Tom Fitton - The Corruption Chronicles; Obama’s big secrecy, big corruption, and big government

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J udicial Watch was established in 1994 to fight for transparency, honesty, accountability, and integrity in government, politics, and the law. Our conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation promotes high standards of ethics and morality in our nations public life. We stand watch to ensure that our elected officials and judicial officials dont abuse the powers we entrust to them. Our motto is Because no one is above the law!

Judicial Watch fulfills its mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. We dont take no for an answer, and we will sue whomever and wherever necessary to enforce the rule of law. That means that we sometimes stand out alone on the battlementsbut we dont mind, since thats what were here to do. But we never sue just for the sake of suing. We often sue to gain access to information that can educate the American people about the operations of our government. And we sometimes even sue politicians directly to hold them accountable. All of our lawsuits, whether they are against the government or to protect innocents, are designed to uphold the rule of law.

Our chief methods of pursuing our mission are via open records and freedom of information laws. Litigation and the civil discovery process not only uncover information for the education of the American people on anticorruption issues, but can also put a stop to corruption by public officials and government agencies. In other words, were doing the work that the government will not do itself. We provide the information and the impetus to enforcement of law designed to promote honest and open government.

And, yes, Judicial Watch watches the judiciary. We take on the important job of ensuring high ethical standards in the judiciary itself. Unfortunately, our judiciary is plagued by many of the same problems as the rest of our federal governmentit requires constant oversight, just like everything else government does. By monitoring judges and using the judicial ethics process to hold judges to account, we can make sure that the third branch of government does its important job untainted by corruption or even the appearance of corruption.

Our investigative, legal, and judicial activities provide the basis for our educational outreach, which includes speeches, op-eds, publications, educational conferences, media outreach, radio and news television appearances, and direct radio outreach through informational commercials and public service announcements. Judicial Watch is a long-standing member of the media. Our flagship publication, The Verdict, and other investigative pieces educate the public about abuses and misconduct by political and judicial officials, and advocate for the need for an ethical, law-abiding, and moral civic culture. Our website, www.judicialwatch.org, is specifically designed to make our open records documents, legal filings, and other educational materials accessible to the public and the media. We consider ourselves the wiki of government corruption. We know that the media drives the American public debate, and we have no intention of allowing that debate to be defined by the apologists for corrupt politicians and corrupted government in the media establishment.

We also provide legal services to other conservatives (and train regular citizen-activists) so they can use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other open records laws to obtain information and accountability on various issues. FOIA and the Privacy Act deserve more detailed explanation. FOIA especially is a tool that Judicial Watch uses regularly, and one that you too can use to help carry through the vision of the Founders and protect your government from corrupt insiders.

Think of Judicial Watch as your anticorruption watchdog in Washington, D.C., and in any state where we can leverage our investigatory and legal expertise to hold corrupt politicians and governments accountable to the rule of law.

We are Americas largest and most effective government watchdog group, and we are both proudly conservative and proudly nonpartisanwhich means that neither Democratic nor Republican corruption escapes our scrutiny. Our motto still stands: Because no one is above the law!

We use the open records and freedom of information laws to uncover corruption from federal, state, and local governments, but when government agencies dont follow the law and turn over documents as they are supposed towe sue in court to get them. We sue local governments, too, when they violate the lawwhether it is for ignoring federal immigration law and providing sanctuary for illegal alien lawbreakers or for illegally spending tax dollars to line politicians pockets. We also go to court to protect the rule of law from a rampaging federal government that is attacking the sovereign rights of the states to protect their citizens.

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When Judicial Watch was founded in 1994 it was during the dark days of the Clinton administrationwhen we had what we considered the most corrupt president and First Lady in the history of our country. Judicial Watch took on a leadership role in investigating, uncovering, and suing in the courts over Clinton corruption.

But we didnt close up shop when Bill Clinton left town. We took on Bush administration corruption and secrecy. We sought to hold the Bush administration accountable for secretive energy policy meetings similar to the corrupt Health Care Task Force meetings that Hillary ran in her failed effort to have the government run your health care. And we took on corrupt Republican politicians who traded access for political contributions. The former Republican majority, allegedly conservative, was elected in 1994 by a public fed up by a Congress where corruption seemingly ruled.

Rather than change the regime and create a rigorous ethics system as promised, Republicans eviscerated the congressional ethics process and actually curtailed some of the minor ethics reforms they did institute. As Republican leaders now acknowledge, the party of small government became, in many ways, the party of big corruption, or at least a party that countenanced big corruption.

Meanwhile, Democrats also put politics ahead of principle, agreeing to a congressional ethics process that protected Republicans (and themselves) in the short term and one that would protect Democrats in the long term if and when they regained the majority.

But when Democrats took control again, they simply repeated history; they didnt seem to care that corruption matters to the voting public. Most notably, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly became an ethics disaster. Pelosi (and too many other members of Congress from both parties) use luxury travel provided by our military to go on junkets far and wide. Who pays for it? You do. We found that Air Pelosi cost over $2 million in just two years.

Why is Nancy Pelosi now in the House minority? Because she couldnt be bothered to keep her promises for the most open, most honest, and most ethical Congress in history.

Do those promises remind you of President Obamas promises: Transparency? Forget about that. Health-care negotiations on C-SPAN? Forget about that. No lobbyists in the White House? Forget about that. Posting a bill on the Internet at least five days before signing? Forget about that, too.