Tag: foia

FDA Withholds Autopsy Results of Those Who Died After COVID Shots

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to release the autopsy results of people whose deaths were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after receiving a COVID-19 shot. The FOIA request was submitted by The Epoch Times newspaper.1

“VAERS is a centralized vaccine reaction reporting system that was among the safety provisions secured by parents of DPT (diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus) vaccine injured children in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986,” explains Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). It is jointly operated by the FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).2 3

According to The Epoch Times, the FDA declined to release any autopsy reports of VAERS deaths, even redacted copies, citing FOIA section (8) (A) which allows federal agencies to withhold information from the public if an agency “reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption,” with the exemption being “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

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Feds Cooked Up Detailed Propaganda Plan to Push COVID Shots, Documents Reveal

Judicial Watch announced this week that it received 249 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing the extensive media plans for a propaganda campaign to push the COVID-19 vaccine.

The records were received in response to an August 2021 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after HHS failed to respond to an April 19, 2021 request for records related to the Biden HHS “COVID-19 Community Corps” program (Judicial Watch v. HHS No. 1:22-cv-02315).

Judicial Watch is asking for all records regarding the application process; all organizations asking to be chosen to participate; all grants and all communications of representatives of the HHS regarding the program.

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Secret Service says Biden Delaware visitor logs don’t exist, report says

The U.S. Secret Service says it cannot find records identifying any visitors to President Joe Biden’s Delaware homes, according to a Freedom of Information Act appeal from the New York Post. Biden has spent approximately one quarter of his presidency at his Delaware residences.

In a letter dated Sept. 27, Secret Service deputy director Faron Paramore said that “the agency conducted an additional search of relevant program offices for potentially responsive records.”

“This search also produced no responsive records,” Paramore claimed. “Accordingly, your appeal is denied.”

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) slammed the Secret Service’s claims and the Biden administration’s ongoing lack of transparency.

“The claim that there are no visitor logs for President Biden’s Delaware residence is a bunch of malarkey,” Comer told The Post. “Americans deserve to know who President Biden is meeting with, especially since we know that he routinely met with [first son] Hunter’s business associates during his time as vice president.”

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Court Orders Production Of Seth Rich Laptop

Today, a federal judge ordered the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop.”

This case involves a multi-year fight by attorney Ty Clevenger to obtain records relating to the FBI/DOJ investigation of Seth Rich, particularly whether Rich was involved in the hack of the DNC or had communicated with Wikileaks.

This fight dates back to 2017 and includes two FOIA lawsuit. In the first lawsuit, the FBI produced no responsive documents. The parties knew the FBI had something, and so this sparked a second lawsuit – where the FBI somehow found 20,000 pages of potentially responsive documents.

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‘We’ll Leave No Stones Unturned’: Last Living Member of The Monkees Sues the FBI to Get Full, Unredacted File on the Iconic Rock Band

The last surviving member of The Monkees is suing the FBI for full access to the agency’s file on the legendary rock ‘n’ roll band.

George Michael Dolenz, Jr., better known by his stage name, Micky Dolenz, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday.

The litigation comes over a decade after the FBI’s partial file on the band was released and posted on the agency’s website in 2011.

“The television show “‘The Monkees’ is,” the popular group’s file reads before a section of redacted text in the document dated July 26, 1967.

The Los Angeles-based rock band’s file appears to be contained in a broader case file regarding the “Radio-TV Industry” in “the Hollywood area” based on an informant’s impressions. The information on The Monkees is specifically slotted under the title: “Additional Activities Denouncing the U.S. Policy in the War in Vietnam.”

“This series, which has been quite successful, features four young men who dress as ‘beatnik types’ and is geared primarily to the teenage market,” the file says. “During recent weeks, the four stars of the show have been making public appearance tours throughout the U.S.”

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Feds withholding info about deletion of Covid genetic data

The watchdog group Empower Oversight is taking action against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for evading accountability in its legal obligations to disclose “requested” documentation under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

According to Empower Oversight’s court filing, NIH improperly withheld information gathered in response to questions from Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas).

Last year, the Senators asked about the agency’s decision, the request of Chinese researchers, to delete coronavirus genetic sequence information from an NIH database.

NIH has already admitted in the lawsuit that it failed to meet deadlines required by FOIA in responding to Empower Oversight’s request. 

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FOIA Documents: Nearly 2 Dozen Secret Wars Waged With Your Tax Dollars

As a note to remember:  These “wars” took place under President Donald Trump.

RT has the story.

The US has reportedly used a secretive authority called ‘127e’ to launch at least two dozen proxy wars since 2017, according to an article published on Friday by The Intercept. The outlet claims to have obtained never-before-seen documents and spoken to top officials with intimate knowledge of these programs.

The Intercept received the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming these papers are the first ever official confirmation that at least 14 so-called ‘127e programs’ were active in the greater Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions as recently as 2020. In total, the Pentagon reportedly launched 23 separate 127e programs across the globe between 2017 and 2020, which cost US taxpayers $310 million.

The Intercept explains that 127e is one of several virtually unknown authorities granted to the Department of Defense by Congress over the last two decades. It authorizes US commandos to conduct “counterterrorism operations” in cooperation with foreign and irregular partner forces around the world with minimal outside oversight.

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FOIAs Reveal Progressive Money Fueling FBI, DOJ, Leftist Activist and Election Official Coordination

A strange constellation has emerged through public records requests of coordination between progressive funders, federal authorities, corporations, state election officials, and leftist organizations.

Freedom of information requests have uncovered oddball and opaque relationships between some state election officials, federal officials, corporations, progressive activists, and those trying to influence the conduct of those same election officials. These relationships extend to junkets that include baseball games, travel, and even data exchanges between state officials and outside progressive groups.

The story begins with a series of freedom of information act requests aimed at a number of states to see if any election officials are tempted to apply for now-illegal money from the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Technology and Civic Life. Such grants and the wild expenditures of these funds altered the course of the 2020 election. (Read The Real Kraken, What Really Happened to Donald Trump in the 2020 Election at PJ Media.)

The FOIAs were submitted by the Public Interest Legal Foundation—with which I am associated—and were aimed broadly at election officials across the United States.

While no election official in a state that now prohibits private funding of elections has applied for new funding, something stranger, and more dangerous has emerged from the public information requests.

In one email, we find that the Democracy Fund—a hyper-funded progressive money source—is organizing state officials and third parties to discuss election administration.

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Met Police Invokes “National Security” about Epstein Meeting with US Senators in the UK 

In connection with Whitney Webb’s upcoming book on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, One Nation Under Blackmail, Unlimited Hangout filed a Freedom of Information request asking UK law enforcement and the Ministry of Defence the identity of two sitting US senators who were present at Foxcote House in North Warwickshire, UK on September 1, 2002. UH contributor Johnny Vedmore had previously obtained information from eyewitnesses of that meeting that, not only were two US Senators present at that location that day, but that Metropolitan Police officers had supplied security for the meeting. The FOI request was filed to Metropolitan Police, the UK Ministry of Defence and North Warwickshire Police and only a response from the Metropolitan Police was received.

The motive for UH’s FOI request is as follows. It is known that Jeffrey Epstein, as attested to by Epstein’s flight logs, was present in this part of the UK during this same period (from August 31, 2002 to September 2, 2002) and eyewitnesses saw him attend this specific meeting at this location with two attractive and glamorously dressed women on each arm. One of these women was Nicole Junkermann, a former model and apparent intelligence asset as revealed in Vedmore’s previous investigative work. The other woman was described by eyewitnesses as a tall brunette. Per those eyewitness accounts, Epstein personally escorted the two women into the room where the two senators were waiting.

Notably the house where this meeting took place, Foxcote House, has been owned by the family of Leslie Wexner, specifically his wife Abigail Wexner, since 1999. Wexner’s role in financing much of Jeffrey Epstein’s activities, legal and illegal, is a major focus of Webb’s upcoming book and Wexner has encountered considerable difficulty in explaining away his relationship with Epstein, despite the largely servile posture of mainstream media in this regard.

Given the circumstances, it seems highly likely that this meeting was a high-profile instance of Jeffrey Epstein engaging in the sexual blackmail of sitting American politicians. However, due to the well-known scandal around Jeffrey Epstein, his name was not used in our FOI request in order to avoid potentially “spiking” the response.

Despite the omission of Epstein’s name, Metropolitan Police responded to the request stating that they can “neither confirm nor deny whether it holds” the requested information. Their response goes on to state that confirming or denying “whether any United States of America (USA) senators were afforded protection could undermine the safeguarding of national security.” It also notes that it blocked providing the requested information on four other grounds aside from “national security” (five in total), including “international relations”, “law enforcement”, “health and safety”, and “personal information.” It also states that providing the requested information could place “those who are afforded protection, protection officers and members of the public at risk.”

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FOIA Documents Disclose the CDC Has Been Producing and Culturing Human Stem Cell Lines

The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) obtained documents disclosing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cultured 22 distinct human cell lines, including cells apparently extracted from parts of aborted fetuses and babies younger than four weeks.

ICAN’s lawyers sent the CDC a letter (pdf) on June 25, 2021, asking for documents that contained the word HEK.

HEK cells are immortalized cell lines likely obtained from a miscarried or aborted fetus.

“Immortalized human cell lines live outside of the body in nutrient media that, under ideal conditions, will replicate forever without death,” Dr. James Thorp, a maternal-fetal medicine expert told The Epoch Times.

“These various cell lines are used for numerous experimental purposes including the development of vaccine technology and genetic modification. The origin of these numerous human immortal cell lines is impossible to determine for certain but likely derived from abortions, miscarriages, fetal deaths, or other human sources derived from a variety of different organ systems,” Thorp said.

Recently, the CDC had to release 281 pages of related documents (pdf).

An email from 2015 with the subject “Research using Fetal Tissue” says in the unredacted part that “The list below contains all the cell lines Jason’s team has cultured,” which include 22 human cell lines.

It includes the human brain endothelium, liver, intestines, foreskin, lung, and other body parts.

Another email with the subject “Cell Lines from the last two years” shows 47 cell lines of which some are also human.

“Below are the cell lines we have produced in the last two years,” reads the email of the CDC researcher.

The main controversy with stem cell research arises in the harvesting of stem cells from human embryos that are usually conceived in a lab.

In 2009, former President Barack Obama lifted a ban that lasted for about 8 years on federal funding for most stem cell research.

In a bid to appease those concerned, Obama said: “We will never undertake this research lightly. We will support it only when it is both scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted. We will develop strict guidelines, which we will rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”

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