Archives for 2016

Washington, DC – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Archivist David Ferriero to fulfill their statutory obligations to recover all of former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s work-related email records from a personal email service provider. The lawsuit was filed after Secretary Kerry and Archivist Ferriero failed to act on a Federal Records Act notice and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request sent earlier this month.

In September, the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee held a hearing at which Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy testified that his agency had undertaken only minimal efforts to retrieve former Secretary Powell’s work-related emails from his private email account. Upon learning that Secretary Powell no longer had access to this account, the State Department merely requested that he contact his email provider to see if any records were still recoverable.  Secretary Powell never responded to that request, and the State Department took no further action, despite a request from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to contact Secretary Powell’s internet service or email provider directly.

Cause of Action Institute Vice President John Vecchione: “The law requires that all work-related emails sent or received using former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s personal email account be properly archived and available to the public through FOIA. The State Department has failed to take appropriate actions to secure those federal records. Secretary of State John Kerry and the Archivist are legally obligated to secure the records so that future generations can understand how important decisions were made during politically contentious years.”

The email records in question are not the personal property of former Secretary Powell but are federal records belonging to the State Department.  The Federal Records Act gives the Secretary of State (as well as the Archivist of the United States) the authority, acting through the U.S. Attorney General, to take necessary legal action to recover alienated records.  The right to initiate action through the Attorney General is a mandatory obligation—in other words, the Secretary and the Archivist are required to initiate action through the Attorney General to recover Secretary Powell’s work-related email.

CoA Institute’s lawsuit seeks to compel Secretary Kerry and Archivist Ferriero to fulfill their statutory obligations so that all of Secretary Powell’s work-related emails will be recovered.

Cause of Action Institute’s complaint can be accessed HERE

All complaint exhibits can be accessed HERE

Cause of Action Institute’s Federal Records Act notices can be accessed HERE and HERE

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Washington D.C. – The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) has confirmed unlawful disclosure of taxpayer information by the IRS, while at the same time dismissing a request by Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) to investigate wrongdoing. The response from the IG concluded that CoA Institute was correct in its allegations that “protected taxpayer information was included” on CDs provided by the IRS, but also determined that the matter “does not warrant further investigation[.]”

Last June, CoA Institute called on the DOJ IG and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) to examine potential legal violations arising from the October 2010 disclosure of more than one million pages of tax returns and return information to the FBI and DOJ Public Integrity Section by Lois Lerner and the IRS.  [For more information, see pages 11-15 of CoA Institute’s recent investigative report]

TIGTA has not yet provided its response to the request.  CoA Institute also requested that the DOJ IG examine whether FBI and DOJ employees violated taxpayer confidentiality laws by inspecting that data.

While the IG admitted that “protected taxpayer information was included” on the IRS CDs, it stated that as soon as DOJ “learned of this, it returned the CDs to the IRS and informed Congress[.]”  Therefore, “[g]iven the absence of available information suggesting that Department employees . . . violate[d] laws, regulations, or policy,” the IG concluded that “this matter does not warrant further investigation[.]”  CoA Institute has filed a FOIA request with the DOJ IG to determine the exact nature of its notification to Congress.

CoA Institute Vice President John J. Vecchione: “The DOJ IG’s response is concerning.  While admitting that the IRS did, in fact, disclose confidential taxpayer information, the IG failed to address the absence of any proper requests for disclosure from the DOJ.  Even more alarming, the IG refused to conduct an investigation into legal violations because of the ‘absence of available information.’  The whole point of an investigation here is to collect the information necessary to determine whether DOJ officials broke the law by inspecting taxpayer data.  Americans deserve to know how Washington handles their most private information.  This incident may be one of the largest and most significant breaches of taxpayer confidentiality laws by the federal government, yet the IG seems to be washing its hands of the matter.”

The DOJ Public Integrity Section and the FBI sought the tax information at issue in order to prosecute non-profit organizations allegedly engaged in prohibited political activity.  As part of its public oversight efforts, CoA Institute obtained records demonstrating that neither agency ever submitted the statutorily-required requests for disclosure of this information to the IRS between 2009 and 2012.

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides a strict rule of confidentiality for tax returns and return information.  Unless a statutory exception applies, government agencies and their employees may not disclose such information.  Violations can include fines, termination from employment, and even imprisonment.

To access CoA Institute’s June 29, 2016 Letter to TIGTA and DOJ-OIG, click here.

To access the DOJ IG’s October 12, 2016 response, click here.

To access CoA Institute’s October 19, 2016 FOIA request to DOJ IG, click here.

Washington, DC – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the State Department to release ethics records for former Secretary of State Clinton and her staff.

Recently released emails demonstrate that Clinton Foundation donors may have received special access to Secretary Clinton. Those emails raise questions about whether she and members of her staff adequately addressed potential conflicts of interest. These records will help the public understand whether Secretary Clinton complied with the ethics agreement she signed before becoming Secretary, as well as how the State Department’s ethics office advised her and her staff regarding conflicts of interest.

CoA Institute submitted a FOIA request on August 24, 2016, but the State Department failed to produce any records responsive to the request well past the applicable time limits. In addition, the State Department Inspector General found that 47 percent of presidentially-appointed State Department officials failed to complete their mandatory ethics training during Secretary Clinton’s last full year in office.

Cause of Action Institute Vice President John Vecchione: “It appears that State Department officials during Secretary Clinton’s tenure did not take their ethics responsibilities seriously. Americans have a right to know whether Secretary Clinton and her aides at the State Department flouted ethics requirements in order to grant special treatment to Clinton Foundation supporters.”

In January 2009, during Sec. Clinton’s confirmation, she signed an agreement stating: “If confirmed as Secretary of State, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect upon [the Clinton Foundation], unless I first obtain a written waiver or qualify for a regulatory exemption.”

In its lawsuit, CoA Institute demands copies of recusals and ethics agreements for Secretary Clinton and members of her staff, any ethics waivers or exemptions they may have obtained from the State Department ethics office, and ethics office communications concerning Secretary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

The full complaint can be found HERE
The exhibits are available HERE
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 CoA Institute questions role of former Obama appointee on the Department of Veterans Affairs Presidential transition team

Washington, DC – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today sent two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, one to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and one to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), seeking records on what has become an election-year tradition in Washington D.C.: political appointees at federal agencies attempting to transition to permanent career positions. This practice, commonly referred to as “burrowing,” often entails political employees gaining unfair advantage and using their connections to obtain permanent positions.
Cause of Action Institute Vice President John Vecchione: “Selecting permanent federal government employees based on ideology instead of qualifications is a disservice to American taxpayers and results in less qualified civil servants. Burrowing also provides the outgoing presidential administration the ability to place ideological allies within the federal government permanently, creating a more politicized bureaucracy. American taxpayers have a right to know how many Obama administration political appointees are gaming the system and attempting to transition to permanent positions.”
In an effort to curtail burrowing, OPM in 2009 began requiring any agency attempting to appoint current or former political appointees to a competitive, career position to first obtain approval from OPM. However, it is unclear how often agencies request waivers or how often waivers are granted.
Attempts to burrow during the final year of the Obama administration have already come to light. In the FOIA sent today, CoA Institute has requested records relating to an Obama administration appointee burrowed at the VA.  Gina Farrisee was first appointed by the Obama administration to serve as the VA’s Assistant Human Resources Secretary in September 2013. Nearly three years later, on May 2, 2016, the VA announced that Ms. Farrisee was being named the VA’s Deputy Chief of Staff, a permanent career position.
Ms. Farrisee is also apparently a key member of the VA White House transition team that is preparing the agency for the next administration and that she, together with a current political appointee, will be managing the transition process at the VA.  It therefore appears that the top two roles on the VA transition team are led by current or former political appointees, raising questions about the transparency of that process. CoA Institute accordingly has requested all records relating to Ms. Farrisee’s role on the VA Presidential transition team.
The FOIA to OPM can be found HERE
The FOIA to VA can be found HERE
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Washington, DC – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) has sent Federal Records Act (FRA) notices to Secretary of State John Kerry and Archivist of the United States David Ferriero urging them to fulfill their statutory obligations to recover former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s work-related email records from a private email service provider.

Last month, at a House Oversight & Government Reform Committee hearing about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compliance at the State Department, Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy testified that his agency had undertaken only minimal efforts to retrieve work-related emails created or received by Secretary Powell on his private AOL email account.  Upon learning that Secretary Powell no longer had access to this account, the State Department merely requested that he contact his email provider to see if any records were still recoverable.  Secretary Powell never responded to that request, and the State Department took no further action, despite a request from NARA to contact AOL directly.  Under Secretary Kennedy justified State Department inaction by claiming that the agency lacks legal authority to take further action to recover agency records from Secretary Powell’s email service provider.

Cause of Action Institute Vice President John Vecchione: “The position that the State Department has no legal authority to take direct action to recover Secretary Powell’s work-related emails is absurd and should not be left unchallenged. American taxpayers have a substantial interest in ensuring that federal records are properly saved, archived, and available to the public through FOIA.  The State Department and NARA must live up to statutory obligations designed to keep the government accountable and transparent, and to preserve a written record of the federal government for future generations.”

The State Department’s position is not supported by federal law.  Not only do the email records in question belong to the State Department—as recently confirmed by the D.C. Circuit in Competitive Enterprise Institute v. White House Office of Science & Technology Policy—but the FRA gives the Secretary of State (as well as the Archivist of the United States) the authority, acting through the U.S. Attorney General, to take necessary legal action to recover alienated records.  The right to initiate action through the Attorney General is a mandatory obligation—in other words, the Secretary and the Archivist are required to initiate actions to recover Secretary Powell’s work-related email.

CoA Institute’s letters include FOIA requests for copies of all of Secretary Powell’s email, as well records concerning what efforts, if any, the State Department and NARA have (or have not) taken to retrieve these records that ultimately belong to the American public—records that would reveal the diplomatic activities of the Bush administration during politically contentious years.

Click here to view the letter to Secretary John Kerry

Click here to view the letter to ARCHIVIST David Ferriero