Great piece from Emptywheel:
By: emptywheel Friday January 4, 2008 10:28 am
After folks noted this footnote from Steven Aftergood's request that the Office of Professional Responsibility look into the Pixie Dust* surrounding Executive Order 13292 and Dick Cheney's claims to be a Fourth Branch...
2 A copy of the OLC letter is attached, and may also be found online here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/olc072007.pdf . The July 20, 2007 letter did not become public until December 11, 2007 when it was published by Marcy Wheeler on her blog Empty Wheel (http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com). One day later, the document was released to me under the Freedom of Information Act by OLC.
...we got into a discussion of the chronology behind OLC's rather remarkable timing in their response to Aftergood. So I asked Aftergood for some clarification. This is what he said regarding the OLC's insta-FOIA response on December 12:
You published the doc on December 11, and I followed with this later that day.
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/12/vice_presidents_office_is_not.html
OLC finally responded to my FOIA request by letter dated December 12. They never denied my request, but they certainly took their sweet time.
So apparently OLC noticed that Aftergood already had the document, so they finally decided they could give it to him. Nice to see they respect the FOIA process so thoroughly.
But I'm at least as interested in what went on before that. Aftergood explains:
I had been requesting DoJ and OLC responses to the January 2007 ISOO inquiry every 45 days or so since last March. And for a while they kept telling me there were no responsive documents. Finally in September, the Office of the Attorney General told me that they had a document (which turned out to be the Bradbury letter) but instead of releasing it, they forwarded it to OLC for processing. Three months later, after it was published on Empty Wheel, OLC decided to release it.
So Aftergood had asked for a response several times before OLC finally decided to finally let Bill Leonard know that the EO he had been enforcing for four years didn't mean what he understood it to mean. I presume, before that point, there was nothing responsive because DOJ was just blowing off Leonard's request entirely; when you blow off a civil servant entirely, it leaves no FOIA-able tracks. In September (after Alberto Gonzales' departure, of course) they admitted they had a document. But they continued to stall on giving Aftergood the document for three more months, until it got out through Leonard.
Do you get the feeling they don't really want us knowing about their little Pixie Dust games?
4 comments:
Mikie is now seating in the Corrupt Chair and has to keep a lid on anyone secret crimes coming to the public's attention. He has to do what ever it takes. Appointing Fitz was to keep the people thinking this Department has changed. It's called window dressing. Plus it keeps Fitz from being as to be a Special Counsel on any cases. It's called he's to busy. Now this stall will continue and when it's end comes deals will be made to keep the guilty out of jail. Hastert, Lott and the next person who resigns will hope the new Administration forgets about their crimes. The Supreme Court is in place to turn a blind eye on Justice to say the Republican crooks. Bush will end up like Howard Hughes and Cheney will have his stolen money stolen from him by a bigger smarter shark.
Mikie who had great respect in law will now close out his career as a good lawyer gone bad.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080101/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_freedom_of_information;_ylt=AifGzakl_c3VSwlQK0TySEuWwvIE
The legislation is aimed at reversing an order by former Attorney General John Ashcroft after the 9/11 attacks in which he instructed agencies to lean against releasing information when there was uncertainty about how doing so would affect national security.
Anon,
I will be posting your link for Monday's discussion. And that is interesting that Bush signed that bill allowing the public access info to what the gov't is doing. Great catch!
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