WASHINGTON, DC, Sep 30 — Ten years ago, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that former President Bill Clinton [1993-2001] had a right to keep classified tape recordings when he left office. “The tapes belonged to Mr. Clinton” and “the National Archives and Records Administration had no power to ‘seize control of them’ because Mr. Clinton had used his authority under the Presidential Records Act to declare the recordings part of his personal records,” according to the Washington Times.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, cited that precedent in a recent interview with Rebecca Weber, CEO of the Association of Mature American Citizens, on her AMAC Better For America podcast. She referred to the Clinton decision and asked Fitton what it might mean in the case of the Biden administration’s seizure of President Trump’s presidential documents.
Fitton responded by explaining the “hypocrisy” of the Justice Department in this matter. In the Clinton case, he noted, the Department “told the court that if the president takes records with him and he doesn’t give them to the archives, they’re presumptively personal. So, when all this noise started happening in February, I thought, what is going on here? We fought and lost on this very issue and the Justice Department did a 180. And of course, the Justice Department’s prior position has been that these records are his. The National Archives and the judge had ruled at the request of the Archives and the Justice Department that really there’s no way to second guess the president’s decision-making here. And there’s really no enforcement, not even civil enforcement, they can bring against the president if they have a dispute about presidential records. He’s the decider-in-chief when it comes to presidential records.” Fitton pointed out that the Justice Department knew that was their prior legal position and yet “they raided [President Trump’s] home anyway…Is it significant evidence of corruption?”
In a change of topics, Weber asked Fitton to elaborate on the case of David Flynn, a high school teacher in Massachusetts who was abruptly fired from his position as head coach of the school’s football team. Flynn had objected to and denounced Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter propaganda within the school curriculum. Judicial Watch assisted him in his quest for justice and Flynn won.
As Fitton noted at the time, “This [is] a remarkable victory for Coach Flynn, as his federal civil rights lawsuit resulted in the Dedham School District admitting that he was absolutely right to be concerned about the district’s introducing a new, controversial CRT-style curriculum without parental notice or involvement. Coach Flynn also appreciates that the teachers will no longer be able to use virtual learning to push Black Lives Matter symbols. It shouldn’t have taken a federal civil rights lawsuit for the school district to do the right thing. We hope other school officials take note they must treat parental curriculum concerns with respect and avoid radical indoctrination of children.”
Fitton told Weber during her interview that “what’s so troubling about this issue is that it is being propagandized among our children. The parents are not only not involved in this and not brought in, but when they try to enter this conversation, they’re told to stay out of it, and they’re harassed or not given any time to speak at meetings. And what should happen in any school curriculum decision [is] a collaboration among educators and the parents who pay their salaries, especially in the public school system. So that’s where we should be going on this. Critical Race Theory [is] an abomination onto our Constitutional system and anti-American. [It’s] designed to show racial division and [to] overthrow our system of government and the American way of life by pretending everyone is racist or everyone is a victim of racism.” Fitton further reminds us that we must protect not only our kids, but our country to preserve the American way of life that the Biden administration continues to threaten with their propaganda. As he said, “the right people in the right place can do wonderful things…And so, it doesn’t take much to save the nation.”