Obama’s DOJ Illegally Withholding Documents Requested Under FOIA

From the most transparent administration evaah…..

The Washington Times: The Justice Department is withholding documents demanded by this newspaper under terms of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In so doing, the department is asserting privileges that do not exist or do not apply. Ironic as it may sound, Justice seems to be breaking the law.

The Washington Times’ FOIA request asked for documents pertaining to the department’s controversial decision to dismiss a civil complaint accusing the New Black Panther Party of intimidating Philadelphia voters on Election Day 2008. In response, the department said it would withhold 69 documents totaling 135 pages, including interdepartmental e-mails, drafts of court filings and briefing materials. The department claimed that “deliberative process” and “attorney work-product” privileges exempted the material from disclosure.

As former Justice Department official Michael A. Carvin explained to us two weeks ago, those exemption claims are bogus. “Normally, there is no general attorney-client privilege,” he said, “unless you are dealing with the president, so [the claim] would have to come under work-product or deliberative process. But work-product is very narrow, and deliberative process is moot. … Deliberative process privilege typically doesn’t extend after a matter is closed.”

The decision to drop the charges was made in May. The case is not open. The “deliberative process” privilege is therefore not applicable.

The official government Web site on FOIA makes clear: “FOIA carries a presumption of disclosure; the burden is on the government – not the public – to substantiate why information may not be released. Upon written request, agencies of the United States government are required to disclose those records, unless they can be lawfully withheld from disclosure under one of nine specific exemptions in the FOIA.” …

I guess in this new post-racial era Black Panthers don’t need to be subject to the laws the rest of us live under. And the Justice Department is above the law it’s supposed to uphold.