‘Troubling’: Federal Judge Orders Obama Admin. to Disclose Document Its Been Trying to Keep Hidden
A federal judge Tuesday ordered the
disclosure of a government-wide foreign aid directive President Barack
Obama signed in 2010 but wanted to keep hidden from the public, Politico reports. The judge called the scope of the government’s argument for “presidential communications privilege” rather “troubling.”
The Department of Justice has argued
that the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development was covered
by executive privilege, even though the information is “non-classified”
and sends directives to agencies not to the president of the United
States.
FILE
– In this Dec. 4, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama pauses as he
speaks about the new health care law during a White House Youth Summit,
in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office
Building on the White House complex in Washington. Americans who already
have health insurance are blaming President Barack Obama’s health care
overhaul for their rising premiums and deductibles, and overall 3 in 4
say the rollout of coverage for the uninsured has gone poorly. (AP
Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
“Acting on a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit brought by the Center for Effective Government, U.S. District
Court Judge Ellen Huvelle concluded that the presidential order is not
properly within the bounds of the so-called ‘presidential communications
privilege,’” Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports.
In her opinion, Huvelle wrote
there is “no evidence that the [directive] was intended to be, or has
been treated as, a confidential presidential communication.”
The Obama administration has maintained
that the document was only intended for those who “need to know,” but
the judge argued the order was “distributed far beyond the president’s
close advisers and its substance was widely discussed by the president
in the media.”
Huvelle also lectured the federal government on its “cavalier attitude” when it comes to public oversight and transparency.
“The government appears to adopt the
cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey
orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight…to
engage in what is in effect governance by ‘secret law,’” she wrote.
The Obama administration will now be
required by law to make the document available. It’s unclear why the
administration has fought to keep the document hidden from the public.
The White House website refers to the
Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development as the “first of its
kind by a U.S. administration.” WhiteHouse.gov also provides a “fact
sheet” about the directive here.
Read Huvelle’s entire opinion here.
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