In my opinion the judge hearing the case over the release of Sec. Clinton’s emails:
A source familiar with what was produced told POLITICO the bulk of what was turned over were news clips forwarded to staff from an outside vendor, which ran between 125 and 150 pages worth of stories each day. The source said those went to both Reines’ official and personal email accounts, leading to boxes upon boxes.
During Leon’s court hearing — part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the AP that charges the agency with failing to respond to FOIA requests — the State Department often underscored that it does not have a complete record yet of Clinton’s top staff.
During the hearing, Leon grilled the department for failing to respond to the news wire’s requests, vowing to issue a court order to force it to hand over documents more quickly.
The AP had requested documents relating to Abedin’s quasi-government employment status that allowed her to advise Clinton but also work in the private sector. It also asked for Clinton’s schedules, appointments and call logs, among other items.
Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, said he couldn’t understand why State couldn’t simply hand over nearly 5,000 pages of documents relating to Clinton’s schedule.
Hackett explained that although he has 60 full-time staffers working FOIA requests, they handle only paperwork. The actual reviews of emails and memos by which they are approved for public release, are done by a mere 40 former Foreign Services officers — all of whom work part-time.
The judge was flabbergasted: “Is Congress aware that people who do all [State] FOIA requests are part-timers?â€
When Hackett suggested the system works well enough, the judge said that’s a “matter of perception.â€
is exhibiting remarkable forebearance. If I were in his shoes, I’d already have thrown John Hackett in the clink for contempt with the clear understanding that he’d stay there until all of the documents requested were in hand and that his successor would become his cellmate in a week if the task had not already been accomplished.
It’s like the old story of the mule who could tap dance. A Missouri farmer once claimed he had a mule who could tap dance. A talent scout came all the way to see the remarkable site. The farmer said to the mule, “Dance, mule!”. Nothing. The mule just stood there, chewing his cud. “Dance, mule!” Nothing. The exasperated farmer grabbed a two-by-four and whapped the mule in the middle of his forehead with it as hard as he could and, sure enough, the mule began to tap dance. The talent scout was astonished. “But what’s with the two-by-four?”, he asked? “Wal, first I had to git his attention”, the farmer replied.
Of course, I’ve never been known for a judicial temperament.
Meanwhile, back at the farm….
To head off the inevitable retort, that’s much what you’d expect in a “balance sheet recession”. One would expect such an event to be longer and have a shallower, more L-shaped recovery than ordinary cyclic recessions, even severe ones.
On the other hand, one would expect that the only ways to recover from such a recession would be through inflation or paying down debt and we don’t have either one of those.
Your last paragraph makes the valid points: What have our leaders done to repair balance sheets? Other than of the richest people in the country, I mean?
Also, how many more years will that excuse be valid? It’s been seven years now, and looking at the participation %s it’s clear that nothing has improved for the bulk of us.
That actually makes a point too frequently ignored. The “balance sheet” could have been put back into the black by the top 10% of income earners paying down debts—they own a vast proportion of the total household debt. That hasn’t happened.
I’ve always thought that leadership begins at the top and recovery required changes in the behavior of the highest income earners that has not been forthcoming.
My point is that it would be a lot easier for the top 10% of income earners to pay down a little of their debt than it would be for the remaining 90% to pay down all of their debt but that’s not the way the incentives work. That’s a policy problem.
Sounds like a Bush appointee helping his party score points. If they only have 40 part timers, how fast can they really work? How long would it take to hire and train people? If the guy was serious and not just playing to the press, he would have been asking those kinds of questions and/or ordering them to do that. ( Not a fan of judges who think they are omnipotent.)
Steve
steve, do you have any idea of what response time is required by the Freedom of Information Act?
steve, without giving away the ending, they’re in contempt of court. That’s not in question. And that’s why it’s remarkable forebearance.
That the State Department doesn’t have the resources to comply is not the judge’s problem. It’s the State Department’s.
This is precisely what I meant in an earlier post by a breakdown in the rule of law. Everyone needs to comply with the requirements of the law. Even if they’re the State Department. Even if they’re Secretary of State. Even if they’re the President. Even if it’s costly or embarrassing or politically or personally damaging.
Time Limits. “The statutory time limit for responding to a FOIA request . . . is 20 days. In unusual circumstances, as defined in §171.11(k), the time limits may be extended by the Information and Privacy Coordinator for not more than 10 days, excepting Saturdays, Sundays, or legal public holidays.”
“This is precisely what I meant in an earlier post by a breakdown in the rule of law.”
No it is not. If they pass a law requiring us to successfully save the life of every MVA that comes to our hospital, we won’t be able to do it and we will, by the way you are judging things, having a breakdown in the rule of law. Which is not the case at all. It is just a bad law.
What you have is a law that was passed that sounds reasonable. The State Department hired a reasonable number of people to comply with that law. Now they have been beset with an overwhelming amount of work. I would bet that the folks filing the FOIA stuff actually knew this. Wouldn’t surprise me if the judge is in on it. This strikes me much more as an instant of a tyrant judge (the power that federal judges hold is downright scary) using the law as a cudgel. What you needed was a law that said if they were suddenly faced with an increase in volume by a couple of orders of magnitude, they would be granted a larger exemption and built in funding for doing so.
As an aside, this is the new(ish) weapon of the right. They request/demand every email, every piece of information ever generated on whatever witch hunt they are interested in. When the info does not come out quickly, and they know it can’t because of the volume of what they are requesting, they claim it is a conspiracy, information is being withheld or the law is being broken. I have no sympathy for this.
Steve
@steve, do you actually read things that you respond to?
“Is Congress aware that people who do all [State] FOIA requests are part-timers?â€
When Hackett suggested the system works well enough, the judge said that’s a “matter of perception.â€
steve, the State Department could always request that a suitable special master be appointed by the court and dump the entire trove at once with the master responsible for releasing them as required by law. They haven’t done this.
Additionally, I haven’t heard Democrats demanding a repeal of FOIA. When you don’t want to repeal a law and you don’t want to follow it, you’re asking for a suspension of the law for certain privileged people—practically a definition of the abandoning of the rule of law.
Steve, All I can say is that the amount of “forebearance” you have had for the actions, inactions, stonewalling, footdragging and misinformation this administration has shown during their time in office is remarkable.
Hillary is wonderful. Obama is wonderful.
Steve
Steve- they don’t only have 40 part timers. They have 60 full timers, but they’ve delegated the task of sorting these emails to the 40 part timers instead.
In your analogy, that would be like a hospital putting PAs in charge of all of the MVA cases and then responding to criticism of high death rates by saying they can’t help that they are understaffed. There are clearly decisions that are made about how to allocate resources and personnel, and when those decisions are made poorly the administrators and bureaucrats should be called on it.
“When Hackett suggested the system works well enough, the judge said that’s a “matter of perception.—
It has worked well for years, but now they have been hit with what amounts to a denial of service attack. The correct response is not not repeal the FOIA. In principle it is a good ideated has served us well. However, now that it can be used for witch hunts and flood govt agencies with work levels never anticipated, it needs to be modified.
Cstanley-
Wrong analogy. This is a politically motivated hunt. They have asked for everything with the intent of finding something, anything. Kind of like investigating Arkansas land deals and ending up investigating some girl who was 16 and living in CA when it happened. If they put everyone to work on this, then they won’t meet the time limits for all of the other, and likely more valid FOIA requests.
So, the real analogy is that some bureaucrat has decided that the discharge orders are the most important part of trauma care. Therefore, all of the best physicians are assigned to work on those orders, and you leave the inexperienced PAs and nurses to take care of the trauma patients when they come to the trauma bay. (Actually, some of our Pas are pretty good.)
So. let’s treat this as what it is. Have the part-timers send all of the emails when they are done with them, and recognize that it makes no difference whether it takes 20 days or 20 weeks.
Steve
Steve the problem with your cynicism is that it is completely one sided. Why are you so convinced there’s nothing to see here and we should all move along? None of it passes the sniff test to me, and as much as you are critical of the casting of wide nets (probably a fair criticism) there is equal blame to go around when the Democrats have been mastering the slow roll defense.
steve, you’re calling the FOIA officer a liar?
The judge asked a legally relevant question, as it is a defense to timely compliance with a statute if the legislature isn’t adequately funding the program.
There were several ways to answer the question:
“I am not sure, I would have to check the legislative liaison.”
He could speculate:
“I am not sure, but the sequester has required cost-saving measures and a new focus on labor force flexibility.”
He could question the judge’s assumption:
“No, the system works well enough.”
Which is what he did. He could have told the truth:
“The difficulties arise under extremely unique circumstances in which the former Head of the Department violated record regulations, and we are now processing documents that normally are routinely handled shortly after they are received or created. We do not expect this situation to happen again and no long-term budget issues need to be addressed, we would just appreciate whatever flexibility you can offer, knowing that the State Department is treating this seriously.”
BTW/ This lawsuit was brought by the Associated Press for non-compliance with FOIA requests going back five years. That’s when the vast Right-Wing conspiracy was rebooted.
No, he’s just sputtering, grasping at straws.