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Swing State Sued for Withholding Names of Over 200,000 Registered Voters Who Did Not Provide Proof of Citizenship


By: Jason Hopkins | October 04, 2024

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/04/swing-state-sued-for-withholding-names-of-over-200000-registered-voters-who-did-not-provide-proof-of-citizenship/

“Vote here” signage is stored at a warehouse at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center ahead of the 2024 elections in Phoenix on June 3, 2024. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)

Jason Hopkins@thejasonhopkins

Jason Hopkins is a reporter covering immigration issues for the Daily Caller News Foundation.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—America First Legal on Thursday announced a lawsuit against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for refusing to hand over the names of over 200,000 registered voters who have allegedly not provided proof of citizenship.

Fontes is breaking the law by refusing to comply with a records request that demands the names of roughly 218,000 individuals who are registered to vote but did not provide proof of citizenship, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit comes just weeks before Election Day, with former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remaining in a dead heat in the state.

“America First Legal continues to lead the fight for election integrity,” Stephen Miller, America First Legal president and former senior adviser in the Trump administration, said in a press release. “We are suing the state of Arizona for refusing to provide the list of 218,000 voters who failed or refused to establish citizenship.”

“It is absolutely imperative that we stop the dire threat of illegal alien voting, which is the gravest form of foreign election interference,” Miller continued.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer identified in September a glitch in the voter roll system that marked more than 97,000 registered voters as having provided documentary proof of citizenship—which is required under Arizona law—even though these individuals had not done so. Richer filed an emergency petition in the Arizona Supreme Court on Sept. 17 in order to prevent these voter registrants from participating in local and state elections.

Fontes announced Monday that his office had discovered an additional “set of approximately 120,000 Arizonans who may be affected by a data coding oversight within [the Arizona Department of Transportation’s] Motor Vehicle Division and Arizona registration databases.”

The recent disclosure puts the total number of registered voters in the state who allegedly did not provide proof of citizenship up to roughly 218,000. The 2020 presidential election in Arizona was decided by a margin of less than 11,000 votes.

Immediately after Richer’s lawsuit, America First Legal filed a public records request asking the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office to hand over the list of all individuals who had unlawfully registered to vote, according to a press release from the organization. Fontes denied the request, alleging that disclosure of the names would lead to their harassment and that compiling the list would be too burdensome for staff.

America First Legal argues that Arizona’s public records request laws require Fontes to produce this type of information when requested.

“There have been major failures in the administration of just about every general election in Arizona from 2016 until now,” stated James Rogers, America First Legal senior counsel. “And every time anyone expresses concern, how does Secretary Fontes react? Victim blaming.”

“That is not what Arizonans expect from their elected leaders. The law requires Secretary Fontes to produce these records, and AFL will work to hold him accountable until he does,” Rogers continued.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, also known as “EZAZ.org.”

Fontes did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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Report: The FBI Illegally Politicized Background Investigations for Republican Presidential Nominees


BY: SAMUEL MANGOLD-LENETT | SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/14/report-the-fbi-illegally-politicized-background-investigations-for-republican-presidential-nominees/

Kavanaugh

A recent report published by America First Legal (AFL) details how the FBI weaponized the federal background investigation process to deny Republican presidents — specifically Donald Trump — the ability to make political appointments in an “institution-wide” violation of the Privacy Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and other federal statutes. Institutional disregard for the FBI Manual of Investigative Operations and Guidelines (MIOG) further contributed to this.

It alleges that during the Trump administration, the FBI illegally conducted politically biased background checks to sabotage potential appointees with selectively “unsubstantiated” and “derogatory” information.

The report, along with a letter detailing its findings, was sent to Republican Reps. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and James Comer, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Democrat Sens. Dick Durbin of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Gary Peters of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee.

Recall the nomination process of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Throughout Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, due to unsubstantiated concerns of sexual impropriety, the Senate Judiciary Committee sought a supplemental FBI investigation — supported by the White House — into the allegations.

However, AFL argues that if, at the outset, the confirmation process was conducted fairly and objectively, then a supplemental investigation would never have been necessary. Further, the FBI’s Washington, D.C. field office is notorious for its political bias and is a hub of institutionalized political weaponization. How could any of this supplemental investigation be conducted in good faith?

Obviously, it wasn’t.

As AFL details, because of “procedural infirmities that biased the FBI [background investigation] process in ways that benefited those politically opposed to former President Trump,” several federal laws were broken.

Litigation conducted by AFL, leading to this report, shows that the FBI failed to guarantee Kavanaugh various legal protections.

Because during the process of the background investigation, the FBI “collect[ed] information from the public and third parties concerning nominees without using a form with a valid OMB-approved control number,” the FBI violated the Paperwork Reduction Act’s requirements at 44 U.S.C. § 3512(a).

“By no longer enforcing the MIOG standards, which requires the FBI to seek to offset derogatory information,” the report reads, “the FBI does not ‘make reasonable efforts to assure that [nominee] records are accurate, complete, timely, and relevant, for agency purposes.” As such, AFL contends the FBI violated federal law — 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(6).

The report also argues that the FBI’s disregard for the MIOG caused it to further violate federal law — 5 U.S.C.  §§ 552a(e)(1), (e)(2), (e)(3), and (e)(5) — because “the FI or DOJ maintain[ed] in its records information about applicants that [are] likely irrelevant to their qualifications to daily and completely adjudicate cases arising under the Constitution and [relevant] statutes.”

These are just a few of the findings detailed in AFL’s report. And whereas it may sound like legalistic jargon, it is illustrative of a glaring issue in our political system and government: the federal government and federal bureaucracy are thoroughly weaponized against the ideological enemies of permanent Washington.

If someone presents a threat to the regime’s agenda, its allies will mobilize to violate protections legally guaranteed to that person. There can no longer be illusions of political neutrality or fair play.

During Biden’s time in office, the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice rescinded regulations designed to protect political nominees subjected to background investigations of this nature. The deep state subterfuge that plagued Kavanaugh’s confirmation will become the norm unless Congressional Republicans amplify this misconduct and exercise whatever power they have over these rogue agencies.

Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.

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A Virginia School District Upheld Parental Rights on Trans Issues. Why Is the Biden DOJ Getting Involved?


By: Tyler O’Neil / @Tyler2ONeil / August 21, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/21/exclusive-america-first-legal-demands-answers-biden-doj-intervenes-school-districts-adoption-youngkin-trans-policies/

Merrick Garland with white hair in a suit and wearing glasses stands in front of a blue background
America First Legal demands answers after the Justice Department under President Joe Biden intervenes in a Virginia school district’s adoption of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies centering parental rights on transgender issues. Pictured: Attorney General Merrick Garland, head of the Justice Department, speaks Aug. 11 at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—America First Legal is demanding answers after the Justice Department under President Joe Biden intervened in a Virginia school district’s adoption of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies that center parental rights in transgender issues.

“The Department of Justice seems to suggest that protecting the constitutional rights of parents and students will lead to ‘hate crimes,’” Ian Prior, senior adviser at America First Legal, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Monday. “Once again, we are witnessing the top law enforcement organization in the land come unglued from reality and unmoored from its core functions, all in the name of opposing anyone that doesn’t approve of its state-approved message.”

America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday demanding Justice Department records related to Virginia’s Roanoke County Public Schools.

On July 27, the Roanoke County School Board discussed the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies on transgender issues, finalized July 18 under Youngkin, a Republican. The state policies require schools to refer to each student by his or her legal name and sex, unless a parent submits a legal document substantiating a change in either. The policies also require schools to use sex, rather than gender identity, as the benchmark for bathrooms, intimate spaces, and sports reserved for boys or girls.

Pro-transgender activists reportedly disrupted the school board meeting. Police arrested two vocal protesters who refused to leave and repeatedly yelled, “Protect trans lives” during the meeting.

Although local law enforcement and the school board were addressing the disruption, Hannah Levine, a staffer at the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, sent a July 31 email offering “conflict resolution services.”

Her agency in the Justice Department “serves as ‘America’s Peacemaker,’ preventing and responding to community tensions and hate crimes, bias, bullying, and discrimination committed on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability,” Levine wrote in the email, which The Daily Wire first reported.

“CRS is aware of ongoing community tensions in Roanoke County following the release of the new model policies for transgender students,” Levine said in the email to the Roanoke County school system. “I’d like to connect to see if we might be able to offer support and services as you work to manage conflict in the community related to this.”

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America First Legal contends that the email from Levine and the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service is suspicious.

“It is unclear why CRS would inject itself into an issue that is properly one for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Roanoke County Public Schools,” reads America First Legal’s request to the Justice Department for related records. “What is clear, however, is that CRS has positioned itself not as a neutral arbitrator of issues related to transgenders but as a government entity that is fully behind the Biden administration’s radical transgender agenda.”

The Community Relations Service says it trains law enforcement on “engaging and building relationships with transgender communities.” The agency’s home page features the White House’s “fact sheet” on actions “to protect LGBTQI+ Communities.”

America First Legal also noted the Biden Justice Department’s record of opposing parental rights in education.

In October 2021, the DOJ issued a memo asking the FBI and U.S. attorneys to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings. The DOJ memo followed a letter from the National School Boards Association comparing parents who protest school district policies to domestic terrorists and encouraging Biden to use the Patriot Act against those parents. Documents revealed later that the White House had worked with the school boards association to draft the letter.

The Justice Department ultimately rescinded the memo and the National School Boards Association apologized for the letter. However, the Biden White House has worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization that recently put parental rights organizations on a “hate map” with KKK chapters. America First Legal has demanded DOJ documents citing the SPLC.

Pointing to this history and Levine’s email, America First Legal demanded DOJ documents related to Roanoke County Public Schools and Youngkin’s model state policies.

“Attorney General Merrick Garland doesn’t appear to have learned any lessons after his 2021 memo directing U.S. attorneys and the FBI to investigate parents speaking at school board meetings,” America First Legal’s Prior said in a written statement on the request. “Now, the Department of Justice is seeking to intervene in another purely state and local matter, namely the Roanoke County School Board’s adoption of the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies that prohibit schools from forcing students, parents, and teachers to sacrifice their constitutional rights in the name of transgender ideology.”

“America First Legal will continue to serve as a watchdog over the Department of Justice’s continued attempts to interfere with parental rights on local issues,” Prior added.

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Education, Family, Law, LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political

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CHILLING: Biden’s DOJ May Be Working With Leftist Group to Silence Parents Again, America First Legal Warns


By: Tyler O’Neil / @Tyler2ONeil / August 03, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/03/is-bidens-doj-working-splc-demonize-parents-america-first-legal-demands-answers/

Merrick Garland in a suit with President Joe Biden towering over him
America First Legal is demanding documents from the Department of Justice related to the Southern Poverty Law Center and concerned parents. America First Legal is probing to see whether the DOJ had any role in the SPLC targeting of parental rights groups or if the DOJ is planning to use the SPLC to intimidate parents into silence. Pictured: Attorney General Merrick Garland listens as President Joe Biden appears behind him via teleconference on Aug. 3, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

A conservative group is demanding answers about whether the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden is repeating its 2021 strategy of targeting concerned parents after the Southern Poverty Law Center just added concerned parents to its “hate map.”

SPLC staff have met with Biden at the White House, and the administration has adopted the “book banning” rhetoric many activists use to slam parents concerned about sexually explicit books in school libraries.

“The Biden administration, including the Department of Justice, has demonstrated that it will work with outside political organizations to trample on the rights of parents who exercise their constitutional rights by speaking out on the woke takeover of America’s public schools,” Ian Prior, senior adviser at America First Legal, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday.

“The SPLC’s move to designate parent organizations as ‘hate groups’ is eerily similar to the activities of the National School Boards Association in the fall of 2021, and America First Legal intends to fully investigate any coordination between the SPLC and the Department of Justice,” he added.

America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act request, asking the DOJ to turn over documents related to the SPLC and SPLC staff.

Prior had referred to a letter from the National School Boards Association to Biden, in which the school board group likened parents who protest school district policies to domestic terrorists. The letter encouraged Biden to use the Patriot Act against those parents. Later documents revealed that the White House had worked with the school boards association to draft the letter. The DOJ issued a memo urging the investigation of concerned parents, following the letter.

The DOJ ultimately rescinded the memo, and the National School Boards Association apologized for the letter. But, as The Daily Signal recently reported, recent developments suggest the SPLC may be fulfilling the association’s role in another round of attacks on parents.

On June 6, the SPLC added parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty to its “hate map,” branding them “anti-government extremist groups” and part of an “anti-student inclusion movement.”

The SPLC attacked parental rights groups for opposing the leftward lurch in education that the SPLC itself supports—transgender lessons, sexually explicit books in school libraries, and critical race theory, which frames America as an institutionally racist country and blacks as inherently oppressed. The SPLC advocates such education through its Learning for Justice program.

As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC routinely brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups.” It tars religious freedom organizations, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, as “anti-LGBTQ hate groups,” and that smear inspired a gunman to target the Family Research Council for a terrorist attack in 2012.

Two days after the SPLC released its “hate map” and list of “hate groups” for 2022, the White House on June 8 released a strategy “to Protect LGBTQI+ Communities.” That strategy cites “federal threat monitoring” showing that LGBT individuals face threats “increasingly tied to hate groups and domestic violent extremists.” The Biden administration’s strategy also announced that the DOJ will take “an all-of-Department approach to protecting LGBTQI+ rights,” touting the DOJ’s United Against Hate initiative.

If in fact they are “United Against Hate”, then why are they united around only one group of people? If you are united against hate, shouldn’t you be united against all hate, regardless of political affiliation?

The strategy also aims to “shield LGBTQI+ Americans from book bans,” announcing that the Department of Education would seek to counter efforts by parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty to protect children from sexually explicit books in school.

Biden personally met with SPLC staff six times since January 2021, according to White House records, and SPLC staff attended White House meetings at least 11 times in that same period. America First Legal cites these and other pertinent facts in its Freedom of Information Act request.

The legal organization cites Daily Signal reporting on the chilling threats Moms for Liberty has received after the SPLC attacked the parental rights group. Moms for Liberty received various threats, including messages such as “I will personally eradicate you from Massachusetts,” and “piece of s— fascists like you deserve to be dragged against a wall and force-fed hot lead. Eat s— and die.”

“At the behest of its leftist teacher union allies, the Biden administration has weaponized the federal domestic intelligence community and law enforcement to intimidate parents, deter them from protecting their children, and undermine their First Amendment rights,” the request notes.

America First Legal is asking the DOJ to hand over records of meetings with SPLC staff, particularly the staffers who meet with Biden officials at the White House, records of communications with SPLC staff, all records relating to the SPLC’s 2022 “hate” report, and all communications referencing SPLC, Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, and terms related to parental rights.

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