So let me get this straight. The Obama administration is fighting Judicial Watch tooth-and-nail to avoid releasing photographs of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, citing national security reasons. And at the same time, administration officials allegedly leaked information about the bin Laden raid to a Hollywood film director?

That’s what press reports seem to indicate. And we’re now trying to get to the bottom of this emerging scandal.

On January 13, 2012, JW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to obtain documents regarding meetings and communications between government agencies and Hollywood director Kathryn Bigelow. If the name sounds familiar, it is because Bigelow is the Academy Award-winning director of the military film “The Hurt Locker.” She is also the ex-wife of Hollywood director James Cameron of “Avatar” fame.

At issue in JW’s lawsuit is the possibility that the Obama administration leaked classified information to Bigelow and Annapurna Pictures as source material for the making of Bigelow’s not-yet-released film, tentatively titled “Killing bin Laden.”

Here’s what we’re after, pursuant to JW FOIA requests filed with the DOD and the CIA on August 9, 2011:

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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has come under fire, including from Judicial Watch, for his controversial relationship with mortgage giant Freddie Mac in the years after the former House Speaker left Congress. The issue is especially sensitive in Florida, which has been described as “ground zero” of the housing crisis. Voters take to the polls in the “sunshine state” today in the Republican primary. (Judicial Watch does not endorse or oppose candidates for office.)

Gingrich initially said in debates and press interviews that Freddie Mac paid his company as much as $25,000 per month for his services as a “historian.” He has since switched that term out for the more standard “consultant.” But the documents released by the Gingrich campaign suggest he may have been more than a “consultant.”

Politico reports:

New details from Newt Gingrich’s contracts worth $1.6 million with Freddie Mac show that the Republican hopeful wasn’t just a boardroom consultant, but served as a high-profile booster for the beleaguered organization. He even gave a rallying speech to dozens of the group’s political action committee [PAC] donors in the spring of 2007.

Shortly after the “rah, rah” speech, as one source described it, Gingrich gave an interview for the Freddie Mac website, where he supported the group’s model at length. The interview is no longer on Freddie’s site.

Gingrich said in the interview that Freddie has “made an important contribution to home ownership and the housing finance system,” even though many Republicans revile it.

And so these records seem to suggest that Gingrich, who described the Freddie Mac business model “insane” on the campaign trail, had a different tale to tell when Freddie Mac was filling his corporate bank account.

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Hiding behind vague references to “national security,” the Obama administration continues to keep secret photos documenting the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden at the hands of Navy Seals last May. But Judicial Watch will not give up its pursuit of these records, which we believe will complete the record on one of the military’s greatest achievements.

Last Wednesday, we filed a new court motion in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Defense (DOD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seeking “all photographs and/or video recordings of Osama (Usama) bin Laden taken during and/or after the U.S. military operation in Pakistan on or about May 1, 2011.” (We filed the lawsuit on May 13, 2011.)

Specifically, we filed a “Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and in Support of Plaintiff’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment.” (In order for a Motion for Summary Judgment to be granted by the court, the moving party must demonstrate that there are “no genuine issues of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”) Our lawyers also asked for a court hearing on the matter.

We argue to the court that the Obama administration’s motion for summary judgment “should be denied,” because both the CIA and the DOD have “failed to satisfy even the most basic requirements of FOIA law.” Specifically, they have failed to provide sufficient evidence that they conducted an adequate search for responsive records or demonstrated that the records were properly classified pursuant to President Obama’s Executive Order 13526 signed on December 29, 2009, which provided a “uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information.”

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Solyndra was once known as the poster child for the Obama administration’s “green energy” initiative. However, it has become the poster child for the corruption that ensues when the government treats tax money as a play thing and meddles in the private sector.

Solyndra, you may recall, filed for bankruptcy in September, leaving 1,100 workers without jobs and American taxpayers on the hook for a half billion dollars due to an Obama administration stimulus loan guarantee. Thanks to some good work from the House Energy and Commerce Committee along with some thorough reporting by The Washington Post, we now know that not only was this loan a horrible “investment,” but it was also rife with corruption.

And yet, rather than coming clean and releasing all records related to the Solyndra deal, the Obama administration continues to stonewall and obfuscate.

For this reason, JW filed separate lawsuits against the Obama Department of Energy and Office of Management and Budget to obtain records regarding the taxpayer funded Solyndra loans. Here’s what we’re after, pursuant to our original September 6, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent lawsuits:

1. Any and all records regarding, concerning or related to the issuance of loan guarantees to Solyndra LLC, Solyndra Inc., Solyndra Fab 2 LLC, and/or 360 Degree Solar Holdings Inc.
2. Any and all records of communication between any official, officer, or employee of the Department of Energy and any official, officer or employee of any other government agency, department or office regarding concerning or related to Solyndra LLC, Solyndra Inc., Solyndra Fab 2 LLC, and/or 360 Degree Solar Holdings Inc.
3. Any and all records of communications between any official, officer or employee of the Department of Energy and any official, officer or employee of the following entities [Solyndra investors] regarding concerning or related to Solyndra LLC, Solyndra Inc., Solyndra Fab 2 LLC, and/or 360 Degree Solar Holdings Inc.:
   

   a. Argonaut Private Equity LLC

   b. Madrone Capital Partners LLC

   c. U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) LLC

   d. Rockport Capital Partners LLC.

Both agencies have acknowledged receipt of Judicial Watch’s FOIA requests.

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From BloombergNews:

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

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From BetaBeat:

The infamous $640 toilet seat which the Pentagon purchased back in the 1980′s now has a crappy, excuse the pun, modern day equivalent: a government-made mobile app with a price tag of $200,000.

Rich Jones of Gun.io, a job board for hackers, downloaded and installed the Heat Safety app from OSHA. It’s a straightforward service that finds your current location, measures the heat and humidity and serves up a warning with notes if the temperature is dangerous.

One might call it the kind of app that could have been created for less money by simply telling people to stick their head out the window before work. But this level of precaution is OSHA’s mandate and it’s good, in theory, to see government trying to leverage new technology.

Mr. Jones, an Android developer himself, took a much darker view.

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Last month, Judicial Watch released documents from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that detailed controversial remarks by NRLB staff related to the agency’s lawsuit against Boeing. The NRLB, you will recall, filed its dubious lawsuit against the Seattle-based company for deciding to open a $750 million non-union assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture its Dreamliner plane.

Well, as controversial and irresponsible as those remarks were, after receiving an additional batch of documents from the NLRB this week, we learned they were just the tip of the iceberg.

These new documents, which we obtained pursuant to Judicial Watch’s original July 14, 2011, Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent lawsuit, include internal correspondence among NLRB attorneys discussing the Boeing lawsuit. And check out these highlights:

• On April 22, 2011, Acting NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon sent an email to Wilma Liebman, outgoing Chairwoman of the NLRB, “The article gave me a new idea. You go to geneva [Switzerland] and I get a job with airbus [French company]. We screwed up the us economy and now we can tackle europe.” Solomon’s comment was in response to an article published in French on the European Planet Labor website noting the devastating potential economic impact on South Carolina if the plant were to be scuttled: “Two billion dollars were invested in Charleston, 1,000 employees were recruited, and the site was supposed to open in July… until the NLRB meddled in.”
• On April 22, 2011, NLRB attorney Debra Willen received an email, in which Republican Sen. James DeMint of South Carolina is ridiculed as “Sen. Dement.”
• On May 12, 2011, NLRB Deputy Assistant General Counsel Joseph Baniszewski emailed a political cartoon to Deputy Assistant General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo mocking the state of South Carolina with regard to Boeing Corporation’s decision to locate its manufacturing facility in that state.
• On April 28, 2011, Miriam Szapiro sent an email to NLRB attorney Debra Willen commenting on an article in The Economist expressing some support for the Boeing lawsuit: “Exactly; it just shows you how incredibly reactionary the US is, that the conservative Economist thinks we’re Neanderthal.”
• On April 20, 2011, Mara-Louise Anzalone, counsel for Acting NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon, took exception to U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) statement, “As Senator, I will do everything in my power, including introducing legislation cutting off funding for this wide goose chase, to stop the NLRB’s frivolous complaint [against Boeing].” In an email to NLRB regional attorney Anne Pomerantz, Anzalone writes, “Awesome. Sounds like they’re just going to furlough you and me.”

The documents also include Lafe Solomon’s personal notes detailing conversations with Senator Graham, who said, according to the notes, that “the ‘retaliatory charge’ of the Machinists against Boeing would have huge economic and political consequences” and that if the NLRB filed the complaint, the senator would come out “full guns a-blazing.” The notes also describe Senator Graham as saying “that he was more reasonable than his Senate counterpart (Sen. DeMint).”

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American taxpayers are on the hook for who-knows-how-many trillions of dollars in government bailouts/takeovers. And yet, to date, we have little information about how the federal government legally justified unprecedented its use of tax dollars to “bail out” private companies.

Why? Because the Obama administration continues to stonewall the release of documents that would almost certainly shed light on the internal discussions that took place in the Bush administration!

On November 1, 2011, we filed a petition on behalf of former Federal Reserve employee Vern McKinley, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling validating the Federal Reserve’s decision to withhold documents about this $29 billion Bear Stearns bailout. (Bailout Nation began with the Bear Stearns bailout in 2008.)

At issue in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit is whether or not the federal government can withhold documents under the deliberative process privilege of FOIA Exemption 5 without demonstrating that the release of the documents would result in specific harm to government agency decision-making. As you might imagine, the “deliberative process” is loved by government officials who use it to keep as much information as possible about controversial decisions away from the American people.

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At the outset of the financial crisis, the Bush administration began an unprecedented government takeover of the private sector with the so-called bailouts. When Barack Obama took office, he doubled down on this gamble and kicked the door wide open, pumping massive amounts of taxpayer cash in order to further control the private sector, particularly the financial sector. This unprecedented growth in government control included creating new federal agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and and expanding existing agencies such as the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The professed purpose of these government agencies is to “keep watch” on the business dealings of corporations in order to “protect” the consumer. But after reading some documents JW obtained recently revealing the generous salaries and bonuses being paid to government workers in these agencies, I have one question: Who is watching out for the American taxpayer?

We obtained the documents in response to Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests filed on July 12, 2011, with the CFPB and the CFTC, as well as with the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the U.S. Treasury, and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).

The FOIAs requested Standard Form 50s (SF-50s) from each of the agencies. An SF-50 is a human resources form that documents any change in a government worker’s employment situation, including pay. Check out some of the responses we received:

• The CFPB responded on August 4, 2011. The SF-50s revealed CFPB workers being hired at salaries twice the maximum ordinarily allowed under guidelines published each year by the Office of Personnel Management. A dozen new hires take home more than $225,000 a year, and a student intern is currently being paid $42,036 “through completion of education & study” as a communications trainee.

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Only in Washington would political appointees think it appropriate to have secret a government workshop on transparency, and only in Washington would a politician promote his efforts on transparency while simultaneously taking steps to keep the American people in the dark about their government. That’s exactly what the Obama White House did on December 7, 2009. Judicial Watch now has the evidence to prove it.

Judicial Watch recently released documents detailing the Obama White House decision to close to reporters a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) training workshop conducted by the Office of Information Policy (OIP) in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). JW obtained the documents from the OIP in response to a FOIA request filed on the same day the workshop was held.

The documents consist of a series of emails between White House staff and the Director of the OIP. And here are a few key excerpts from these emails demonstrating what disrespect this White House has for transparency:

• “I am going to touch base with my public affairs office re your suggestion to get their reaction. I, personally don’t object as my message is the same whether the event is open or not. Our concern had been solely with the inhibiting effect it would have on the gov’t ’ees [employees] who might not speak freely if press are there.” — Melanie Pustay, OIP Director, to Blake Roberts, Deputy Associate White House counsel, December 6, 2009.
• “Ok – please don’t have them reach out to any reporters before I clear w/ wh [White House] press.” — Blake Roberts to Melanie Pustay, December 6, 2009.
• “After talking with… ben labolt [then-Assistant White House Press Secretary], the decision is that the training will be closed to the press.” — Gina Talamona, Press Release Deputy Director for the DOJ to Melanie Pustay and Brian Hauck, Counsel to the Associate Attorney General, December 7, 2009.
• “I think you have the right to give closed training when you want it.” — Brian Hauck to Melanie Pustay and Gina Talamona.

The documents also include a statement by OIP Director Melanie Pustay regarding previous FOIA workshops: “So far I have always held parallel sessions, one for agency ‘ees [employees] and then one that is open.”

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From ProPublica:

A proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act would allow federal agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security documents that records don’t exist – even when they do.

Under current FOIA practice, the government may withhold information and issue what’s known as a Glomar denial that says it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.

The new proposal – part of a lengthy rule revision by the Department of Justice – would direct government agencies to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist.”

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The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental communication accounts, which a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA requests. This “cloud” serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Although this is seedy and unlawful at any time, it also goes in the “bad timing” file, especially for the Obama Administration and the UN.

Just as a brand new book further exposes the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (whose scams I dissected here, and in more disturbing detail here), and on the heels of the weekend surprise of a 2005 memo showing President Obama’s cooling/warming/population zealot of a “science czar” John Holdren is the kind of guy Mitt Romney turns to for developing his “environmental”’ policies, we’ve exposed the Obama administration and IPCC have cooperated to subvert U.S. transparency laws, operating domestically out of Holdren’s White House office.

With this morning’s Freedom of Information Act request, the explaining they have to do must begin by providing the taxpayer certain records regarding — including but not limited to — user names and passwords for a backchannel ‘cloud’ established to hide IPCC deliberations from FOIA, thereby also seeking to undermine the Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978. (more…)

President Obama speaks with former Energy Czar
(mentioned in our latest Judicial Watch Report) Carol Browner

Barack Obama has made a number of decisions during his tenure proving that he has little regard for the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law. At the top of the list is Obama’s penchant for installing radical leftists as czars in his administration without the constitutionally-mandated vetting and approval by the U.S. Senate.

These political appointees, called “czars,” are powerful and difficult to track. Nonetheless, Judicial Watch’s investigation team has taken on the important and exhaustive task of documenting these czar appointments (which number 45 according to our latest tally) and detailing the control these czars have over government operations.

Among the report’s findings are the following:

• Czar appointees have seized unprecedented control over major aspects of government policy and programs. In some instances, unconfirmed czars have authority, in seeming violation of the U.S. Constitution, over certain Senate-confirmed officers.
• A number of the czars have been linked to scandals, thefts and kickbacks, flagrant and offensive statements, conflicts of interest, and radical leftist political ideologies and policies.

Barack Obama’s unconstitutional use of czars to help run his administration is at odds with republican, limited, and accountable government. Obama has simply installed his allies in various positions of power while thumbing his nose at Congress and the American people.

As we document in this report, too many of these czars have proven to be corrupt or radical (or sometimes both). No wonder the Obama administration fights tooth-and-nail to allow these czars to operate in secret. Thankfully, our investigators managed to develop this comprehensive list of czars as part of our efforts to ensure government accountability. (Our report details 18 unfilled czar positions!)

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As Congress was in the middle of the debt ceiling debate this summer, deciding which bloated federal programs to cut, Michelle Obama decided to take a nice taxpayer-funded “working” vacation to South Africa and Botswana with her children.  Judicial Watch began asking some very simple questions:   What was the purpose of the trip and how much did it cost?  We’re just now starting to get some answers.

Last week we obtained mission expense records and passenger manifests from the United States Air Force related to the June 21-27, 2011, trip.  Judicial Watch obtained the documents pursuant to an August 19, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.  It is amazing how transparent the Obama administration becomes once you sue them in a federal court!

On June 28, 2011, we filed a FOIA request seeking the mission taskings, transportation records, and passenger manifests for Michelle Obama’s Africa trip.  Our FOIA lawsuit extracted some interesting information:

• According to U.S. Department of Defense’s published hourly rates for the C-32A aircraft used for the trip, we calculated the total cost to American taxpayers was $424,142 for the flight and crew.  (The C-32 is a specially configured military version of the Boeing 757.)  Other expenses ─ meals (off the plane), transportation, security, various services, etc. ─ have yet to be reported.

• The expense records also indicate $928.44 were spent for “bulk food” purchases on flight.  Overall, during the trip, 192 meals were served for the 21 passengers on board.

• The passenger manifests confirm the presence of Obama’s daughter’s, Malia and Sasha on the trip.  The two girls are listed as “Senior Staff.”   The manifests also list Mrs. Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, and niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson, as well Mrs. Obama’s makeup and hairstylist (Carl Ray and Johnny Wright).

The professed purpose of Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana was to encourage young people living in the two growing democracies to become involved in national affairs; and during her scheduled stops in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa, and in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, the First Lady used the opportunity to speak on education, health, and wellness issues.

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Last week, Judicial Watch and its client Tiffany Hartley jacked up the heat on the Obama administration to provide some answers related to the murder of Mrs. Hartley’s husband, David, who was gunned down in September 2010, apparently at the hands of a Mexican drug cartel. Mr. and Mrs. Hartley were driving jet skis on Falcon Lake, which sits on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, when gunmen opened fire from a nearby boat striking Mr. Hartley in the head.

The Obama administration, for its part, seems to have ended its participation in the murder investigation and is now giving Mrs. Hartley the stiff arm regarding her request for information.

That’s where we come in.

On September 16, Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the Department of State, Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI to obtain all government records pertaining to the September shooting, including Obama administration communications with Mexican law enforcement officials, military authorities, and other Mexican officials.

CNN’s Justice Blog had the story:

Almost a year has passed since Tiffany Hartley’s husband was shot and killed while on a personal watercraft on Falcon Lake, which sits on the border and is shared between Texas and Mexico.

Now she has sued the State Department, the Justice Department and the FBI in an attempt to get answers about what happened that day and why no one has been brought to justice in the killing of David Hartley.

It is believed that he was shot by members of the Zetas drug cartel, but no one has been arrested or even named as a suspect in his death.

With the help of Judicial Watch, an organization dedicated to investigating corruption, Tiffany Hartley filed the three Freedom of Information Act lawsuits Friday.

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I don’t believe we’ve seen a more corrupt, politicized and incompetent Department of Justice (DOJ) in modern political history than we have now under President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. And I never thought I’d write those words after suffering eight years of Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration.

But check this out as reported by The Associated Press:

The Justice Department replaced three officials Tuesday who played critical roles in a flawed law enforcement operation aimed at major gun-trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

The department announced that the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. attorney in Arizona had resigned and an administration official said a prosecutor who worked on the operation was reassigned to civil cases.

The operation, known as Fast and Furious, was designed to track small-time gun buyers at several Phoenix-area gun shops up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers.…

A congressional investigation of the program has turned up evidence that ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation.

The ATF, with the full approval of the DOJ, allowed guns to be sold and sent to the Mexican drug cartels in the hopes of having them show up at crime scenes in Mexico! This reckless craziness seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December, 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

Last week the Acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson was transferred to a make-work position in the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix resigned.

But Eric Holder still has his job!

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Time after time, we have found that this administration cares not one whit about following basic laws. What does it mean for Congress to pass and the president to sign a law banning a corrupt organization and its affiliates from receiving federal funds? Apparently the Obama administration could care less. As you will recall, the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a grant of $79,819 to ACORN spin-off Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), despite the fact that Barack Obama signed the ACORN funding ban in October 2009. (And despite the fact that the organization was nailed for misappropriating taxpayer funds!)

We want to know how the HUD can justify this decision. So we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on August 19, 2011, against HUD to obtain records related to the department’s approval of AHCOA as an official “housing agency.”

Pursuant to our FOIA request filed on June 8, 2011, we want access to the following information:

• Any and all records concerning or relating to the approval of Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) as a housing agency under Section 106(a)(2) of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968. This request includes, but is not limited to, a copy of all HUD-9900 forms and supporting documentation submitted by, or on behalf of, AHCOA, as well as all records of communication regarding AHCOA’s approval.
• Any and all records of all applications(s) for grants submitted by AHCOA to HUD.

Judicial Watch’s FOIA request was received by HUD on June 13, 2011, (according to postal records). The agency was required to respond by July 12, 2011. This is about as narrow and simple a document request that Judicial Watch makes. But as of August 19, 2011, the date of Judicial Watch’s complaint, HUD hasn’t turned over a single document, or even indicated when a response can be expected.

AHCOA was previously known as ACORN Housing Corporation, Inc., an ACORN offshoot. ACORN filed for bankruptcy on November 2, 2010. However, as we’ve pointed out many times in this space, the organization lives on in the form of numerous state organizations and various ACORN-allied entities, such as AHCOA.

Importantly, none of these ACORN entities or spin-offs are supposed to receive federal funds! President Obama signed into law legislation known as the Defund ACORN Act on October 1, 2009, and other congressional actions that cut off most federal funds to ACORN “or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations.” Following an ACORN lawsuit challenging the funding ban, the federal courts in New York upheld the constitutionality of the restrictions on August 13, 2010. In June 2011, the Supreme Court refused to hear ACORN’s appeal of this funding ban.

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That is the question at the center of a new Judicial Watch investigation.

On August 19, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records related to the agency’s communications with Estelle Rogers, a former ACORN attorney who currently serves as the Director of Advocacy for the ACORN-connected organization Project Vote, President Obama’s former employer.

Judicial Watch is investigating the extent to which the Obama DOJ and Project Vote are partnering in a national campaign to use the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA) to register more individuals on public assistance, widely considered a key voting block for the Obama 2012 campaign.

Here’s what we’re after with our FOIA request filed on June 23, 2011: “All records of communications between the Department of Justice and Estelle Rogers, Director of Advocacy for Project Vote. The timeframe for this request is January 2, 2009, to June 23, 2011.”

The DOJ was required by law to respond to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request within 30 working days, or by August 5, 2011. (U.S. Postal Service records indicate the DOJ received Judicial Watch’s request on June 28, 2011.) As of the lawsuit’s filing, the DOJ has neither produced the records requested nor responded with the date when they will be forthcoming. (Nothing new there.)

Now, we already know that Project Vote is corrupt. We also know that the organization is putting a full-court press on key swing states to manipulate voter registration laws in order to “get out the vote” for Obama and the Democrats in 2012. And leading that charge is Estelle Rogers.

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In an embarrassing defeat for the Obama administration, a federal court ruled on Wednesday that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act! U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in Judicial Watch v. Secret Service, (No. 09-2312).

Here’s the bottom line: The Obama administration will now have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under law.

In our lawsuit we asked the court to order the release of Secret Service logs of White House visitors from January 20, 2009, to August 10, 2009. The Obama administration’s principal argument had been that the logs were not “agency” records subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And just in case that argument didn’t hold water, Obama administration lawyers took a kitchen sink approach in attempting to stop our lawsuit, asserting a number of other arguments regarding why these records should not be released. The court struck them all down, one by one.

Please click here to read Judge Howell’s complete ruling for all of the details, but here’s a quick summary of the court’s conclusions:

• The Obama administration argued the visitor logs are not “agency” records subject to FOIA. The court applied a standard “two-part” test, and ultimately concluded, “…the Secret Service argues that it is unable to dispose of the records freely because they are ultimately White House records and not agency records. This argument is circular. The claimed restrictions on disposal stem from the defendant’s assumption that the documents are under Presidential control—the exact point that the defendant seeks to prove to establish that the documents are not subject to FOIA.”Judicial Watch noted in its complaint filed on December 7, 2009, the Obama administration’s claim “has been litigated and rejected repeatedly.” The court noted precedent in its ruling: “This Court agrees with the conclusions of the other judges in this District that have considered this question and finds that the records are subject to FOIA.”
• The Obama administration argued that Judicial Watch’s request is too massive and broad and cannot be processed. Judge Howell was unconvinced. “While the Court is sensitive to the burdens raised by the plaintiff’s broad brush request for ‘all’ records of a certain type over a nine-month period, including the need to review such records for applicable exemptions, the Court is not persuaded that the plaintiff’s request requires a blanket rejection.”
• The Obama administration argued that Judicial Watch’s request would raise Constitutional, “separation of power” issues. Judge Howell ruled, “…The Court is skeptical of the underlying premise that the inclusion of [visitor logs] under FOIA raises any serious Constitutional problems….since the statutory language is unambiguous in relation to this issue, and the FOIA has built-in exemptions that mitigate the risk of the precise separation of powers concerns the defendant raises, the Court rejects defendant’s interpretive argument.”
• The Obama administration argued that Judicial Watch’s request raises national security concerns. The court noted, “At no point does the Secret Service assert, however, that there are not at least some records implicated by plaintiff’s FOIA request that could be easily searched for, separated out, and disclosed without raising national security concerns.”

Ultimately, Judge Howell concluded that “the proper course of action by the Secret Service is duly to process [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request, disclose all segregable, nonexempt records, and then assert specific FOIA exemptions for all records it seeks to withhold.”

In other words, release or explain.

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