Judicial Watch

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Judicial Watch is an American government watchdog organization founded in 1994. The group uses litigation as its primary tool and came to public attention after filing eighteen lawsuits against the administration of Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton and figures in the Clinton administration. The organization was the first to expose John Huang's illegal fund-raising activities relating to the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy (also known as Chinagate).[1]

They have also received a great deal of funding from Clinton critics, including $7.74 million from conservative anti-Clinton billioniare Richard Mellon Scaife. [2] This led Clinton administration officials to accuse them of "abusing the judicial system for partisan ends". [3]

More recently, Judicial Watch has also sued the George W. Bush administration for access to minutes of Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force [4] and has also sued the Secret Service to force the release of logs detailing corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House. [5]

1 Mission
2 Funding
3 Leadership
4 Activities
5 Criticism
6 External links

[edit] Mission

Judicial Watch describes itself as "a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation" which "promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law" and "advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people". [6]

[edit] Funding

Judicial Watch receieves funding from mainly conservative sources. In 2002, Judicial Watch received $1.1 million from The Carthage Foundation and a further $400,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation. The year before the Scaife Foundation gave $1.35 million and Carthage $500,000.

In all, between 1997 and 2002 Judicial Watch received $7,069,500 (unadjusted for inflation) in 19 grants from a handful of foundations. The bulk of this funding came from just three foundations – the Sarah Scaife Foundation, The Carthage Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc. [7]

[edit] Leadership

Tom Fitton has been President of Judicial Watch since 1998 and directs operations from the Washington, DC headquarters. He has previously worked for the International Policy Forum, the Leadership Institute, and Accuracy in Media.

Paul J. Orfanedes serves as the head of Judicial Watch's legal department and is a member of the Board of Directors.

Christopher J. Farrell serves as Judicial Watch's Director of Investigations and Research and has been a member of the Board of Directors since September 2003.

[edit] Activities

The Judicial Watch web page contains detailed information on current litigation matters. A sample of Judicial Watch activities taken on July 26, 2005 include:

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 Bush administration for their "guest worker" program, obtaining evidence of a spike in illegal immigration denied by the administration.
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.
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".[8]
Filing a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton for alleged fraudulent accounting practices.[9]
Judicial Watch gained media attention when a judge in a separate lawsuit ordered the Department of Justice to release 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..." [10]

[edit] Criticism

Aimed at Judicial Watch is the accusation that it seems to have abandoned the mission embodied in its name, and has instead become a watchdog over Washington-based political activity.