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New Documents Show How FTC Lobbied Sen. Jay Rockefeller To Kill FOIA Reform

May 13, 2015 by

By: Daniel Epstein

Cause of Action led the charge to uncover the information

Yesterday, MuckRock.com released documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) showing how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), at the direction of FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, lobbied former U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller to hold up FOIA reform legislation late last year.

Sen. Rockefeller is the former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee – the committee charged with FTC oversight.

Shawn Musgrave at MuckRock.com requested the documents at the suggestion of our organization—Cause of Action, a group that works tirelessly to make the federal government more open and transparent.

While the revelation may come as a shock to some, cronyism and opacity at the FTC is nothing new to us. Prior to yesterday, our organization released documents exposing both the close relationship between the FTC and Sen. Rockefeller, as well as the FTC’s opacity when it comes to FOIA requests.

The documents obtained by MuckRock.com show not only how the FTC lobbied aggressively against transparency reform, but also reflect the heights to which FTC’s opacity – and Sen. Rockefeller’s acquiescence – reach. In fact, Jeanne Bumpus, the FTC’s congressional liaison, used a non-government email account to lobby the FTC: ftcexchange.com.

This isn’t the first case of a government official using a non-government email address to conduct official government business. It is, however, yet another example of how this administration’s “commitment…to usher in a new era of open Government” was little more than lip service.

The FTC Used Sen. Rockefeller As Its Personal Hit Man

Last year, Cause of Action alleged that Sen. Rockefeller was a pawn for the FTC. We produced documents showing that Sen. Rockefeller’s own chief of staff negotiated with Chairwoman Ramirez concerning former House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s investigation into the FTC, an investigation initiated in response to the FTC’s aggressive and fraudulent battle with the cancer detection company LabMD.

In an effort to silence our organization, the FTC motivated Sen. Rockefeller to publicly attack us in a letter to Congressman Issa.

What the documents uncovered yesterday confirm is that the FTC and Sen. Rockefeller shared an extremely cozy relationship whereby the FTC would use the senator as a proxy to fight its battles to kill FOIA reform and to attack us.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: ,

Weekly Rundown 5-8-2015

May 8, 2015 by

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CNN Money: Whistleblower accuses cybersecurity company of extorting clients – Cause of Action’s fight against the FTC continued on Tuesday… Read More

Law 360: Analyst Backs LabMD In FTC Row, Alleges Fraud At Tiversa — “LabMD Inc. on Tuesday scored a major hit in its data security fight with the Federal Trade Commission after a former analyst at the cybersecurity firm Tiversa Inc. testified that his company lied to the agency about the extent of LabMD’s data leaks after the medical testing firm turned down its services… According to LabMD’s attorney Reed Rubinstein… the testimony marked a “remarkable day” in the case and vindicated the company’s assertion that “the FTC action was based on manufactured evidence.” At the close of the hearing Tuesday, Rubenstein announced that LabMD will seek a criminal investigation against the Tiversa…” Read More

Epoch Times: EB-5 Visa Limits May Slow Flow of China’s Elite to US – Cause of Action will not allow public officials to take advantage of the EB-5 visa program… Read More

Fox News: Clinton agrees to testify this month before House committee on Benghazi, private emails — “Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has agreed to testify on Capitol Hill this month about two controversial issues when she was secretary of state — the fatal terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and using a private server and emails for official business, her attorney said Tuesday…” Read More

Washington Times: IRS still targeting tea party: Nine groups awaiting agency approval — “Nine tea party groups were still awaiting IRS approval for nonprofit status nearly two years after the political targeting program was exposed, the inspector general said in a report Thursday that, despite hiccups, claimed the tax agency has generally done a good job of cleaning up its act…” Read More

Filed Under: News, Media Tagged With: , ,

Weekly Rundown 4-30-2015

April 30, 2015 by

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National Review: It Appears the State Department Has Had a Policy of Retaining Senior Officials’ Emails Since 2009 – The State Department has provided Cause of Action with documents showing that the department has required emails to be preserved since 2009. According to the documents, the department should have had possession of Secretary Clinton’s email records when Mrs. Clinton left office. The fact that they did not have possession of her emails raises still pressing questions… Read More

Washington Examiner: State Department allowing Clinton Foundation to approve emails for release – “State Department officials began allowing the Clinton Foundation to review emails the government planned to release to Congress and Freedom of Information Act requesters in January 2014, prompting a process that has delayed the publication of agency records for months.”… Read More

Cause of Action: HHS Inspector General Finds Potential Misuse of Obamacare Federal Grant Dollars – The IG for HHS, Daniel R. Levinson, recently sent a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expressing concern that Obamacare state exchanges may be unlawfully spending federal grant dollars to fund operations… Read More

CNN: IRS watchdog finds 6,400 missing Lois Lerner emails – The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has found emails from Lerner that were previously thought to be permanently deleted… Read More

Washington Times: Obama clean energy loans leave taxpayers in $2.2 billion hole – Even after Obama administration officials promised that these projects would pay for themselves, taxpayers have now been left holding the bag… Read More

Filed Under: Media, News

HHS Inspector General Finds Potential Misuse of Obamacare Federal Grant Dollars

April 29, 2015 by

By: Aram Gavoor

The Inspector General for Health and Human Services, Daniel R. Levinson (HHS IG), sent a letter this week to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expressing concern that Obamacare state exchanges (State-based marketplaces or SBMs) may be unlawfully spending federal grant dollars to fund operations.  The HHS IG identified the issue in the midst of audits of establishment or startup grant monies disbursed to SBMs.

The violation of the law is under Section 1311(a) of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which requires that since January 1, 2015, SBMs must be self-sustaining.  According to the HHS IG: “We have concerns that, without more detailed guidance from CMS, SBMs might have used, and might continue to use, establishment grant funds for operating expenses after January 1, 2015, contrary to law.”

This is not, however, the first time that ACA grant funds have potentially been misused.

In September 2014, Cause of Action exposed the fraudulent misuse of Navigator grant funds by Southern United Neighborhoods (SUN) in light of allegations that United Labor Unions Local 100 (ULU), a federal subgrantee of SUN, directed an ACA navigator, paid with federal grant funds, to recruit members for ULU in Texas.

In a letter to the HHS IG requesting an investigation and audit of SUN, Cause of Action explained that a former employee of SUN filed a class action lawsuit in which he sought damages for unpaid overtime for himself and other putative class members under federal labor law.  He alleged that SUN and ULU shared control of the terms and conditions of his Navigator duties, and that he was directed by the labor union to recruit new ULU members by engaging cafeteria workers at schools in the course of his ACA work.  OMB Circular A-133 and relevant HHS regulations mandate that federal grand funds may only be used for approved programmatic purposes, which does not include such behavior.

Cause of Action is cautiously optimistic that SUN and ULU will be held accountable for their potential misuse of ACA grant money.  The HHS IG recently sent a letter to Cause of Action, confirming that there is an “open and ongoing investigation concerning this matter.”  Both of these instances evince the need for the HHS IG to conduct a robust investigation/audit into the misuse of Obamacare funds.

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CoA Uncovers Questionable Practice between the DOJ and White House

April 15, 2015 by

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability organization, has uncovered an ongoing practice at the Department of Justice whereby Tax Division attorneys, some of whom have worked directly on IRS targeting matters, are assigned to the White House to provide legal advice to the President.

“This ongoing practice raises ethical and legal questions because of these attorneys’ access to confidential taxpayer returns and return information,” said Cause of Action President Dan Epstein. “The public deserves to know whether ethical and legal safeguards have been in place to prevent taxpayer information from getting into the wrong hands — especially when those who access that information work in the White House.”

In order to determine whether such proper safeguards exist, we are today submitting a series of public records requests.

In particular, we’re seeking information about 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.

Read the Freedom of Information Act requests we are filing, as well as the letter we are sending to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz below.

CoA DOJ OIG Letter by Cause of Action

FOIA’s:

2015-4-15 FOIA Request ODAG

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-JMD re OWHC Details

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-OPR re OWHC Details

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-PRAO re OWHC Details

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-Tax re OWHC Details

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With:

USA Today: Three transparency laws Hillary may have violated: Column

March 16, 2015 by

March 16, 2015, 12:24 p.m. EDT

Three transparency laws Hillary may have violated: Column

By: Dan Epstein

Six years ago today, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a memo on the Freedom of Information Act to the entire Department of State. It stated that “Preserving the record of our deliberations, decisions, and actions will be at the foundation of our efforts to promote openness.”

So much for that. Today, we know that Clinton took extraordinary steps to prevent any record of her “deliberations, decisions, and actions.” During her entire tenure as Secretary of State, she exclusively utilized a private email account run through servers located at her home in Chappaqua, New York. This arrangement prevented the federal government from maintaining any record of her email communications — a slap in the face to anyone who cares about government transparency and an obvious example of hypocrisy given the memo Clinton sent to her staff in 2009.

Clinton has since attempted to address this crisis of transparency by selectively releasing the emails which she claims pertained to her work as Secretary of State. Of the 62,320 emails she has admitted to sending between 2009 and 2013, she has handed over 30,490 — in the form of 55,000 printed pages which may have been edited — to the Department of State. The remaining emails — nearly 32,000 — were apparently destroyed.

This raises obvious questions about whether the former first lady broke federal law. So far, she may have violated at least three laws.

First, she may have violated the Federal Records Act. Even in 2009, this law required Clinton to “ensure that Federal records sent or received” on her private email “are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.” Clinton claims to have fulfilled this law by turning over 55,000 pages of emails to the Department of State, but the full truth cannot be known until and unless investigators are able to access her private email server. The penalties for violating the Federal Records Act include fines, jail time or disqualification from holding any office under the United States.

The second law Clinton may have violated is Section 1924 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which forbids federal employees from retaining classified information in an unauthorized manner — such as in a personal email. A 2009 Executive Order by President Barack Obama has a similar ban on such activity. Clinton has sought to address this problem by claiming that her emails never dealt with classified information, yet this is highly unlikely given her role as Secretary of State.

And finally, Clinton may have violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By utilizing a private email server beyond the control of the State Department, her email records will never be subject to FOIA requests — the most basic tool in keeping Washington transparent. In fact, Clinton may have used a private email server precisely to evade FOIA.

Given Clinton’s intransigence and unwillingness to give investigators access to her private email server, we cannot yet know with full certainty whether she broke these three laws. Fortunately, it is still possible for government watchdogs to obtain relevant records and information that shed light on this issue.

On March 9, Cause of Action — the legal advocacy group for which I am executive director — sent three unique Freedom of Information Act requests to the Department of State, the Department of State Inspector General and the National Archives and Records Administration. Our FOIA requests seek records that may contain answers to five specific questions:

  1. Why did the State Department allow Clinton to use personal devices for official agency business in the first place?
  2. Did Clinton attend training on the proper preservation of records?
  3. Once Clinton’s use of a private email account was discovered, did the federal government seek to preserve the records in her possession?
  4. Was Clinton ever investigated by the inspector general or another federal agency for her email practices?
  5. And did the National Archives and Records Administration know about Secretary Clinton’s emails? If so, why did they not inform Congress, as required by federal law?

The public deserves answers to these important questions — they will give us a more accurate picture of the actions surrounding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account. We may not have the answers now, but one thing is still certain: she did not fulfill her own promise as Secretary of State to preserve “the record of our deliberations, decisions, and actions.” Then again, she may never have received that memo in the first place — it might have gone to her non-existent .gov account.

Dan Epstein is the executive director of Cause of Action.

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Washington Examiner: Watchdogs prepare for Sunshine Week

March 16, 2015 by

Read the full story: Washington Examiner

As controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s hidden emails sparks heightened public interest in the Freedom of Information Act, transparency advocates agree that a week dedicated to exposing government secrets couldn’t be coming at a better time.

 

During the seven days of Sunshine Week media outlets, nonprofits, schools and concerned citizens team up to promote the importance of transparency and accountability at all levels of government. James Madison’s March 16 birthday is the anchor of the week because he wrote the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution…

 

Transparency litigator Cause of Action aims to illustrate the flaws in FOIA by ranking federal agencies on how well they handle requests for information in its 2015 “Grading the Government” report.

 

“Sunshine Week is extremely important because the public has a right to know what their government is up to,” said Dan Epstein, Cause of Action’s president. “Unfortunately, when it comes to transparency, most agencies in Washington are performing woefully under par.”

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