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A conservative think tank is suing the federal government for access to records it apparently believes may provide a “gotcha” moment pertaining to President Joe Biden’s health.
A lawsuit brought by the Heritage Foundation — which is behind the hard-right blueprint for a second Trump term known as “Project 2025” — seeks a list of “all medications dispensed on any aircraft designated with the call sign ‘Air Force One,’” beginning Jan. 20, 2021, the day Biden was inaugurated.
Project 2025 is a 922-page “mandate for leadership” meant to serve as a blueprint for an incoming Trump administration to, among other things, drastically expand presidential powers, slash funding for climate research, eviscerate LGBTQ protections, prosecute “anti-white racism,” criminalize abortion, and replace tens of thousands of federal civil service employees with MAGA loyalists.
The Heritage suit obtained by The Independent was quietly filed July 9 in Washington, D.C., federal court by Mike Howell, a former Trump admin official and director of the organization’s “Oversight Project,” which Heritage says is aimed at “exposing” the Biden White House’s supposed “woke agenda takeover of the federal government.” (Howell recently made news for saying taking aim at a hacking group made up of so-called furries, calling them “degenerate perverts” in a series of leaked texts.)
In the lawsuit, Heritage claims the “types of medication dispensed on Air Force One are the subject of public interest because questions about the President’s mental and physical acuity have been the subject of widespread media and public interest following the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s Report and the June 27th Presidential Debate.”
Biden turned in a lackluster performance at the campaign season’s first debate, immediately prompting calls by prominent Democrats for the 81-year-old president to step aside in favor of a younger candidate. Biden has since pledged to stay in the race.
The Hur report, which was written after a probe into Biden’s alleged mishandling of sensitive government documents following his vice-presidential term, did not find any evidence of criminality. At the same time, it described Biden as a doddering “elderly man with a poor memory.” (This characterization was hotly disputed by Biden and his surrogates.)
In February, Heritage tried to unearth any records about meds on Air Force One by submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, noting that, in the past, “medications were liberally dispensed with little oversight in the White House.” The link Heritage provided as supporting evidence brings up a CNN article from January 2024 summarizing a Department of Defense (DoD) report issued the same month that analyzed the White House Medical Unit’s activity between 2017 and 2019, when Trump was in office.
The DoD Office of Inspector General (OIG) carried out the investigation in the wake of allegations that “a senior military medical officer assigned to the White House Medical Unit engaged in improper medical practices,” the lightly-redacted report states. Although many names are blacked out, Dr. Ronny Jackson, a U.S. Navy rear admiral, onetime chief of the White House Medical Unit, and personal physician to Trump, came under intense scrutiny in a 2021 OIG report that called him out for freely handing out narcotics to staffers without a prescription. Jackson, a Republican, was later elected to Congress.
Trump has personally poured gasoline on the fire, claiming, without a shred of proof, that Biden was “higher than a kite” when he gave a rousing, energetic State of the Union address earlier this year, and speculated the president partook in, variously, cocaine and anabolic steroids to enhance his performance.
In April, Heritage’s FOIA request was denied by the Air Force and transferred to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which subsequently marked it as closed, according to the lawsuit.
“Defendants’ failure to conduct searches for responsive records violates FOIA, DOD, and OMB regulations,” the Heritage lawsuit states, asking the court to order the government to fulfill its request within 20 days.
“Plaintiffs are being denied information to which they are statutorily entitled,” and “will continue to be irreparably harmed unless Defendants are compelled to comply with the law,” the suit concludes.
Although at least 140 people who served under Trump during his one-term presidency, including six of his Cabinet secretaries, four of his ambassadorial picks, and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows worked on Project 2025, Trump has attempted to distance himself from it, claiming, disingenuously, “I know nothing about Project 2025.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Messages sent on Wednesday to the Heritage Foundation and its attorneys went unanswered.
