(RoyalPatriot.com )- The Biden administration was to be the most transparent ever. That was Joe’s promise.
Oddly, the president’s state department is stonewalling a watchdog’s FOIA request because it may damage the democrat’s presidential reelection hopes in 2024.
The watchdog group, Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), is currently suing the State Department because they’ve said they cannot provide PPT’s requested documents until November 18, 2024. That date is conveniently after election day.
The request involves John Kerry’s office. The watchdog group believes the people should have access to his work. This information should be available to the people contemplating who should be the next president.
PPT director Michael Chamberlain excoriated the Biden administration for their unabashed evasiveness. The opaqueness is particularly galling from a braggadocious administration that claims to be nothing like the “previous administration,” which they felt was corrupt and could do no right.
According to the suit, PPT filed the FOIA request with the State Department on Oct. 20, 2021. They sought external and internal communications and records pertaining to legal counsel communications from Special Envoy for Climate Change (SECC) senior advisor Jesse Young.
The request seeks Young’s schedule, travel logs and itineraries, and government cell phone logs, among other relevant work products.
Young was part of the State Department team that negotiated on behalf of the United States at the 2015 Paris climate accord.
“It doesn’t take a huge cynic to believe politics may be a factor,” Chamberlain quipped.
PPT highlighted a portion of their lawsuit with a quote from a memo by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who wrote about the importance of government transparency.
“Agencies should continue their efforts to remove barriers to requesting and accessing government records and reduce FOIA processing backlogs,” wrote Garland.
Lawyers for PPT wrote that timely disclosure of records is essential to the core purpose of FOIA. An agency purporting to give itself more than three years to complete a FOIA request is anything but timely.
Energy is one of the highest priorities of our time. Our State Department feels it is more important to protect their party rather than allow the public to view the communications of the offices that affect their lives.
That isn’t transparency.
