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White House fights disclosure
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 21, 8:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department said Tuesday that records about missing
White House e-mails are not subject to public disclosure, the latest effort
by the Bush administration to expand the boundaries of government secrecy.
Administration lawyers detailed the legal position in a lawsuit trying to
force the White House Office of Administration to reveal what it knows about
the disappearance of White House e-mails.
The Office of Administration provides administrative services, including
information technology support, to the Executive Office of the President.
The office has prepared estimates that there are at least 5 million missing
White House e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005, according to the
lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a
private advocacy group.
In court papers seeking to end the case, the Justice Department said the
White House Office of Administration has no substantial authority
independent of President Bush and therefore is not subject to the disclosure
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
Most of the White House is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act,
but certain components within it handle FOIA requests, including the Office
of Administration, which issues annual reports on the number of FOIA
requests it processes each year.
The 2006 annual report says the Office of Administration processed 65 FOIA
requests.
The White House has said it is aware that some e-mails may not have been
automatically archived on a computer server for the Executive Office of the
President.
The e-mails, the White House has said, may have been preserved on backup
tapes.
"The Office of Administration is looking into whether there are e-mails not
automatically archived; and once we determine whether or not there is a
problem, we'll take the necessary steps to address it," said White House
spokesman Scott Stanzel.
The first indication of a problem came in early 2006 when special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald raised the possibility that records sought in the CIA
leak investigation involving the outing of Valerie Plame could be missing
because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.
The issue came into focus early this year amid the uproar over the firing of
U.S. attorneys. It turned out that aides to Bush improperly used Republican
Party-sponsored e-mail accounts for official business and that an
undetermined number of e-mails had been lost in the process.
The Justice Department Web site, which lists all FOIA contacts inside the
government, identifies seven units inside the Executive Office of the
President as responding to FOIA requests, including the Office of
Administration.
The Office of Administration "has certainly acted like an agency in the
past," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security
Archive, a private group advocating public disclosure of government secrets.
Fuchs' organization filed a request in February 2006 after Fitzgerald
revealed that e-mails might be missing. When the Office of Administration
finally denied the private group's request in June of this year, the office
said it was not an "agency" as defined by the Freedom of Information Act and
was therefore not subject to the law's requirements.
The administration has been resisting disclosure of information on an array
of fronts.
In September 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer instructed the Secret
Service that it "shall not retain any copy" of material identifying visitors
to the vice president's official residence. The lawyer, Shannen Coffin,
wrote the letter as The Washington Post sought copies of Cheney's visitors.
The letter regarding the vice president's residence was in addition to an
agreement quietly signed between the White House and the Secret Service when
questions were raised about visits to the executive compound by convicted
influence peddler Jack Abramoff.
That agreement, which didn't surface publicly until late last year, said
White House entry and exit logs were presidential records not subject to
disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
When the agreement was signed in May 2006, a number of private groups and
news organizations had filed FOIA requests with the Secret Service in an
effort to identify how many times Abramoff or members of his lobbying team
visited the White House.
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 21, 8:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department said Tuesday that records about missing
White House e-mails are not subject to public disclosure, the latest effort
by the Bush administration to expand the boundaries of government secrecy.
Administration lawyers detailed the legal position in a lawsuit trying to
force the White House Office of Administration to reveal what it knows about
the disappearance of White House e-mails.
The Office of Administration provides administrative services, including
information technology support, to the Executive Office of the President.
The office has prepared estimates that there are at least 5 million missing
White House e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005, according to the
lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a
private advocacy group.
In court papers seeking to end the case, the Justice Department said the
White House Office of Administration has no substantial authority
independent of President Bush and therefore is not subject to the disclosure
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
Most of the White House is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act,
but certain components within it handle FOIA requests, including the Office
of Administration, which issues annual reports on the number of FOIA
requests it processes each year.
The 2006 annual report says the Office of Administration processed 65 FOIA
requests.
The White House has said it is aware that some e-mails may not have been
automatically archived on a computer server for the Executive Office of the
President.
The e-mails, the White House has said, may have been preserved on backup
tapes.
"The Office of Administration is looking into whether there are e-mails not
automatically archived; and once we determine whether or not there is a
problem, we'll take the necessary steps to address it," said White House
spokesman Scott Stanzel.
The first indication of a problem came in early 2006 when special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald raised the possibility that records sought in the CIA
leak investigation involving the outing of Valerie Plame could be missing
because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.
The issue came into focus early this year amid the uproar over the firing of
U.S. attorneys. It turned out that aides to Bush improperly used Republican
Party-sponsored e-mail accounts for official business and that an
undetermined number of e-mails had been lost in the process.
The Justice Department Web site, which lists all FOIA contacts inside the
government, identifies seven units inside the Executive Office of the
President as responding to FOIA requests, including the Office of
Administration.
The Office of Administration "has certainly acted like an agency in the
past," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security
Archive, a private group advocating public disclosure of government secrets.
Fuchs' organization filed a request in February 2006 after Fitzgerald
revealed that e-mails might be missing. When the Office of Administration
finally denied the private group's request in June of this year, the office
said it was not an "agency" as defined by the Freedom of Information Act and
was therefore not subject to the law's requirements.
The administration has been resisting disclosure of information on an array
of fronts.
In September 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer instructed the Secret
Service that it "shall not retain any copy" of material identifying visitors
to the vice president's official residence. The lawyer, Shannen Coffin,
wrote the letter as The Washington Post sought copies of Cheney's visitors.
The letter regarding the vice president's residence was in addition to an
agreement quietly signed between the White House and the Secret Service when
questions were raised about visits to the executive compound by convicted
influence peddler Jack Abramoff.
That agreement, which didn't surface publicly until late last year, said
White House entry and exit logs were presidential records not subject to
disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
When the agreement was signed in May 2006, a number of private groups and
news organizations had filed FOIA requests with the Secret Service in an
effort to identify how many times Abramoff or members of his lobbying team
visited the White House.
