Cause of Action sent a FOIA request in August 2013 seeking the work calendars of TIGTA Inspector General J. Russell George from March 1, 2012 to July 31, 2013. Our goal in sending the FOIA request was to learn more about TIGTA’s May 14, 2013 audit.
FOIA Production: TIGTA Inspector General J. Russell Work Calendars by CauseOfAction
Read the full story here. Daily Caller
“Prompted in part by Joseph’s claims, the legal advocacy group Cause of Action sent a Dec. 7 request to the Department of Justice for a new investigation into the Solomon case. Cause of Action claimed that the OIG “shifted the blame away from Solomon” in order to resolve a case that has caused turmoil within the NLRB and a headache for the Obama administration.
The case dates back to January 2012, when the NLRB considered suing Wal-Mart over allegations that it violated federal labor laws with its social media policy.
Despite holding more than $15,000 in Wal-Mart stock, Solomon attended a meeting in his office with the NLRB’s Division of Advice on Jan. 23. Solomon expressed in the meeting his desire for the NLRB to delay the lawsuit and instead “reach out” to Wal-Mart to encourage the company to change its social media policy.”
Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) submitted a comment last week to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) concerning the agency’s interim final rule implementing revised Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations. CoA Institute explained that the agency’s new rule could cause confusion by directing staff to interpret the FOIA statute and CIGIE’s implementing regulations in light of outdated fee guidelines published by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
OMB published its Uniform Freedom of Information Fee Schedule and Guidelines in 1987. Although FOIA requires an agency to promulgate its fee schedule in conformity with the OMB Guidelines, they are no longer authoritative because they conflict with the statutory text, as amended by Congress, and judicial authorities. Indeed, over the past thirty years, OMB has made no effort to revise its fee guidelines. The OMB Guidelines therefore should not be used as a reference point for proper administration of the FOIA.
One problematic aspect of the OMB Guidelines is the definition of a “representative of the news media.” The current statutory definition of this fee category, which was introduced by the OPEN Government Act of 2007, differs significantly from the definition provided by OMB in 1987. OMB’s definition, which incorporates an “organized and operated” standard, has long been one of the more contentious aspects of the OMB Guidelines. In 2015, however, the D.C. Circuit issued a landmark decision in Cause of Action v. Federal Trade Commission clarifying that OMB’s definition had been superseded by Congress.
The OMB Guidelines also have been rendered obsolete by other jurisprudential developments. For this reason, in 2016, the FOIA Advisory Committee and Archivist of the United States called on OMB to update its fee guidance. CoA Institute filed a petition for rulemaking on the issue, too. Last November, we filed a lawsuit to compel the agency to provide a response to that petition. The lawsuit is still pending with respect to the fee guidelines, although the agency has agreed to update its own implementing regulations (and to abandon the “organized and operated” standard). Until the OMB Guidelines have been revised to reflect modern circumstances and the actual text of the FOIA, however, no agency should direct its staff to consult them in any way as an authoritative guide to interpreting the law.
Ryan P. Mulvey is Counsel at Cause of Action Institute
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Read the full story: Washington Examiner
Attorney General Eric Holder’s claim that a recent order would significantly reform property seizures is being disputed by a transparency advocacy group in a letter to a government watchdog.
Administrative forfeitures are increasing exponentially, and are the most popular form of seizure by a wide margin, said Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein in a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
This type of seizure allows the government to claim property, including an unlimited amount of money, vehicles of unlimited value or property worth up to $500,000 a legal conviction, according to Cause of Action.
The nonprofit found that from 2001 to 2011, 70 percent of all seized assets fell under administrative forfeitures.
“Cause of Action, a government accountability nonprofit, has obtained emails through a Freedom of Information Act request showing then-NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman, NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon and NLRB Public Affairs Director Nancy Cleeland coordinating the board’s response to its own decision to sue Boeing for opening a factory in the right to work state of South Carolina. . . Cause of Action has obtained at least four emails sent to both Solomon and Liebman explicitly about the Boeing litigation. There is also a fifth email about the Boeing litigation, sent from Liebman herself, to Cleeland and Solomon. All of these communications appear to violate NLRB’s own rules.
Cause of Action has asked NLRB’s inspector general to investigate the apparently illegal coordination by Liebman, Cleeland and Solomon on the Boeing suit. But Congress must do more.”
Read the full story: New York Post
Driven out by whistleblowers, Acting Inspector General of the Veterans Administration Richard Griffin finally resigned last week. Good riddance. Griffin had whitewashed and concealed information about inadequate care and phony waiting lists and tried to retaliate against truth-tellers. But don’t expect real improvement at the VA. Griffin’s successor is another bureaucratic lifer, Lin Halliday. She’s been collecting a paycheck from the VA Inspector General’s Office since 1992, while the deadly problems festered. President Obama seems to like that approach. On July 2 in Wisconsin, whistleblower Ryan Honl — a Gulf War veteran — urged Obama to appoint an independent inspector general: “If they just pick someone new from inside the agency, it will be business as usual and the problems will continue.” But Obama brushed him off, saying VA Secretary Robert McDonald “had it covered.” Sorry. That’s just not true. Only the president can appoint an inspector general. Federal law requires that the Veterans Administration and other departments have outside inspectors general to guard against corruption and mismanagement. Obama simply refuses to appoint them, allowing the vacant offices to be filled instead by “acting” IGs like Griffin and Halliday. They’re lapdogs instead of watchdogs, compliant temporary placeholders from inside the system…
Daniel Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a good-government group, said for Hillary Clinton’s entire tenure at the State Department, Obama refused to appoint a permanent IG. Consequently, “oversight” at State was in the hands of the ultimate insider, acting IG Harold Geisel, who’d served as an ambassador under former President Bill Clinton and remains a close friend of the Clintons: The very definition of a lapdog.
Read the full story: Washington Examiner
Records from the State Department’s office of inspector general reveal the agency watchdog has taken early steps toward investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address and server during her time as secretary of state. Steven Linick, State’s inspector general since June 2013, signaled his office is making “preliminary” preparations for a larger probe of the policies that allowed Clinton to determine which of her official communications she wanted to withhold from the public, according to documents obtained by the nonpartisan watchdog group Cause of Action. “In the past, when faced with employees who were using non-governmental email accounts for government business, the OIG questioned such activities,” Linick wrote in response to a letter from Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Iowa Republican had written to Linick in March seeking answers about the communications and business activities of Clinton and her top aides that were then emerging in the media. Cause of Action filed a Freedom of Information Act request to State’s inspector general and to the National Archives and Records Administration seeking records related to the Clinton email controversy. A letter from the State Department inspector general dated May 15 claimed there were just 18 documents that ever mentioned Clinton’s emails, the national archives or the Clinton Foundation. Just six of those were given to Cause of Action in their entirety, with the others being redacted or punted to the State Department for further review. But the few records that the agency did release had nothing to do with the information requested, and were not even produced during Clinton’s time in office.
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