Tom Fitton

Tom Fitton
Tom Fitton
Residence Washington, D.C.
Nationality United States
Alma mater George Washington University
Occupation President, activist
Organization Judicial Watch

Thomas J. Fitton is an American and president of Judicial Watch, a conservative self-styled watchdog group. He has worked for America's Voice and National Empowerment Television, the International Policy Forum, the Leadership Institute, and Accuracy in Media. He has been a talk radio and television host.[1]

Early life

Fitton was born in Nyack, New York. He has a bachelors degree in English from George Washington University.[2] Fitton's father was a manager at a supermarket and his mother was a nurse.[3]

Judicial Watch

Fitton has been President of Judicial Watch since August 1998. The group primarily seeks access to government records, filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public records act lawsuits, engaging in other forms of civil litigation, and pursuing various other actions designed to generate public pressure on government agencies and public officials.[4]

In 2006, Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch's former Chairman, attempted to reclaim control of Judicial Watch by suing Fitton, the organization, and the organization's other officers and directors. Most of Klayman's claims, including all of the claims against Fitton and Judicial Watch's other officers and directors, were dismissed in 2009.[5]

Views

Zimmerman trial

In July 2013, Fitton gained widespread attention after a jury found George Zimmerman not guilty in the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida when Fitton appeared in numerous interviews claiming that the Obama administration's Department of Justice had sent representatives to Sanford following Martin’s death "to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman."[6]

Climate change

Fitton rejects the IPCC consensus on climate change.[7] He has said "There has been scandal after scandal involving climate data and we are skeptical of government agencies that won’t tell people what they are up to... I’m sure scientists are concerned that funding for dubious research will be cut, but the truth will win out in the end."[7] Judicial Watch, which has claimed that climate science is "fraud science", has filed lawsuits seeking to force the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to release the correspondence of climate scientists who published a 2015 study in the journal Science.[8][9] The study had debunked one of the common claims made by those who reject the IPCC consensus, namely that there existed global warming "hiatus" between 1998-2012.[8] The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF), American Meteorological Society and Union of Concerned Scientists condemned Judicial Watch, saying that the disclosure of private communications between scientists "would harm (or halt altogether) government scientists' ability to collaborate with colleagues, damage the government's ability to recruit or retain top scientists, and deter critically important research into politically charged fields like climate change".[8] The Judicial Watch lawsuit was inspired by Rep. Lamar Smith who accused the authors of the study of "alter[ing] data" to "get the politically correct results they want."[8]

Support for Breitbart News

Judicial Watch has advertised for years on Breitbart News, the right-wing website formerly run by Steve Bannon.[10] The site was defended by Fitton against calls for advertisers to drop them for advertising. Fitton stated, "Liberal activists want to destroy Breitbart, but we won’t be cowed".[10]

Voter fraud

Fitton said about voter fraud: "We have all heard about voter fraud and the attempts by liberal media organs like the New York Times and Ivory Tower academics to dismiss it as a nonexistent problem. But it is real, widespread, and substantial to the point that it can decide elections".[11]

Russian interference in the 2016 election

In 2017, Judicial Watch helped to stoke Republican attacks against Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.[12][13] Trump frequently listens to Fitton and has mentioned Fitton at least five times in his tweets, including a promotion of an upcoming Fitton appearance on Fox.[13] According to Politico, "Fitton’s rhetoric is often indistinguishable from Trump’s."[13] Fitton called for the Special Counsel investigation to be shut down, arguing that prosecutors in the probe were too biased against President Trump to conduct a credible investigation.[14] Fitton furthermore called for shutting down the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "because it was turned into a KGB-type operation by the Obama administration."[15][16] Newsweek rated the claim "false", stating that "there is no comparison between the FBI and KGB."[17]

Awards

Fitton received the American Conservative Union's Defender of the Constitution Award' during its annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2015.[18]

Works

  • Fitton, Tom (2014). The Corruption Chronicles: Obama's Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government. New York: Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1-4767-6705-5.
  • Fitton, Tom Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies (New York: Threshold Editions, 2016). ISBN 978-1-5011-3704-4

References

  1. ↑ Tom Fitton biography at Judicial Watch web site.
  2. ↑ "Thomas Fitton, Judicial Watch Inc: Profile & Biography". Bloomberg.
  3. ↑ Neil NcCabe Washington Examiner
  4. ↑ About Judicial Watch at its web site.
  5. ↑ Klayman v. Judicial Watch, Inc., 628 F. Supp.2d 112, 118 (D.D.C. 2009).
  6. ↑ "Judicial Watch says Department of Justice unit organized protests against George Zimmerman".
  7. 1 2 Milman, Oliver (2017-02-22). "Climate scientists face harassment, threats and fears of 'McCarthyist attacks'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "Climate scientists battle attacks on their research from conservatives, brace for more under Trump". InsideClimate News. 2017-02-06. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
  9. ↑ Kurtz, Lauren (2016-07-07). "Climate scientists are under attack from frivolous lawsuits | Lauren Kurtz". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
  10. 1 2 Bhattarai, Abha (2017-06-08). "Breitbart lost 90 percent of its advertisers in two months: Who's still there?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
  11. ↑ Fitton, Tom (2016). Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies. New York: Threshold Editions. p. 117. ISBN 978-1501137051.
  12. ↑ Kranish, Michael; Barrett, Devlin; Demirjian, Karoun (2017-12-24). "No longer a 'lonely battle': How the campaign against the Mueller probe has taken hold". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
  13. 1 2 3 "'I know that he listens to Tom': Meet Trump's anti-Mueller ally". POLITICO. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  14. ↑ Barrett, Devlin; Sullivan, Sean (2017-12-06). "Republicans hammer Mueller, FBI as Russia investigation intensifies". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
  15. ↑ Anapol, Avery (December 14, 2017). "Conservative watchdog head: Do we need to shut down the FBI?". The Hill.
  16. ↑ Davis, Julie Hirschfeld (2018-02-02). "Trump Calls Justice Department and F.B.I. Conduct 'a Disgrace'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
  17. ↑ "We fact-checked a Fox News guest's claim that Obama turned the FBI into the KGB". Newsweek. 2017-12-14. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  18. ↑ Ross Hemminger (February 28, 2015). "Tom Fitton Presented with the Defender of the Constitution Award" (Press release). National Harbor, MD: American Conservative Union.
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