top Secret"-safe smart phone or tablet also blows up Hillary
Clinton's obvious lie that she set up a separate email system because
she didn't want to use two devices.
And, as we note, there are more documents to come!
Judicial Watch Lawsuits Take Center Stage in Clinton Email Scandal
Judicial Watch litigation most assuredly
led to the disclosure of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
separate email system. Judicial Watch's nearly 20 lawsuits touching on
the Clinton email scandal continue to be the best vehicle for the
American people to learn the truth, hold Mrs. Clinton accountable to
law, and actually pry out documents that Hillary Clinton or the Obama
administration have tried to keep secret contrary to law.
And we're not slowing down.
We just filed a new lawsuit
seeking access to two of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
emails in their original, native format. The "native" format contains
metadata, which provides details such as server information and hidden
email recipients.
In May 2015, the State Department posted on its
website several emails allegedly returned by Clinton to the State
Department late last year. In July, Judicial Watch submitted a Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) request asking for email "as it was sent" for
two of the emails - one by Clinton aide Huma Abedin on Sunday, August 21, 2011, from her AbedinH@state.gov address, and the other email "as it was received" by Jacob Sullivan on Saturday, July 7, 2012, at his sullivanjj@state.gov.
Being
reasonable folks, we offered the State Department an option. If they
could not produce the emails in their native format, the agency should
then produce records that would identify the information contained in
the email headers.
True to form, the State Department did not
respond as required by federal law to Judicial Watch's FOIA request,
even though it acknowledged receiving it on July 9.
So, we are pressing ahead. Again quite reasonably, JW's lawsuit also
requests that the court order the State Department to produce the two
emails promptly.
Here it is important to recall that a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit
forced the State Department to demand that Clinton's then-top State
Department aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, return all copies, both
electronic and paper, of government records in their possession.
Notably, the State Department had not demanded the same of Mrs. Clinton,
even though federal law also prohibits her from keeping government
records.
There remains a question of whether Mrs. Clinton used a "hrod17@clintonemail.com"
email address to conduct official State Department business. Although
Mrs. Clinton claims that email address was not created until 2013, the
paper copy of the email sent to Jacob Sullivan on July 7, 2012, that was
returned by Mrs. Clinton to the State Department shows the "from" email
address as "hrod17@clintonemail.com".
Interesting how an email address supposedly not created until 2013 is
used in 2012! The requested native format copy or metadata of the email
will definitely tell us whether Mrs. Clinton is also lying about this
other email account.
In refusing to respond to our simple request
about two emails that can answer many questions about Hillary Clinton's
email scandal, the State Department is not only violating FOIA but
helping provide protection for Hillary Clinton. The fact that Mrs.
Clinton only provided paper copies of her emails was not accidental.
Both she and the State Department have something to hide.
It was back in March
that the news initially broke that Hillary Clinton used a
non-government email during her four years as secretary of state. And
it was a JW FOIA lawsuit that forced Mrs. Clinton to do what no other
congressional committee, FBI, or Justice Department investigation has
been able to do - submit information, under penalty of perjury, about
her email system.
This new Judicial Watch lawsuit, if the past is
prologue, will enable the public to see documentary, first-hand
evidence about Hillary Clinton's email scandal.
Judicial Watch Asks Federal Court to Stop Racist Separatist Election in Hawaii
Washington,
DC, is not the only place where our government is off the rails and out
of control. Hawaii, the American paradise that is about as far as one
can get from DC, is hurtling down a path that could tear this nation
apart thanks to corrupt, racist moves by its government.
Given
the stakes, we are proud to represent concerned citizens who hold dear
long-standing American principles in the face of a dangerous attack on
the rule of law in Hawaii.
Your Judicial Watch just filed on behalf of these fine Americans an important legal brief,
specifically a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, to halt a native
Hawaiian election in which voter registration was restricted both by
race and by a strict adherence to specified political viewpoints. The
motion was filed on behalf of five Hawaiian residents and one Texas
resident of Hawaiian descent who oppose the discriminatory voter
registration requirements instituted under Act 195. The motion was filed
on August 28, 2015, as part of a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the State of Hawaii.
JW
filed the underlying lawsuit a few weeks ago against the state of
Hawaii, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), the Native Hawaiian Roll
Commission (NHRC), and other State officials alleging that the Hawaiian
"self-governance" vote violates the U.S. Constitution and federal voting
rights laws.
Hawaii State officials, through Act 195, which
became law in 2011, have tried to create a list of "Native Hawaiians"
who would be eligible to recommend amendments to the state constitution
at a planned constitutional convention and to vote on issues concerning
the sovereignty of the "Native Hawaiian people." The act defines a
"Native Hawaiian" as any person whom the government determines to be a
direct descendant of the State's aboriginal peoples.
On July 20, 2012, using taxpayer funds from the State's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the NHRC launched the Kana'iolowalu campaign,
opening a registration process strictly confined to native Hawaiians
who desire to vote for a new race-based sovereign government. The
process, besides being racially discriminatory, excludes registrants who
refuse to affirm all three of the following declarations:
Declaration
One. I affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian
people, and my intent to participate in the process of self-governance.
Declaration Two. I have a significant cultural, social or civic connection to the Native Hawaiian community.
Declaration
Three. I am a Native Hawaiian: a lineal descendant of the people who
lived and exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian islands prior to 1778,
or a person who is eligible for the programs of the Hawaiian Homes
Commission Act, 1920, or a direct lineal descendant of that person.
JW
attorneys represent citizens harmed by this outrageously discriminatory
Hawaii election process. Keli'i Akina and Kealii Makekau are
descendants of the Hawaiian aboriginal people, who cannot register to
vote because they will not affirm that they favor Native Hawaiian
sovereignty and self-governance. Joseph Kent and Yoshimasa Sean Mitsui
are citizens and residents of the State of Hawaii, who are prevented
from registering to vote in elections because of the race-based ancestry
requirements of Act 195. Melissa Leina'ala Moniz and Pedro Kana'e
Gapero are descendants of the aboriginal people of Hawaii and were
registered to vote without their knowledge or consent.
In asking
the court to halt the election process, Judicial Watch argues that the
racially exclusive campaign obviously violates the Fifteenth Amendment's
protection against voting restrictions based upon race. The U.S.
Supreme Court previously ruled
against another Hawaii attempt to restrict voting based on race, noting
that Hawaii's "position rests . . . on the demeaning premise that
citizens of a particular race are somehow more qualified than others to
vote on certain matters. That reasoning attacks the central meaning of
the Fifteenth Amendment."
Judicial Watch argues that an
injunction is warranted in light of the harm caused by the numerous
violations of the Constitution and federal law:
If
Defendants are allowed to proceed with the challenged activities under
Act 195, a great and substantial harm will be done to the constitutional
and statutory rights of Plaintiffs and of hundreds of thousands of
other citizens of the State of Hawaii. The deprivations involved,
moreover, concern such fundamental constitutional guarantees as the
First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom from compelled
speech, the Fourteenth Amendment rights to the equal protection of the
laws and to due process, the Fifteenth Amendment right to vote free from
denial or abridgment on account of race, and the basic
antidiscrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
There
is no doubt that Hawaii is abusing tax dollars on a separatist campaign
that discriminates on the basis of race and viewpoint. Right now, U.S.
citizens are being denied access to the right to vote explicitly
because of their race and their points of view. This dangerous,
divisive scheme can't be halted soon enough by the courts.
The
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a Hawaii-based think tank, has been
helping Judicial Watch investigate Hawaii's plan for a race-based
election. Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute
(and a plaintiff in this case) said, "It is imperative to stop draining
public funds on a racially discriminatory process that the majority of
native Hawaiians have chosen not to endorse, especially while the needs
of native Hawaiians for housing, jobs, education, and health go
underfunded."
Robert Popper, director of Judicial Watch's
Election Integrity Project, is Judicial Watch's lead attorney on the
lawsuit. Mr. Popper was formerly deputy chief of the Voting Section of
the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Michael Lilly of the Honolulu law firm Ning, Lilly & Jones is serving as Judicial Watch's local counsel for the plaintiffs.
We are by no means late to this dance. As usual, your JW is out in front. Already, in separate litigation, Judicial Watch forced the release of the actual enrollment list, which includes the names of Hawaiian residents placed there without their permission.
Of course, the Obama administration is a major proponent of what fundamentally is a race-based secessionist movement.
The Obama administration took controversial executive action towards "the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community. The plan seems to be to set up federal support just in time for the potential rump state that emerges from this separatist election.
The
Hawaii state motto, even before translation, is quite beautiful: "Ua
Mau ke Ea o ka 'Āina i ka Pono." This translates as, "The Life of the
Law is Perpetuated in Righteousness." I can think of few better ways to
sum up a guiding principle for both this civil rights lawsuit and for
your Judicial Watch generally!
Until next week...
Tom Fitton President
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