By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the White House does not have to make public internal documents examining the potential disappearance of e-mails during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In upholding a 2008 decision by a federal judge in a lawsuit brought by a watchdog group, the appeals court found that the White House’s Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the suit seeking to force the White House office to comply with a 2007 request for documents related to the alleged sloppy retention of e-mails between 2001 and 2005, a period that included the lead-up to and start of the Iraq war. The group was seeking the records to get a better sense of what happened to the e-mails, said Anne Weismann, the organization’s chief counsel.
The Office of Administration, which performs a variety of administrative services for the Executive Office of the President, had complied with similar requests for years. But officials changed the policy after CREW’s request, arguing that the office does not exercise enough independent authority to be subject to open-records laws.
Filed under: Goverment, New Wold Order Tagged: | New World Order, Washington Post
