The White House is violating Freedom of Information Act requests despite President Barack Obama's claim that "he was going to create the most transparent administration in history," says Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a government watchdog group.
"What this administration has done is it's issued a secret memo that has been virtually unprecedented in this country that instructs federal agencies, which are funded with our tax dollars, to consult with White House lawyers about documents that might be of political interest to the president," Epstein said Monday on
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."
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"What that means is that the president gets to decide what the media, what the public, what the transparency community gets to tell the American people about," he said.
"Cause of Action . . . has sued 12 agencies including the Office of Management and Budget, which is right inside the White House, because we want to know — what has been these White House lawyers' communications with these agencies? What documents have been withheld?" he said.
Epstein said that "in some cases," agencies have delayed releasing "documents for over a year when the law requires that you produce these documents within 20 business days."
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