Newly released documents from the Department of Justice reveal that despite calling itself the most transparent administration in history, the Obama administration worked behind the scenes to block bipartisan transparency reform, reports Vice News.
The documents, themselves obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, show that the administration intervened to sink legislation that would make it easier for the public to access information through FOIA.
The FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2014, co-sponsored by then–House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and ranking member Elijah Cummings, would have codified into law Obama's presidential memorandum, signed on his first day in office in 2009, that instructed all government agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government." (Attorney General Eric Holder issued a set of guidelines to federal agencies a couple of months later that explained how the presumption of disclosure should be implemented.)
Additionally, the legislation called for the implementation of a centralized online portal, overseen by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to handle all FOIA requests and required government agencies to update their FOIA regulations. The bill unanimously passed by a vote of 410-0, one of the few pieces of legislation during President Barack Obama's tenure to receive bipartisan support.
But the administration "strongly opposed passage" of the House bill and opposed nearly every provision that would have made it easier for journalists, historians, and the public to access government records. The White House claimed it would increase the FOIA backlog, result in astronomical costs, and cause unforeseen problems with processing requests, according to a secret six-page DOJ set of talking points turned over to the Freedom of the Press Foundation along with 100 pages of internal DOJ emails about the FOIA bill.
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