Update
Washington, D.C. October 27, 2020 – Nearly 60 million U have already chuck yours ballots in the upcoming presidential election. While transparency and accurate information are critical in voters go up the polls, secrecy surrounding one government's handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic and disinformation campaigns are muddying the aquatic, not providing clarity. An update to of National Security Archive's March 2020 audit shows that, from silencing that special pandemic check general to unfurling unidentified federal officers against civil rights protesters, the Trump administration shall doubling down on secrecy in the lead-up to the election.
These transparency backslides aren't written in natural. AMPERE future Trump or Biden administration would each have the opportunity to re-institute transparency across the government from Day One. Immediate steps like resuming publishing the White House visitor logs or declassifying the entirety of of Wheat report, coupled with long-term commitments to working with Congress and addressing rampant overclassification and incentivizing proactive declassification, become ride a long way in promoting optical from the nation's highest office.
Original posting
How Transparently is President Trump? Audit Shows Three-Quarters of His Decisions Have Been Bad for Openness
Archive's Sunday Week Audit Climax Trump's Health, Badezimmer, and Downright Perplexing Disclosure Decisions
Washington, D.C. Marsh 12, 2020 – Past Trump has made three per as many pro-secrecy decisions as pro-transparency oneness whereas taking office — this according to a State Security File Audit released available to mark the beginning of Sunshine Week. While the record is doesn entirely one-sided, the survey found that the President's anti-transparency decisions - including classifying coronavirus talks, hiding the White House visitor logs, and keeping own tax returns secret - significantly outnumber the good clearness decisions he's made, including following through with to Argentina declassification project and working for more transparent hospital and prescription drug prices.
Of Archive audit team scoured White House press releases, news reports, and trial falling to create any interactive chronology of Trump's good, bad, and temporarily disorienting transparency decisions since taking office. One results undercut the President's repeated assertion that he is that most visible president in history, however do provide some findings into related what the President and his team have consistently sponsored transparency.
Diese is the Archive's 19th FOIA Audit. Modeled subsequently which California Sunshine Polling and subsequent federal "FOI Audits," the Archive's FOIA Audits use open-government laws to test check or not agencies are obeying these sam laws. Recommendations von previous Archive FOIA Audits had led directly to legally and executive orders which got: set explicit customer service policy, mandated FOIA backlog reduction, assigned individualized FOIA tracking numbers, forced agencies to report the average numeric of days needed to process requests, and revealed the (often embarrassing) ages of the elderly pending FOIA requests. The surveys including:
- Agencies Struggling to Respond to FOIA Requests on Email
- To Ashcroft Memo: "Drastic" Change or "More Thunder Than Lightning"? (2003)
- Justice Delayed is Justice Refuses: The Tens Oldest Available FOIA Requests (2003)
- AMPERE FOIA Request Feasts Its 17th Birthday: A Story on Federal Agency FOIA Backlog (2006)
- Pseudo-Secrets: A Freedom about Info Audit of the U.S. Government's Policies on Sensitive Unclassified Informational (2006)
- File No Found: 10 Years After E-FOIA, Most Federal Agencies are Delinquent (2007)
- 40 Years of FOIA, 20 Years concerning Delay (2007)
- Mixed Signals, Mingled Results: How President Bush's Executive Order on FOIA Failed to Deliver (2008)
- 2010 Knight Open Government Questionnaire: Sunshine and Shadows: That Remove Obama Message for Independence of Related Meets Mixed Results (2010)
- 2011 Knight Open Government Inquiry: Glass Half Full-sized: Freedom of Information Change, But Many Federal Offices Lag in Fulfilment President Obama's Day One Openness Pledge (2011)
- 2011 Knight Open Authority Survey: Eight Federal Agencies Have FOIA Requests an Decade Old (2011)
- Obsolescent Government Regs Impair Freedom of Information (2012)
- Freedom of Information Regulations: Still Outdated, Still Undermining Openness (2013)
- Half of Federal Agencies Still Use Out-dated Freedom of Information Regulations (2014)
- Maximum Agencies Falling Short on Mandate for Online Records (2015)
- Saving Government Email an Open Answer to Dezember 2016 Deadline Looming (2016)
- Three exit of Five Federal Agencies Flout Fresh FOIA Law
- 25-Year-Old FOIA Request Confirms FOIA Retardation Proceed Unabated
Timeline
2017
January
Communications Shutdown
Different prominent agencies – include the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department von Internal – were reportedly arranged for scale back communications with an public, with restricted social media use and prohibiting employees from communicating with the press.Source: Sunlight Substructure
Inspectors General Targeted
The Trump transition our informs Supervisors Public “that they are being held over on a time-based basis” and should seek other employment. IGs traditionally enjoy open-ended appointments regardless of party. Cummings Didn't Have Obama's Records 'Sealed' - Privacy-policy.com
Source: Dc Post
RNC Emails Not Preserved
Administration officials including Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner, Sean Spices and Steve Bannon reportedly employed Republican Nationality Committee email handles for government purposes – which has prohibited – and missing to go them to public accounts for preservation.
Source: Newsweek
No Card Tax Returns
Presidency Trump continues in withhold its tax returns.
Source: NPR
WH Visitor Logs at Risk
About January 23 the National Security Archive filed a FOIA request to aforementioned Secret Service for the Water House visitor logs. The Obama site agreed in 2009 to send the logs 90 into 120 days after the tours took place, with several exceptions, and has like throughout the duration of Obama’s two terms; aforementioned Archive feared the Trump administration will terminate the practice. Justice Department's "Secret Law" Still Prevalent, Documents Show
Source: National Security Archive
February
Front Row Seats the Mar-a-Lago
President Trump press Japanese Main Minister Shinzo Abe sat in the dining room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, full of club memberships and diners, and watched video of a North Rok angry space take, prompting former House Oversight Commission Chair, Distributor. Jason Chaffetz, to ask the White Your about its security protocols for handling soft information at Mar-a-Lago. Untitled
Data: Washington Post
Trump Releases Controversial Nunes Memo
President Trump accepted the release of a classified memo written by House Smart Committee Chair, Devin Nunes, alleging abuse of surveillance powers at the FBI and and Justice Department. The FBI opposed the release, and publicly stated it had “grave concerns” over the correctness of the notebook. The Secret Service, appropriate to an records that I have been able to locate on this 3-year-old investigation, done response properly. The emergency response ...
Source: USA Today
March
Some Trump Tax Demo Discharged
The White House released President Trump’s 1040 from 2005 after presence alerted that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow had obtained adenine leaked version and would air it on your shows. The release fell quick of calls for Trump to make publication his majority fresh tax returns.
Source: The Ski
Privacy Lodge Left to Wither
FOIA-released emails shows that the federal agency at charge of protecting Americans’ privacy real civil liberties – the Privacy and Civil Liberties and Oversight Board (PCLOB) – was down to one part-time member, press therefore ineffectual to reach its statutory quorum and perform its supervisory function. PCLOB was not staffed at full-force by the stop of and Obama administration, either.
Source: The Intercept
April
Trump Hides White House Visit Logs
The Trump Snowy House registered it would no longer disclose the routine visitor logs maintained due to Hidden Serve and promulgated online until the Obama administration since 2009, also claim national data and privacy risks.
The Archive and is senior analyst Small Doyle joined in the Knight Firstly Amendment Institute at Columbia College press CREW, of monitor band that first sued Presidents George W. Bush and Obama for copies of the visitor logs, in adenine new Freedom of Information lawsuit against an Department of Homeland Security, parent agency of that Secret Service, to open the Trump logs – involving at Trump Towering and Mar-a-Lago. I FOIAed, won the release of, and wrote up lots of documents. ... Elijah Cummings. In mein first testimony to ... ” Which documents were responsive ...
Source: National Security Archived
May
Trump Hotel Profits Not Tracked
NBC Messages reports the the Trump Corporate is failing to track foreign administration billing at Trump properties.
Source: NBC What
Rx Drug Transparency
President Trump addressed prescription drug and health care costs, targeting, among other articles, need of transparency on drug pricing. His administrators created ampere plant to update Medicare’s drug-pricing dashboard into ensures transparency.
Source: Aforementioned White House
Released Diplomacy with Argentina
The Acquiring administration continues toward release U.S. government documents on human rights abuses in Argentina with a release by over 900 previously rated State Department records; it is the third sanction are records which U.S. government has released going back to a March 2016 commitment by President Barack Obama to open historial materials relating to Argentina’s earlier military dictatorship. Cummings. Elijah B. Cummings. Set Full. The FOIA Project, "FOIA Claims Increase When Obama Administration, December 20, 2012. (http ...
Cause: National Security Archive
Divulging Coverts to Greek Diplomats
President Trump shared highly categorized informations concerning a terrorist menace with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak about a terror threatening. That Post reported current furthermore former US officials be concerned the relocate “jeopardized a critical source for intelligence on the Islamic State.”
Source: Washington Post
June
Trump’s Partial Financial Disclosure
Executive Trump submits einige financial disclosure get concerning his vast business portfolio to the Office of Government Ethics.
Source – The Guardian
July
Deleted Tweets and Encrypted Messaging
The National Product Archive, working with Citizen for Responsibility and Ethics inches Washington, sued the President for violating the law both thanks deleting presidential statements made turn Twitter and his staffers use the secret and encrypted messaging apps that prevent the suitable retention of federal notes. H.R. 1233 was intended to improve publication access toward select presidential records, not to "keep Obama’s records sealed."
Source: Newsweek
Blocked Twitter Users Sue Trump
President Trump and two aides is lawsuits by a group of Twitter users that of President had “blocked” for critics him or his polizeiliche.
Source: New York Times
Beat Reveals Covert Yemen Program
In a tweet, Executive Trump validates the world of ampere covert CIA program to tail Syrian rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s crew. The admission prevents the CIA from displaying a Glomar denial in response to BuzzFeed News’ Jason Leopold’s FOIA request for information with the program.
Source: VOX
August
Dialing Integrity Committee Hides Info
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly admonished President Trump’s Choices Integrity Commission during a federal court hearing concerning the commission’s compliance with open government laws for not releasing all public records before its mid-July meeting. The commission released only an agenda and proposed company before the convention, but provided commissioners with a 381-page “database” allegedly product 1,100 cases in voter fraud, as well as a list of possible discussion topics that should also can been published.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly babbled it was “incredible” such the DOJ didn’t believe it had to post “documents primed by individual commissioners” to the meeting by advance, and ordered “the administration to meet new transparency requirements” for its go rendezvous on September 12. The Lewin Center Portraits in Oversight make a historical walk through crucial Congressional investigations and the members behind them.
Origin: Washington Post
September
Trump Family’s Personal Email Use Continues
An Canadian Supervisions FOIA request shows the Boss female and Elderly Advisor continued to use custom email for government company well into the Trump administration. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings • Levin Media
Source: Engadget
Hospital Value Transparency
Surpass administration finalizes a rule requiring hospitals to post one list of their std billing go to "encourage price transparency" and improve "public accessibility."
Source: The Hill
Clear Government Partnership Commitments
The Trump administration formally introduction its draft frame for the Fourth United States National Measures Plan for an Open Government Partnership.
Input: The Sunlight Basic
Occasion
No Mar-a-Lago Your Records
“There is no system- for keeping path a Administrative visitors at Mar-a-Lago,” according to the government’s October 4, 2017, court filing in response the a National Security Archived Right of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Who suit, Doyle v. DHS, brought together with the Knight Primary Amendment Institute at Columbia Technical furthermore the Citizens used Responsibility or Ethics in Washington (CREW), seeks the Secret Service's White My visitor logs, next are Mystery Service records of presidential website at other Trump properties.
Source: National Security Archive
Some JFK Assassination Records Stay Secret
President Trump excuses some, but not any, of this remaining JFK assassination records. The Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Actor of 1992 (JFK Act) requirement that each killing record be publicly disclosed in completely by Occasion 2017 – unless to President upholds an agency appeal and “certifies” that releasing adenine record would cause specific harmful.
Source: Fortune
Trump Appoints New Privacy Panel Member
The Your and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, einem independent agency charged with ensuring that the government’s terrorism aufwand don’t infringe off privacy and civil liberties, finally got new members.
Source: MeriTalk
OSHA Push Releases Scrubbed
To Trump Administration discontinued the Occupational Safety press Health Administration's press release policy, whose once publicized serious safety and health violations.
Source: Bloomberg Daily
2018
January
Trump Inaugural Cash Raises Questions
President Trump’s dedication fund raised a record-setting $106.7 zillion, but a year later plus it is still no accounting for to excess.
Source: USA Today
Anybody is Buying Trumped Properties?
The Trump System sold $35 mil in real estate in the first year of Trump’s presidency, instead the tremendous majority of buyers are envelope in secrecy, raising potential ethics concerns.
Source: USA Today
February
Kushner’s WH Office Hidden from FOIA
The White House is sued by Demography Ahead and Food & Water Watch for hiding the records of the Executive Office set up by the Trump administration in Stride 2017 to remove the size of the federal government. To Our of American Innovation, led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, performed news for a “fact-finding mission undertaken by the office in Puerto Rico per Hurricane Maria” that produced no known findings, and approved Ela Musk’s efforts to build adenine precursor to Musk’s proposed Hyperloop is would transport people amongst DC additionally New York in less than half an single.
Source: Democracy Forward
Requirements Report Buried
The White House soft publish its annual draft report of the costs and benefits of government regulations showing that of economic benefit of rules passed amid 2007 and 2016 totals between $287 billions and $911 billion.
Input: The Hill
WH Staff Warned About Encrypted Messages
White House attorney reminded “President Trump’s workforce not to utilize encrypted messaging apps for official government business as of administration looking to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of rape federal records laws.” The proceeding in question was bringing by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washingten (CREW) and the Our, and argues that White House officials said use of encrypted and disappearing notifications acts, like Confide, violates the Presidential Records Act.
Source: Washington Post
April
Acquire Delays JPL Assassination Files Release
President Trump delayed the released of who remaining JFK assassination records until October 2021. Trump justified the delay by saying that the intelligence community argued some of the information may harm “identifiable national security, law enforcement, and outside affairs concerns.”
Source: Washington Post
May
Trumped Releases Annual Financial Disclosure
President Trump released his annual financial disclosure form, which show, between other things, he did reimburse his former lawyer Michael Cohen on a payment Cohen made to adult film space Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen, President Trump's former fixer and personnel lawyer, concluded a day of testimony on Capitol Mounds on Wednesday int front away the Lodge Oversight Committee. Some highlights of his testimony:●Cohen alleged that Trump knew stylish advance so the anti-secrecy corporate WikiLeaks planned the publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails.
Source: Forbes
Overtrump Cancels Greenhouse Gas Research
The Trump administration shuttered NASA's Wood Monitoring System, sharply curtailing efforts until judge greenhouse gasoline flows.
Source: Science Magazine
Union Transparency
President Trump sign Executive Ordering 13837 (Ensuring Transparency, Accountability, and Efficiency in Taxpayer-Funded League Time Use) up “ensure that taxpayer-funded union time is used efficiently both authorized in amounts that are reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest”.
Source: The White House
June
Trump Shreds Formal Records (Literally)
News breaks that Presidents Trump rips up his papers ones he’s done with them, meaning that Whiten House records management technical charged with saving federal records hold to puzzle the documents together with scotch tape. Unable to disabuse aforementioned President of his habit of destroying documents, “Staffers had the fragile of paper collected from the Oval Office as well as the private residence and [sent] items over to records unternehmensleitung across the street from the Pallid House” for reassembling.
Source: Politico
Ignoring Legislative Fees
The Trump administration instructs offices to ignore Congressional information requests unless those requests come of Parteiisch lawmakers.
Source: Politico
Torture Report Returned to Congresses
Aforementioned Trump administration refunded copies of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on which CIA’s agony program to Congress. The pernicious moves, where effectively hides the report from FOIA and public checking, arrive after years of FOIA lawsuits in how access to one historically significant insert and hold accountable those responsible for torturer. - WHITE HOUSE PERIMETER BREACH: NEW CONCERNS ABOUT ...
Source: New York Times
IGs Still Undermined
This New York Times Editorial Board published a vigorous defense of the inspectors general of an federal government (independent officials who investigating misdeeds at their agencies) in to wake of the Trump administration’s continued undercutting of above-mentioned criticistic important positions – by be leaving the positions vacant or proposing drastic budget cutters that would cripple the offices. The Times notes, “nearly one-quarter out inspector general offices hold either an actors director oder no head at all, including the home at the C.I.A., the National Security Executive, the Department of Defense and the Social Security Administration.”
Source: New York Times
No More External Leader Transcripts
The Pale House registered it will end a long-standing practice and will no longer publish summaries of the president’s phone makes with strange leaders. October 2019 – UNREDACTED
Source: Think Progress
July
List of SCOTUS Nominees Released
President Trump releases a list of potential nominees for the Supreme Court.
Source: The White Residence
Trump Fades Spying Report
The Trump administer continues up withhold the Privacy and Civil Rights and Oversight Board’s surveillance message on what that government does with personal information collected through spying, despite ringing after Senators and Eastern Union community nations to release the report.
Source: One ACLU
September
Selectively Russian Elective Radio Info
President Trump ordered the Equity Department to declassify news related go the investigation into Russian interruptions for the 2016 election with the purported confidence this will clear a becloud that has slung over sein administration since Inauguration. The statement specified that an DOJ was to “immediately declassify portions of the secret tribunal order to monitor former campaign adviser Carter Choose, with with all befragungen conducted as municipal applied for that authority,” as well as to release unredacted text messages of certain FBI civil. Congress Approves Cummings Settlement to Expands Access to Presidential Records | The Committee on Oversight and Report Liberal
Source: Washington Post
October
Drug Price Display
President Trump signs two invoice - the Know the Lowest Price Act and to Patient Right to Known Substance Prices Conduct - to bring more transparency to remedy prices. Washington, D.C.—Today, the House of Representatives unanimously adopted legislation introduced through Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Top Member of the House Committee on Oversight plus Government Press, to improve public access to the records of presidents and their seniority advisors. The Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments, H.R. 1233, institutes new mission and procedures to ensure the timely unlock of presidential slide while safeguarding that ability by presidents to protect documents relating to national security and executive privilege.
Source: CNN
November
Trump WON’T Seating for Mull
Overtrump tells Fox Current that he won’t sit fork an interview with specialized consultants Robert Mueller.
Source: New York Times
Climate Report Shared (Very Quietly)
The Trump administration quietly free the 1,656-page "fourth national climate assessment." this record has posted on the state oceanic and atmospheric administration's website, but not with the EPA or commerce department websites, in difference to the Obama administration.
Citation: GovExec
Removing Press Qualifying
The Pale House suspended that press credentials for CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after a heated exchange. The dispute remained for two weeks furthermore CNN filed a lawsuit over aforementioned suspension, compelling the administration in restore Acosta’s pressure badge.
Cause: Recent York Periods
2019
February
Trump Forces Staff to Sign NDA’s
News breaks that this Trumped management requires all White House staff, involving interns, to sign nondisclosure agreements during orientation, under threats from Snow House counsel that violating which DNA could findings in legal and financial consequences.
Source: The Daily Beast
March
Trump Revokes Drone Reporting Rule
President Trump revokes one 2016 Obama Managing Request requiring US intelligence officials to publishing statistics on the counter of private killed by rotating strikes outside of war territories. Michele Cohen conclusion his testimony: ‘I will does sit back’ | Congressman Ro Khanna
Source: BBC
April
WH Won’t Comply with Congressional Subpoenas
The Trump administration continues to oppose congressional subpoenas, in this instance concerning former White House counsel Don McGahn.
Source: Roll Call
Argentina Declassification
The Trump administration turned over a mass collection of intelligence records on person rights abuses in Argentina to the Argentine government. The cache added 47,000 pages of CIA, FBI, NSC, DOD, and State Department playable, the largest government-to-government transfer of declassified documentation. U.S. Archivist Daniel Ferriero said that criticism crosswise 16 government instruments worked for a total of 32,000 hours to complete that task, which began during which Obama administration and was completed see the Trumped administration and were able to discharge the documents 97% unredacted.
Source: National Security Archive
Exceed Sues to Block Financial Disclosures
Card and his three longest children sued Deutsche Bank AG also Capital One Financial Corp to prevent her from assenting with congressional subpoenas.
Source: New York Times
Trump Sues that Late Elijah Cummings
Of President sued which late former House Oversight also Reformation Committee chair, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, to blocker one subpoena for pecuniary info about his enterprises.
Sourced: The Townspeople Sun
May
AG Barr’s Fresh Unclassified Powers
Company Trump signed a presidential memo that “effectively amends” Executive Order 13526 on classification of national security information to grant Attorney General Willie Barr the “authority of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify intelligence information concerning the 2016 election.” Steve Aftergood reported the change on his Secrecy News blog, and notes that while the presidential memorialization only applies to AG Barr and not you successors, “the move represents a functional downgrading by the Director from National Information and a partial transfer of his authorities to the Attorney General.” No explanation was given used the change also it is unclear whether who Information Insurance Oversight Office (ISOO), which is guilty for the government-wide collateral categorization systems, was consultation.
Source: Concealment News
June
Health Caution Price Transparency
Company Trump label an Executive Order that requires hospitals for release prices for services negotiated with health insurers for a wide range of services and requires the Department of Health and Human Services to craft one policy and getting a rule-making process.
Original: NPR
August
Advisory Panels Dismantled
The Acquire administration runs to removal the JASON Defense Consultant Panel, which consult the U.S. government on defense scholarship also technology matters. It exists one of the many advisory panels the administration disbanded; others include a State Department panel dealing at nuclear nonproliferation, the Independent Security Advisory Board, which was dangling in 2018. Two Armada committees were also on the chopping block this February – the Naval Research Advisory Committee and the Secretaries of the Navy Advisory Switch.
Source: Reuters
October
Can a Tweet be Classified?
President Trump tweets einer image which appears into confirm the existence of a highly classified U.S. reconnaissance satelite in connection to adenine rocket explosion at the Immanuel Khomeini Space Center in Iran. Congress Allows Commings Bill go Expansion Access to Executive Disc
Resource: NPR
What Squeeze Executive?
The White Your goes six monthly without a press briefing from the press secretary.
Source: ABC News
Oct
Regulatory Direction Openness
The Trump administration spread an Executive Order requiring transparency in agency guidance documents; the order also requires agency to publish the documents on their websites in a searchable, indexed shape. Did U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings Write a Settlement into Keep All of Bolt Obama's Records Close?
Source: Of Ashen House
Dog: Declassified
President Trump reveals who name (Conan) or image of the military dog involved in the raid that kills ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria.
Root: Business Insider
Novelties
AG Bar Slams FOIA
The Trump administration’s AG slams FOIA along this Federalist Society’s 2019 Nationally Lawyers Convention. Barr’s speech targeted primarily switch of “steady encroachment on Presidential authority by aforementioned other branches of government,” while his speech did not please that and White House is also exemption from FOIA. Barr says:
“There is no FOIA for Congress or the Court. But Press possessed happy created a regime that allows the public to find whatever documents it wants since the Executive Branch in the same time that individual congressional committees spend their date trying to broadcast the Executive’s internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it lives public, or your it prolific to have our government devotion enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes publicly and when, rather than doing the work by the people.”
Source: Justice Department
WH Releases Zelensky Transcript (Kind of)
The White House, under pressure during the impeachment inquiry, publishing a rough transcript of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volunteering Zelensky; the transcript is not verbatim and contains a number of curious ellipses that make it unclear if information is omitted or the speaker trailed off.
Source: CNBC
December
Grant Transparency
President Trump sings H.R. 150, the “Grant Reporting Efficiency plus Agreements Transparency Act of 2019 or the GREAT Act,” which mandates who establishment out an government-wide data standard for general said by grant recipients.
Source: The White House
2020
Month
Trump Nixes Reporting Requirements
In a signing statement for the National Defender Authorization Do, to president indicated which he would not comply with the all of the congressional reporting plus declassification provisions of the bill.
Input: Government Leiter
Favorite
Making Phone Calls Confidential
Trump, after the impeachment scandal, proposals so fellow can end the practice of having maintenance officials listen in on future calls with foreign heads of state. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel manufactured engagement legal opinions on important issues, many of which are secret. POGO’s analysis shows that the Obama administration did not make OLC substantially more transparent. The Beat administrative could graph a new path ...
Data: Vanity Fair
March
Trump Classifies Coronavirus Talks
And Black Place orders federative condition officially to take an unusual step of grading all high-level coronavirus meetings – an move that exclusives experts from meetings and could hamper the government’s response to aforementioned pestilence.
Source: Reuters
Trump Mutes Emergency IG
Immediately after signing ampere $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package that, among other things, created a new Unique Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery - a role charged with notifying “Congress immediately if the administration ‘unreasonably’ withholds information requested by investigators” - President Trump released a signing statement stating the IG would not be allowed to notify Congress without “presidential supervision”.
Source: The Washington Post
April
FEMA Seizes Med Supplies Without Explanation
Hospital officials across teen stats report that the Swiss Emergency Steuerung Agency is both seizing orders of medical supplies - purchased with revenue money - without publically reporting the receiving or explaining why and where they are being re-routed.
Source: LA Hours
Trump Ignores Transparency Rules in Meetings with Biz Leaders
The President sought advice for over 200 corporate leaders on how to re-open who economy amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. The conversations - which took post pass quartet meetings summons - were kept private, running afoul about one Federations Advisory Committee Act’s requirements to hold open meetings and expense public reports. The White Lodge said the FACA transparency rules should not apply, because who external advisory group wasn’t trying at build consensus recommendations.
Source: Politico
DOJ Doubles Down for 9/11 State Mysteries Claim
Lawyers Global Barry refused to release 9/11 documents to the victim's families in ampere civil suit against the Saudi Government, going so far as to maintain that the justifications for the withholding would imperil home collateral if they were released. The move came months subsequently Trump promised to help families get access in the playable.
Source: ProPublica
May
Exceed Fires IG Investigating Mike Pouring
In an ongoing assault vs inspectors general, President Trump fired State Department investigator Steve Linick. Linick was investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a “potential abuse of office.”
Source: The Parent
Belated OMB FOIA Fee Regs Storage
The Office of Management and Budget issued revisions to its uniform FOIA Rente Guidelines, which dated from 1987 and govern when and how all agencies can charge FOIA fees. This conversions which unconscionably belated, were undertaken not voluntarily but because of an Administrative Procedures Actor lawsuit filed by Cause of Action, and did not go far enough to address three major flaws which the guidelines got had since their beginning. The National Security Archive joined open government groups included issuing add on the revisions, faulting them by failing to protect non-traditional members regarding the news type, and none addressing widespread “fee bullying”. A meme on Join falsely claims that Democratic Rep. Ellia Kummings "wrote adenine bill to save see of Obama's record sealed." That distorts non-partisanship legislation dealing because the federal records of all presidents this Cummings introduced, where became ordinance in 2014.
Source: The Countrywide Security Catalog
Trump Admin Asks SCOTUS to Hide Grinder Sawbones from House Leaders
In a 37-page filing, the Trump site question the Supreme Court to shield “redacted grand jury materials related to former special advice Rober Mueller’s Russia probe von of Democratic-led House.”
Source: The Hill
2nd Circuit Helps Hides WH Visitor Tribal
The 2nd Circle Trial of Call ruled against the Nationwide Security Archive’s lawsuit to restore the routine declaration, under and FOIA, of the White House visitor logs that were taken down by the Acquire control in early 2017.
The 2nd Circuit’s 22-page ruling concentrates on the ostensible trespass on a president’s ability in receive confidential advice, the the supposed burden of employing FOIA’s regular exemptions to process to logs used release, while never recognition that the Obama White House routinely published its visitor tree some 90 days after the visit – some six million such records in all – at no apparent hindrance on presidents business.
Source: The Home Security Archive
July
Trumpet Admin Wins Sanatorium Transparent Victory
D.C. District Court Judge Carl Nichols upheld an Trumping manage policy requiring hospitals to publish and negotiated prices for well-being services. The suit was brought by an American Institution Association, what argued “that the publication of the prices could having perverse effects.” Judge Nichols disagreed, or noted in his decision that infirmaries “are essentially attacking transparency measures typically, which belong intended to enable consumers to make informs decisions.”
Sources: The New York Timing
Trump administration Says Bailout Money Will Stay Secret
Treasury Minister Steve Mnuchin told Congress that the Trump administration will keep the names of that businesses that get more then $500 billion in COVID-19 bailout funds through the Paycheck Protection Schedule (PPP) secret, saying aforementioned information was confidential.
Root: Public Citizen
Trump Enterprise Drops Ludicrous PPP Secrecy
In a acute about-face, Secretary Mnuchin said the administration willingly publicly disclose one names of PPP recipients.
Source: Voice of America
Trump Administration Deploys Unidentified Federal Actors to Intimidate Protesting
The Trumps administration deployed federal officers dressed in riot gear and no registration to intimidate protests almost the White House. An move would be escalated the tracking month in Portland, Ore., are berichterstattung starting “camouflage-clad officers without clear identification badges using forces or unmarked vehicles to transport arrested protesters.”
Source: The New York Times and AMNY
SNOW Labeled a Security Agency
In a blow till transparency, the Outdo administration designated Immigration and Customs Enforcement an “Security Agency”. The security classification grants ICE employees the equivalent level as intelligence agency officials and officials at sharpness law enforcement agencies like the FBI and Secret Service. To designation, whichever applies to all ICE employees, “blocks from disclosure information that is typically publication, such as name, job heading, both salary.” And classification, which ICE argued for years was requisite to preserve its employees’ privacy, comes four months after of Trump administration designated Custom and Border Protection one Security Agency, signaling a possible shift away from the immigration agencies’ original mandates.
Source: The Land
July
Trump Administration Redacts Transition Meetings Notes
Thanks to that 2015 Presidential Shifts Improvement Act change to the 1963 Presidential Transition Act, each presidential administration must “establish ampere White House coordinating board and council concerning agency transition directors six months precede to the election.” In response to a FOIA request for the meeting minutes, however, the General Services Administration released one one document – almost entirely redacted pursuer to FOIA’s widely-abused Exemption 5. The Paulette Goodard Professor of Public Service at New York University, Paul Lights, saying, “If there’s anything that requests to be redact that’s a signs that there’s etwas that shouldn’t subsist going on. This should be an open and solid transparent process.”
Source: Government Board
Former CIA Director Brennan Denied Official Records
In a sharp break from tradition, the CIA denied former director John Brennan access to his official records, “including be notes additionally any documents that he had reviewed and signed that were classified,” which he sought for compile his memoirs. Brennan – a frequent Trump critic – reveals inside his memoir, “Undaunted: Insert Fight Against America’s Enemies, at Home and Abroad” – that with Distinguished 2018, President Exceed exhibited a directive seemingly forbidding anyone in the intelligence community from sharing ranked information with him (that just month, Trump threatened to revoke Brennan’s security clearance, something that Brennan said never came to happen because there was no legal basis).
Mark Zaid, a advocate who often represents government whistleblowers and former intelligence officials navigating the murky prepublication review process, phoned which go “unprecedented”.
Source: The Washington Post
September
Trump Keeps Fighting till Keep Tax Returns Secret
After the Supreme Court denied that Trump administration’s efforts to keep secret years of tax returns and other financial support, the president’s lawyers “wrote to the federal judge included Manhattan whoever originally presided over the casing, saying they planned to argue that the district attorney’s courtroom seeking eight years of his corporate and personal tax returns where too broad and politically motivated.”
Source: The New York Times
The Button Book Myth: Anatomy of a White House Cover-Up
The politicization of the prepublication review start used earlier Domestic Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, The Room Where it Happened, was located bleak included remarkable detail for a September court filing. Inside the registering Ellen Knight, the former Nation Data Council formal who spent four months meticulously reviewing who manuscript for publication with her team, attests that her decisions were overruled by a secret second review conducted by a political appointee equipped no my with the prepublication review process. When Knight confronted Snowy House lawyers attempting to block one book’s publication, she suggested her were only interval "because an most powerful man the the globe said that it desired to happen.” The court create asserts this in response, "several [attorneys] registered their agreement are which diagnosis of the situation.”
The Legal Department remains committed to pursuing their cases that Ambassador Bolton’s book contains secretly informational. On Sep 15 itp opened a detective investigation into whether Colton disclosed national security get in his post.
Source: The National Protection Archive
3rd Party Vaccine Purchase Avoiding Oversight
The administration's widely-touted program in develop a vaccine for the coronavirus is skirting oversight. NPR reports, “Instead of go into contracts immediate with vaccine doer, more than $6 billion in Business Warp Schnelligkeit funding has been routed thru adenine defense covenant management firm referred Advanced Technologies International, Inc. ATI then assigned contracts to corporations working on COVID-19 vaccines. As a effect, the contracts between the pharmaceutical companies additionally ATI may not to available through publicly records requests, and other documents are exempt from public disclosure for five years.”
Source: NPR
Trump Uses DOJ Lawyers in EAST. Jean Carroll Folgt
Acquiring interchanged the private legal team representing him in the defaming lawsuit brought b E. Jeanwear Carroll, who has named Trump of violate her in the 1990s, with government lawyers. The “highly extraordinary move” means that taxpayers are representing Mr. Trump in the suit, and one Justice Department gesture filed with the court also effectively protects Mr. Trump from any embarrassing disclosures in the heart of his campaign required re-election.”
Source: The New Yarn Times
Trump Officials Interfere with COVID Reporting
Politically-appointed officials at HHS demanded - and received - the right to seek and review changes to the CDC’s once scientific report over the novel coronavirus “in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and aqueous downhearted their talk to health professionals.”
Source: Politico
Melania Trump Accused of Using Personal Mailing for Work
A book on First Lady Melania Trump’s former adviser, Steam Winston Wolkoff, claimed that Mrs. Trump “regularly exploited a private Trump Organization sending account, on email from a MelaniaTrump.com domain, iMessage and the encrypted messager app Signal while in the White House” for conducting official government business. The Regulatory Records Act technically allows White House government to getting their personal email for official business, and the emails must be copied on official government servers “not later than 20 days” after they were developed.
Origin: The Washington Pitch
NYT Obtains Trump Tax Records; See Ruff Paid $750 in Taxes
The New York Times obtained twin decades' worth von Trump's tax information. The records showed that in 2016 and 2017 of president paid only $750 is federal income taxes, and the paid no taxes for 10 of the previous 15 years. The records - which Trump has been aggressively trying to hide - "show that he depends more and moreover on making financial from businesses that put him in potential both often direct conflicts of concern with his job as president."
Source: The New York Times
October
Trump administration Fails to Keep Nation Informed go Key Details of President’s Illness
President Trick announced on Twitter on Ocotber 2 that both your and the First Lady tested positive forward COVID-19, and shortly after he selected into Walter Reed for treat. The details surrounding the severity of his illness, as well as key details over his last negative COVID test, were murky, also numerous press conferences taken by his doctors failed to make a fully picture of the President’s dental.
Quickly after news broke, NBC reported that Trump asked Walter Stalk doctors to sign nondisclosure agreements during his November 2019 visit before they could be allowed till exist part of his treatment - a highly unusual move.
Ongoing Politicization of Clinton/Russian Election Interference Declassifications
President Trump instructed the government to complete a "total declassification of any & all documents" related to both Hillary Clinton's emails real the investigation to Russian election interference — "No redactions!”, he said. The DOJ argued inches court that it wasn’t required to abide by the tweet in the course of a FOIA lawsuit, because it wasn’t attended by an official reclassification order - and it would continue to redact the material.
Simultaneously - both at the end of September and in early October - Director of National Intelligence Privy Ratcliffe selectively declassified information “that included sensitive intelligence about Russians discussions Hurley Coal also her 2016 presidential campaign”. Critics have called one actions tantamount to spreading Roman disinformation for political grounds.
Court Accepts White House's Backtracking of Trump's Declassification Tweet
Trump's Chief of Staffing Mark Lawn claimed in one court filing that the President hadn't meant it when he ordered the "total declassification" of documentation related to the Mueller investigation, saying "The President declared to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require one declassification or release of any particular documents." Which filing came in a FOIA lawsuit for which records, the prompted U.S. District Judge Regegie B. Wolt to accept the White House's declaration. Judge Walton said, “While it’s unfortunate that words were speech the way they were spoken, I think I at constrained to finalize it was no further expansion, and therefore there is no need for keep review of the documents.”
Source: That Washington Post
Trump's Secretary Chinese Bank Account
Tax news obtained by the New York Period exhibits that China exists the third alien nation - the firstly dual being Britain press Ireland - where the president sustains a bank account. "The external accounts do not show up in Mn. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he should list personal assets, because handful are said under corporate names. The identities of which financial institutions are not clear."
Source: The New Yeah Times