Richard Mellon Scaife's Cash Pays For Judicial Watch's Ideologically Motivated Lawsuits

Comments (0) By Stephen Lemons Thursday, Dec 23 2010

Nevertheless, Judicial Watch has continued to target both Harris and Gordon, neither of whom toes the nativist line. Currently, J.W. is suing Harris and the city over allegations that Harris is "double-dipping" in violation of state law — that is, drawing his retirement after being rehired for the same post.

Harris and the city contend that Harris was rehired to an enhanced job post, that of public safety manager, which includes additional duties.

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Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton (left) plays host to Arizona state Senate President-elect Russell Pearce in D.C.

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During a phone interview, I asked Fitton why he wasn't equally concerned by the fact that six high-ranking employees of the Sheriff's Office had been outed as double-dippers by the Arizona Republic.

"Do you want us to sue them, too?" he shot back with sarcasm.

Well, hey, it'd be a start. Especially if "no one is above the law," as J.W.'s Web site declares.

During our confab, Fitton seemed relatively unconcerned by corruption within the MCSO, as revealed by the now-famous memo alleging same by Deputy Chief Frank Munnell (see "Joe Arpaio's Watergate," Feathered Bastard blog, September 16).

Nor did he seem much troubled by allegations of possible criminal misconduct by Arpaio raised in independent counsel John Gleason's report to the State Bar of Arizona on former County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his henchwomen, ex-deputy county attorneys Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander (see "Chickens Come Home," The Bird, December 9).

Not to mention the ongoing civil and criminal probes of the MCSO ongoing by federal agencies, as well as a federal grand jury investigating both Thomas and Arpaio's activities in office.

Judicial Watch would rather occupy itself with blasting Harris for giving a declaration opposed to SB 1070, one used by the U.S. Department of Justice in its ongoing challenge to the breathing-while-brown legislation.

Sure, a busted cuckoo clock can be right twice a day. Judicial Watch tried and failed to have Mayor Gordon's security detail logs unsealed. And I agree that would be a good thing. Gordon, in the interest of transparency, should simply make them available ("Gordon Says He Values Transparency, Yet . . ." Valley Fever blog, June 18).

All the same, Judicial Watch focuses, for the most part, on its ideological enemies, even though Fitton denied to me that this was the case.

So why don't we see Judicial Watch expending some of its loot investigating Russell Pearce's ties to the private-prison industry or exposing Sheriff Joe's corruption (see "Russell Pearce Corrupt Bigot," Feathered Bastard, November 3)?

"You're not acting as a journalist," Fitton berated me angrily at one point. "You're acting as an advocate."

This, because I couldn't suppress a chuckle when he characterized Pearce's views on immigration as "mainstream."

That alone pretty much tells you where Judicial Watch is coming from. If you think Pearce is middle-of-the-road, then the Ku Klux Klan must strike you as the Elks Club wearing white sheets.

Nothing wrong with having a slant or an opinion. It's a free country. But Judicial Watch is little more than a right-wing attack machine. And whatever legal hack work Fitton and his bunch do is therefore tainted by their obvious bias and by all that Scaife dough.