Tom Fitton
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Thomas J. Fitton is an American
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
activist and the president of
Judicial Watch Judicial Watch (JW) is an American conservative activist group that files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to investigate claimed misconduct by government officials. Founded in 1994, JW has primarily targeted Democrats, in particula ...
. Fitton is known for pro-Trump commentary. Fitton is prominent for criticizing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the
2016 United States presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
; he has said that the investigation was a "coup" against U.S. President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
and called for it to be shut down. In 2022, researchers found Fitton was the third-most prolific purveyor of election misinformation on Twitter during the late months of 2020. Fitton rejects the
scientific consensus on climate change There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific org ...
; under his tenure, Judicial Watch has filed lawsuits against climate scientists.


Early life

Fitton was born in
West Nyack, New York West Nyack is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Clarkstown, Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of Blauvelt, east of Nanuet, southwest of Valley Cottage, southeast of Bardonia, and west of Central Nyac ...
. He graduated from
Clarkstown High School South Clarkstown High School South is a Public school (government funded), public high school located in West Nyack, New York, United States. The school educates students in grades 9 through 12, and is one of two high schools in the Clarkstown Central S ...
in 1986. Fitton has a bachelor's degree in English from
George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...
. His father was a manager at a supermarket and his mother was a nurse.


Judicial Watch

Fitton has been the president of Judicial Watch since August 1998. The group primarily seeks access to government records by filing
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...
(FOIA) and other public records act lawsuits and engaging in other forms of civil litigation. In 2006,
Larry Klayman Larry Elliot Klayman (born July 20, 1951) is an American attorney, right-wing activist, and former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor. He founded both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch. In addition to his numerous lawsuits against the Clinton adm ...
, Judicial Watch's former chairman, attempted to reclaim control of Judicial Watch by suing Fitton, the organization, and its 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. On October 2, 2020, it was announced that Trump intended to appoint Fitton to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure. He was officially appointed on November 10, 2020, and his term ends on July 29, 2025.


Views


Zimmerman trial

In July 2013, Fitton falsely claimed that the
Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
's Department of Justice had sent representatives to
Sanford, Florida Sanford is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Seminole County. As of the 2020 census, its population was 61,051. Known as the "Historic Waterfront Gateway City", Sanford sits on the southern shore ...
, following Trayvon Martin's death "to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman."


Climate change

Fitton rejects the scientific consensus on climate change (
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
). He 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." Judicial Watch, which has claimed that
climate science Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of stud ...
is "fraud science," has filed lawsuits seeking to force the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA) to release the correspondence of climate scientists who published a 2015 study in the journal ''
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
''. The study had debunked one of the common claims made by
climate change deniers Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is denial, dismissal, or doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, or th ...
: that there had been global warming "hiatus" from 1998 to 2012. The
Climate Science Legal Defense Fund The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) is a not-for-profit organization established in 2011 to provide legal assistance to researchers and institutions engaged in climate science facing legal challenges from private entities such as think ...
(CSLDF),
American Meteorological Society The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the premier scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the Atmospheric sciences, atmospheric, Oceanography, oceanic, and Hydrology, hydr ...
, and
Union of Concerned Scientists The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists. Anne Kapuscinski, Professor of Environmenta ...
condemned Judicial Watch by 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." The Judicial Watch lawsuit was inspired by US Representative
Lamar Smith Lamar Seeligson Smith (born November 19, 1947) is an American politician and lobbyist who served in the United States House of Representatives for for 16 terms, a district including most of the wealthier sections of San Antonio and Austin, as w ...
, who accused the authors of the study of "alter ngdata" to "get the politically correct results they want."


Support for Breitbart News

Judicial Watch has advertised for years on
Breitbart News ''Breitbart News Network'' (known commonly as ''Breitbart News'', ''Breitbart'', or ''Breitbart.com'') is an American far-rightMultiple sources: * * * * * * * * * * * * syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website founded in mid-2007 b ...
, the far-right website formerly run by
Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during t ...
. 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."


Voting rights

Fitton said about
voter fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
: "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." Fitton has alleged that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2018 midterm elections. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in California or Texas. On February 3, 2020, the day of the
Iowa caucuses The Iowa caucuses are biennial electoral events for members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. state of Iowa. Unlike primary elections in most other U.S. states, where registered voters go to polling places to cast ballots, ...
in the Democratic presidential primary, Fitton suggested that voter fraud was afoot in Iowa by falsely claiming that "eight Iowa counties have more voter registrations than citizens old enough to register." Iowa's Secretary of State, Paul Pate, a member of the Republican Party, debunked Fitton's claim by linking to official voter registration data. In a video recording released in October 2020, in the lead-up to the 2020 election, Fitton called on fellow conservative activists at a conference to come up with ways to prevent mail-in-ballots from being distributed to voters. At the
Conservative Political Action Conference The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC; ) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States and beyond. CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU). ...
in February 2021, Fitton falsely claimed that on the day of the
2020 United States presidential election The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
, "President Trump had the votes to win the presidency. These vote totals were changed because of unprecedented and extraordinary counting after election day".


Russian interference in the 2016 election

In 2017, Judicial Watch helped to stoke Republican attacks against Special Counsel
Robert Mueller Robert Swan Mueller III (; born August 7, 1944) is an American lawyer and government official who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A graduate of Princeton University and New York ...
's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He has referred to the Mueller probe as a "coup" against Trump. Trump retweeted Fitton's remarks about a coup; PolitiFact rated the assertion that the Mueller probe was a coup as "pants-on-fire" false. Trump frequently listens to Fitton and had mentioned Fitton at least five times in his tweets by August 2018, including a promotion of an upcoming Fitton appearance on Fox. According to ''Politico'', "Fitton's rhetoric is often indistinguishable from Trump's." Fitton called for the Special Counsel investigation to be shut down and argued that prosecutors in the probe were too biased against Trump to conduct a credible investigation. Fitton furthermore called for shutting down the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
"because it was turned into a KGB-type operation by the Obama administration." ''Newsweek'' rated the claim "false", stating that "there is no comparison between the FBI and KGB." When Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, pleaded guilty to crimes brought to light by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe in December 2018, Fitton dismissed the importance of the crimes. Fitton said it was "weak tea" and intended "to make President Trump look bad."


COVID-19 pandemic

During the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, Fitton has called on Trump to "reopen" the United States amid social distancing and lockdowns to prevent spread of the virus. Fitton criticized Dr.
Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president. ...
, the White House's leading epidemiology expert, and amplified right-wing conspiracy theories about Fauci. At an August 2020 meeting of the
Council for National Policy The Council for National Policy (CNP) is an umbrella organization and networking group for conservative and Republican activists in the United States. It was launched in 1981 during the Reagan administration by Tim LaHaye and the Christian righ ...
, Fitton claimed that people on the American
left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * L ...
are planning to delay the 2020 election tally until January 20, 2021, to allow House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...
to become acting
president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
. He later added that "it could cause civil war".


Awards

Fitton received the
American Conservative Union The American Conservative Union (ACU) is an American political organization that advocates for conservative policies, ranks politicians based on their level of conservatism, and organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference. Founded on ...
's 'Defender of the Constitution Award' during its annual
Conservative Political Action Conference The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC; ) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States and beyond. CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU). ...
(CPAC) in 2015.


Works

* * Fitton, Tom ''Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies'' (New York: Threshold Editions, 2016). *


References


External links


Judicial Watch board
with bio of Tom Fitton * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fitton, Tom 1968 births Living people American political activists American conspiracy theorists Columbian College of Arts and Sciences alumni People from West Nyack, New York