Judicial Watch - Activities

Activities

According to David Corn, Judicial Watch uses litigation as its primary tool, and its web page contains detailed information on current litigation matters. Judicial Watch activities include:

• "Digging into questions about Barack Obama's ... and his gang's efforts to steal the 2012 elections."
• Suing the town of Herndon, Virginia to stop a "day laborer" program on the grounds that it may provide employment for illegal aliens.
• Suing the U.S. Senate to disallow the filibuster in their debates over confirmation of judicial nominees, coinciding with proposed efforts by Republican Senate leaders to internally do the same thing.
• Criticizing the George W. Bush administration for their guest worker program, obtaining evidence of a spike in illegal immigration denied by the administration.
• Initiating a request to the Naval Inspector General for an investigation into the "legitimacy and propriety" of the awards John Kerry received for his service in Vietnam. The inspector general's office subsequently determined that Kerry's awards "were properly approved" and declined to take further action in the matter; the office also responded to Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act request with documentation of its review.
• Criticizing the U.S. Navy for securing a public relations firm to encourage Puerto Ricans to vote to keep a Naval testing range at Vieques, Puerto Rico.
• Investigating fund-raising activities relating to the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy.
• Rejecting the adjudicated innocence of David Rosen, who served as campaign finance director for Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign for the U.S. Senate and had been indicted for filing false reports.
• Condemning as murder the death of Terri Schiavo, who lived for 15 years in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state and whose husband wished to allow to die. Her parents wished that she be kept on life support, and were joined in their pursuits by prominent Republicans.
• Calling for Republican Tom DeLay to step down as House Majority Leader calling his actions on Medicare "inappropriate" and "unacceptable".
• Filing a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton for alleged fraudulent accounting practices.

• Filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service for denying Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for access to Obama White House visitor logs from January 20 to August 10, 2009.

Judicial Watch gained media attention when a judge in a separate lawsuit ordered the Department of Justice to releasing live video taken from relevant security cameras at The Pentagon on September 11, 2001. On May 16, 2006 the group released the videos from the two cameras on their website with hopes to "...put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77..."

On June 20, 2007 the group released FBI documents related to the “expeditious departure” of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the documents, dated September 21, 2001, Osama bin Laden himself may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.

• Launched an investigation into any White House's involvement in "branding" of the University of Arizona memorial for the victims of the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, at which t-shirts bearing the slogan "Together We Thrive" were distributed. Judicial Watch demanded the university send them "any and all communications, contracts or correspondence between the University of Arizona and The White House concerning, regarding or relating to T-shirts bearing the logo 'Together We Thrive: Tucson & America,' distributed to attendees at the January 12, 2011, memorial service". The university replied that the White House had no involvement with the branding of the event, and that the slogan -- which Judicial Watch described as "an obvious play on a popular Obama presidential campaign theme" -- was devised by a university student.