Eric Holder to change FOIA rules to protect Barack Obama
With the Fast and Furious, Gangwalker, Grenadewalker, Castaway, Solyndra, Lightsquared, SunPower, and Fisker scandals threatening to take down the Obama regime Eric Holder has to do something to save what is quickly turning into the most corrupt and least transparent presidency in United States history.
Thanks to Jim at Conservatives on Fire for finding this story, now we know how the “Justice” Department is planning to protect the Obama regime:
The most transparent administration in history has struck another blow for opaqueness with a proposed new federal regulation expanding its ability to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as the new rule states, “as if the excluded documents did not exist.”
The proposed rule change would allow the government to just say the documents don’t exist, eviscerating FOIA and pre-empting the right to challenge the secrecy. A court cannot examine a document the government says doesn’t exist.
There you have it; Eric Holder has been stonewalling these investigations by delaying the release of tons of paperwork and emails related to the scandals all the while working on a FOIA rule change that in effect is a virtual paper shredder. The wording of the proposed new rule is being finalized and the Obama regime is hoping that it will go into effect before the end of the year. It appears as if because this is a rule change that it will be done through executive fiat and will not have to pass through the Congress.
Under current FOIA law the federal government can withhold certain documents for various reasons, but the people have a right to challenge the denial in court. The court has access to the paper in question and can issue a ruling for or against its release. But as the linked article states; the court cannot review a paper the federal government claims does not exist.
With the swipe of a pen FOIA will be wiped out for the government will simply be able to state that a document does not exist and there will be no way to prove or disprove the claim, and no manner in which to challenge the claim. Suddenly the man who promised to run the most open, honest, and transparent regime is United States history is about to close the door on all openness forever. And it is all being done to protect the man who is now presiding over what is probably the most corrupt regime in the history of the United States.
America's Watchtower 
Thanks for running this story, Steve. IMO, this despicable action needs to go viral. All honest Americans should be outraged by this effort to make our federal government off limits to investigation of wrong doing.
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Thanks for the heads up on this story, I don’t know how I missed it but this was the first I have heard of it. This is something that every American needs to know about because it will end the release of all documents and lead to even more corruption.
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COF, I’ve got no problem with this going viral, but let’s stick to the facts. This isn’t an idea that Holder came up with. It was dreamed up by Edwin Meese, Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, and has served as policy at DOJ ever since it was written up in a memorandum in 1987. The current move is to change a current policy to a regulation, giving it the force of law.
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Well, this is the mother of all CYA, isn’t it? I imagine the MSM is silent on this? So, in a nut shell, if asked for something they say it doesn’t exist, end of story, right? Wow! Looks like Obama just writes the book as he goes along…if this is allowed to happen, we might as well just say we are finished. You would think the SC would say,” wait a minute” on this one….or Congress…or someone. In essence, AG Holder would then be covered too, right? I wonder what person in this administration thought this up and did he get promoted? I don’t want to make like of all the corruption that has occured, but this would seem to be the biggest scandal, IF it goes thru, because it will be against ALL of American. He is setting himself up to never leave OUR HOUSE, isn’t he?
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Sorry for the type-o’s, this is what happens when you are trying to do 2 things at once. I meant to make “lite” of and “Americans”.
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Take the ” ‘ ” out of meant, please. I must be off to a bad start this morning. After reading what you had posted, I was trying to pull up more info on it and am coming up short, which does not suprise me. Thanks to Jim for finding this for us, we sure cannot rely on our MSM, can we?
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It has been taken out.
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I agree! If this is allowed to happen we will be headed down the path to dictatorship. This will allow the government to do just about anything in secret and not have to show why or how they did it. Our liberties will be eroded over time and we will one day wake up and our freedom will be gone.
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Lou, actually, it was the DOJ under Ronald Reagan that dreamed this up and instituted it as departmental policy in 1987.
Let me caution against jumping to conclusions – I’m certain you can imagine circumstances where even acknowledging the existence of a document would alert toe subject of an undercover investigation to its existence. This isn’t so half-baked a practice as one might assume.
I’d hate to think that a sometimes necessary crime fighting tool would be denied to our Justice Department just because some partisan folks want to score political points.
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I see your point, TGY, under certain circumstances, but it is so hard to imagine with all we know about this administration that it might be the case here. I guess we need to take a “wait and see attitude” for the moment.
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I am sure that there are times when it is neccessary to deny that a document exists, but why would the DOJ be making this move now when all of the scandals I mentioned in the post are breaking? Doesn’t it seem a little strange?
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Congress has 30 days to overturn this, otherwise it becomes law. Where oh where are our tea party folks?? We voted in more wuzzies I guess.
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I do believe that a regulation must be promulgated before it can be overturned. This story broke just three days ago; don’t expect a Congress to react so quickly.
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Interesting and frightening story, Steve. Thanks for ringing the bell.
The article you linked to was a bit fuzzy in its 6th paragraph (the one starting “DOJ says . . .”). When I checked further, It turned out DOJ has, since the Reagan administration been operating under the assumption that it could, in certain instances, assert that a requested document doesn’t exist.
There actually is good justification for denying the existence of a document. Consider an FOIA request for all documents related to an ongoing investigation where the subject of the investigation is unaware that he’s being investigated, and revealing that such a document even exists would tip the subject off.
This practice has been policy at the DOH for almost a quarter-century. It would be useful to know, of all the FOIA requests that have been sent to DOJ, how many “no records” responses have been given.
Anyway, for whatever reason, Holder’s DOJ is now, apparently, proposing that this internal policy be codified as a regulation, which as we know has the force of law. On its face, it seems outrageous; upon consideration, though, it’s not entirely without merit.
Here’s the original DOJ memorandum: http://www.justice.gov/oip/86agmemo.htm#additional; the provision under review right now is called the (c)(1) exclusion.
This is just another issue that requires careful deliberation before making any decision at all, and it’s kind of ironic that people who get upset at the use of technicalities by criminals to escape responsibility for their actions would now be insisting on the enactment of a technicality that would dramatically empower the criminal class in and out of the Congress. Don’t be mistaken – if, based on the outrage expressed here and elsewhere, the (c)(1) exclusion is outlawed, the DOJ will be required to acknowledge the existence of the most secret investigations. It won’t be too long before lawyers for criminal enterprises, or front groups, will routinely be making FOIA requests for any documents mentioning their clients, thus alerting them to any ongoing investigations.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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TGY, you make a good point and I tried to go back and re-read the article but for some reason the link isn’t working right now. I do remember reading that this idea was thrown around during the Reagan administration, but I thought it said it wasn’t used. I could be wrong.
However, there are several issues under investigation right now and it seems very fishy that Holder would look to make this the law while these issues are ongoing, plus it sets a dangerous precedent for all future presidents. I can see a day where almost nothing will ever be released.
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Sorrry, typo – in the interest of accuracy, I said DOH when I should have said “DOJ.”
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Just another good reason to ensure that this corrupt Administration never has another term in office.
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Amen!
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Robert, I was thinking that above the CIA, ATF, FBI, etc., is the National Intelligence Council , they sit under the White House, but above all of those other departments. How might they fit in with what is going on?
They seem to produce “estimative” intelligence forward-looking assessments of national security issues ,does anyone think they have a hand in what has happened with F&F? I have not really checked into all they do, but it IS a whole other level above what we think of as the upper departments.
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This is nothing more than the administration attempting to bury the truth. If you look at the actions of this administration in its entirety in regards to this scandal you can clearly see this is another act to hide the truth. Congress needs to act on this. This should be an issue that matters to both political parties.
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I agree with everything you said John and both sides of the aisle should be worried about this, I hope that the Congress can and will act on this.
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Similar to burning down the Chancellery building in 1933. All Laws that existed previously are null and void because they no longer exist! I make the law now!
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Once again – this became established DOJ policy in 1987, under the regime of President Ronald Reagan.
http://www.justice.gov/oip/86agmemo.htm#additional
Read the section on the “(c)(1) exclusion”; there’s also some discussion following.
Why the DOJ is proposing to enshrine it now as a regulation, I don’t know. It could be simple housekeeping – policy that’s been in effect for a quarter-century probably should be made into regulations.
With all this freaking out, the real question gets begged – how much of a problem is this? How many FOIA requests have been submitted to DOJ, and how many have resulted in a “no records” response?
Note also tthat the DOJ is allowed to stand by its “no records” response only as long as the document is sensitive. Once an investigation culminates either in exoneration of the target, or indictments, the department is bound, according to then-Attorney General Meese, to disclose the existence of the document(s) in question because they no longer might tip off the target.
And it’s funny reading some of the reluctant admissions that there might actually be times when withholding of a document’s existence might make sense from a law enforcement perspective. I’m sure that if it came out that a mobster was tipped off to an investigation by an FOIA request, and was consequently able to evade it, most of the regulars here would be screaming to high heaven about the stupidity of a law that requires law enforcement to tell the truth when asked about onging investigations. Yet that’s exactly what most here are demanding.
Remember the old saw, “Be careful what you wish for, it may come true!”
At any rate, changing this rule from policy to regulation, from what I can see (and I think I’ve studied it more than most here) won’t change anything in terms of how FOIA requests are handled.And dropping it from the list of proposed regulations will be seen as a great victory by the inderinformed, but it will not prevent the DOJ from claiming that a document doesn’t exist when in fact it does.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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You guys may want to re-think your opposition to this proposed regulation, since the ACLU also opposes it.
I heard an interesting debate on this topic this afternoon, and they don’tt like the idea of the ggovernmentt lying anymore than you do, even though it was apparently okay with President Reagan and his Attorney General, Edwin Meese.
TThe ACLU has an alternative proposal with respect to those cases where acknowledging the existence of a document might alert a target of an investigation. Instead of producing the document, or lying, the government could simply say “We interpret this request as a malicious attempt to manipulate the system – we’re not even going to look for any such documents.” Of course, the requester would still have the opportunity to challenge DOJ’s response in court, but DOJ wouldn’t have lied or given away valuable intelligence.
By the way, I didn’t hear the debate on talk radio or any right-wing process – it was on NPR.
Take good care, and may God bless us all!
TGY
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