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National Review: The Obama Administration’s Newly Political Approach to FOIAs

June 9, 2015 by

Read the full story: National Review

At the Treasury Department, the memo came down from the deputy executive secretary, Wally Adeyemo, in December of 2009. Going forward, the memo stated, “sensitive information” requested under the Freedom of Information Act was to be reviewed not only by career FOIA officials but also by a committee of political appointees, including Adeyemo and representatives from the public-affairs, legislative-affairs, and general counsel’s office, before release. What followed was an unusual review of Treasury FOIA requests by high-ranking political officials. And it didn’t just happen at Treasury, but at the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security, too. Current and former FOIA attorneys at these agencies say documents requested by the media have come in for special scrutiny, called “sensitive review,” often holding up release for weeks or months. At times, these officials say, political officials delayed the production of documents for political convenience. The policy runs counter not just to the spirit and the letter of the Obama administration’s pledge to unprecedented transparency, but also to the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act itself….

The Treasury Department is not alone in its use of the sensitive-review process. Internal documents suggest that the IRS (part of Treasury, but with its own policies), the Department of Homeland Security, and a number of other agencies have, to varying degrees, implemented similar procedures. At the IRS, for instance, when the legal watchdog group Cause of Action sued in 2012 to secure the release of documents under FOIA, it set off a spate of e-mails within the agency about whether the request had been subject to sensitive review. On October 12, John Davis, the agency’s chief of disclosure, wrote to Valerie Barta, a tax-law specialist, of Cause of Action’s original FOIA request: “This case we closed out in May of this year is coming back to haunt us. Gary wants to know why this was not on a sensitive case report. Can you pull this case and if you can tell why Susan didn’t put this on a sensitive case report?”

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Government Executive: Senators to Obama: Fill the Inspector General Vacancies

June 3, 2015 by

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Nearly every recent scandal and lapse involving inspectors general was mentioned at a Wednesday Senate panel hearing as senators from both parties teamed with transparency advocates to push the White House to accelerate nominations to empty watchdog slots.  The White House, however, sent no one to punch back, despite efforts by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to obtain testimony on delayed nominations from Valerie Green, director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, and her predecessor Jonathan McBride.  “When IG positions remain unfilled, their offices are run by acting IGs who, no matter how qualified or well-intentioned, are not granted the same protections afforded to Senate-confirmed IGs,” said Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “They are not truly independent, as they can be removed by the agency at any time; they are only temporary and do not drive office policy; and they are at greater risk of compromising their work to appease the agency or the president.”…

“The disadvantage of being acting IG is you have less credibility because there’s no vetting,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of POGO. “There’s an incentive to curry favor with the agency head to get appointed, and they’re often more lapdog than watchdog.”… Brian joined with Daniel Epstein, executive director of the legal group Cause of Action, in an opinion that the longtime acting State Department Inspector General Harold Geisel, a Foreign Service officer ineligible for the permanent job, might not have vetted Clinton’s unusual email arrangements as a permanent IG would have. “Obama’s decision not to appoint a permanent IG at State may have been political,” Epstein said, since “acting IG’s have the incentive not only to delay but to avoid investigations.”  Epstein said Obama should make use of the recess power of appointments as he has done to fill vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board. “He is able but not willing,” Epstein speculated.

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Fox News: HRC EMAILS: Federal officials voiced growing alarm over Clinton’s compliance with records laws, documents show

June 3, 2015 by

Read the full story: Fox News

Over a five-year span, senior officials at the National Archives and Records Administrations (NARA) voiced growing alarm about Hillary Clinton’s record-keeping practices as secretary of state, according to internal documents shared with Fox News.  During Clinton’s final days in office, Paul Wester, the director of Modern Records Programs at NARA – essentially the agency’s chief records custodian – privately emailed five NARA colleagues to confide his fear that Clinton would take her official records with her when she left office, in violation of federal statutes.  Referring to a colleague whose full name is unknown, Wester wrote on December 11, 2012: “Tom heard (or thought he heard) from the Clinton Library Director that there are or may be plans afoot for taking her records from State to Little Rock.” That was a reference to the possibility that Clinton might seek to house her records at the Clinton Presidential Center, which was largely funded by the Clinton Foundation….The 73 documents from NARA and State were turned over to Cause of Action, a non-partisan government accountability watchdog that had filed a Freedom of Information Act request in March, after the New York Times revealed that Clinton had exclusively used a private email server and domain name during her tenure as secretary of state. Cause of Action shared the documents with Fox News on an exclusive basis, ahead of Senate testimony by the group’s executive director, Daniel Epstein.  “Given NARA’s stated concerns,” Epstein said in written testimony submitted this week to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, “it either was aware of the failure to preserve Mrs. Clinton’s emails or was extremely negligent in its efforts to monitor [the preservation of] senior officials’ emails.”

Fox News’ Special Report, Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein spoke with Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen about recently uncovered government documents that reveal critical faults with the federal records archiving system during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

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Dan Epstein Discusses Recently Uncovered Government Documents That Reveal Critical Faults with the Federal Records Archiving System

June 2, 2015 by

Tonight on Fox News’ Special Report, Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein will speak with Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen about recently uncovered government documents that reveal critical faults with the federal records archiving system during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

Internal agency documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) show that as early as 2012, officials were concerned the State Department’s maintenance of Clinton’s official emails could be in violation of the Federal Records Act, yet they did nothing to prevent this breach of federal law.

The urgent need for permanent Inspector Generals at executive agencies has been recently highlighted by revelations that Clinton exclusively used a private email system for official government business.

Agencies are required to collect, retain, and preserve federal records, which provide the Administration, Congress, and the public with a history of public policy execution and its results. However, internal emails show that since 2009, NARA consistently identified problems with the State Department’s retention policy but failed to take any remedial actions to prevent the loss of critical records.

Knowing the deficiencies at State Department, internal meeting notes reveal that NARA, under the direction of then-acting IG James Springs, still failed to secure Clinton’s emails in July 2014 although it had the opportunity to do so.

Months later, emails show, NARA officers highlighted concern over an attempt made by the State Department to find a legal justification for their failure to adhere to record maintenance mandates.

Given NARA’s long-term knowledge of deficiencies with the State Department’s records system and its lost opportunity to fix the problem in 2014, the agency was either aware of the failure to preserve Clinton’s emails or was extremely negligent in overseeing the general preservation of senior officials’ emails.

Epstein Testifying Before Senate Committee

During Clinton’s entire tenure, the State Department’s acting IG was Harold Geisel. In 2013, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs sent letters to Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama noting that the “gap of more than 1,840 days is the longest vacancy of any of the 73 Inspector General positions across the federal government.”

On Wednesday June 3rd, Dan Epstein will appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee to discuss the critical need for permanent Inspector Generals within our nation’s federal agencies to serve as watchdogs and prevent this precise lack of oversight from happening again.

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Cause of Action Sues the Justice Department For Information On Tax Detail Program

May 27, 2015 by

Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability organization, recently discovered that the Department of Justice has been placing their Tax Division attorneys, some of whom have worked directly on the IRS targeting scandal, in the White House to provide legal advice to the President.

Having found no evidence of agency policies in place to safeguard against confidential tax information being shared with the wrong people, this practice of DOJ attorneys being detailed at the White House is alarmingly urgent.

In April, Cause of Action submitted several Freedom of Information Act requests and sent a letter to the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. These documents sought answers to whether appropriate legal and ethical safeguards are in place at both the Office of White House Counsel, as well as the DOJ, to ensure that detailed attorneys are appropriately screened to prevent confidential taxpayer returns and/or return information protected under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code from being unlawfully accessed or disclosed.

Having received no response from the government since our April requests, Cause of Action on Tuesday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service.

As the complaint states, CoA is seeking the release of records relating to how the federal government protects Americans’ private tax information when government attorneys have the power to access and disclose that information. These records have been requested and improperly withheld by the Internal Revenue Service and United States Department of Justice.

“Given the IRS’ track record of failing to protect confidential tax information, this lack of agency oversight is a threat to our privacy and democracy,” said Cause of Action President Dan Epstein. “Ethical and legal protocols at these agencies should be held to the highest standards, especially when government attorneys are accessing confidential taxpayer return information while intermittently leaving to work in the White House.”

The case number is 15-cv-00770.

[Read the Complaint below]

 

ECF No. 1 5.26.2015 Complaint

ECF No. 1-1 5.26.2015 Exhibits 1-15 to Complaint

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Cause of Action Testifies Before Congress On Questionable White House Detail Program

May 19, 2015 by

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein testified before Congress today about CoA’s recent investigation into whether the White House may have illegally accessed confidential taxpayer information.

During a hearing held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, Epstein discussed Cause of Action’s finding that attorneys in the Justice Department’s Tax Division are being detailed to the White House to review the background files of potential presidential nominees.

As Epstein stated, the program raises ethical and legal questions because of these attorneys’ access to confidential taxpayer returns and return information.

“Cause of Action is concerned that this program may be a manner by which the President can be armed with information that may benefit him politically,” Epstein said.

Through a handful of Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests, Cause of Action found that the detailing of Tax Division attorneys to the White House has been unique to the current Administration. Since 2009, these attorneys, many involved in controversial matters involving confidential tax records, have served the President as “clearance counsel” – that is, vetting the President’s nominees by examining their tax records.

During its examination of these White House details, CoA found no evidence of policies, procedures, rules and/or guidelines that exist to ensure that detailed attorneys are appropriately screened to prevent confidential taxpayer returns and/or return information from being unlawfully accessed or disclosed. This means Americans’ most private information may be inappropriately disclosed to the White House.

Epstein noted two DOJ Tax Division attorneys in particular, Andrew Strelka and Norah Bringer. Prior to being assigned to White House detail, both served as trial attorneys involved in litigation concerning the IRS’s targeting of political groups.

It is known that Ms. Bringer accessed confidential taxpayer return information, and it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Strelka did the same.

“The American people deserve answers as to whether their most private information may have been shared with the White House for political gain,” Epstein told the committee.

In light of this concern, Cause of Action requested on April 15, 2015 that the DOJ Inspector General investigate the Tax Division’s practice of detailing attorneys to the White House. To date, the Inspector General has not responded to our request.

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Weekly Rundown 5-14-2015

May 14, 2015 by

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Cato Institute: A Spurned Vendor — And a Tip To the FTC – Cause of Action continues to fight for accountability and transparency in legal battle… Read More

Nonprofit Quarterly: IRS Scandal Still Simmers after Two Years — “…Republican congressional sources criticize the IRS and the Obama administration for obstructing the various investigations and being slow to produce evidence, including Lerner emails found by Treasury investigators a year after the IRS claimed they were unrecoverable. Democratic congressional sources and President Obama claim that there is no scandal, no evidence of political motivation for the IRS actions. They see the various investigations as partisan witch-hunts. Meanwhile, independent advocacy groups like Judicial Watch and Cause of Action file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and uncover Lerner e-mails and related documents from the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department that were not produced by the IRS…”Read More

Gov Info Security: FTC’s LabMD Case: The Next Steps — “…The FTC has confirmed that it found no reason to challenge the testimony given last week,” says attorney Reed Rubinstein of Cause of Action, a non-profit organization representing LabMD in the FTC legal dispute. “The only evidence in the record now is that LabMD was telling the truth from the beginning that they were hacked by a cyberthief, and that the FTC did nothing to verify the information it was given by Tiversa…” Read More

We Live Security: Whistleblower claims cybersecurity firm hacked clients – Ex-employee alleges company does not play by the rules… Read More

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