CREW today paid homage to this year’s Sunshine Week by issuing an assessment of the Obama administration’s response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Our reaction is mixed. President Obama has made undoubtedly clear his commitment to open and transparent government through his January 2009 FOIA Directive and the December 2009 Open Government Directive.

Unfortunately, however, a culture of secrecy lives on in executive agencies despite obvious and pressing needs for disclosure. CREW’s report highlights:

• the Justice Department’s refusal to disclose the notes of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview on the Valerie Wilson leak with the FBI,

• the Health and Human Services Department’s refusal to provide documents regarding the monumental failure to send H1N1 vaccines to where they were needed most,

• and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ failure to turn over records regarding the under-diagnosis of PTSD as a cost-saving measure.

CREW’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan said today:

While the Obama administration has made some progress in increasing government transparency, CREW’s experience indicates there is still a long way to go. Sunshine Week is the perfect time for the administration to reassess and reinvigorate agencies’ efforts towards making the government more accountable to the American people.

Click here to read CREW’s report.

CREW today sent a letter to the Justice Department’s (DOJ) Inspector General Glenn Fine, asking for an investigation into the Criminal Division’s inadequate training and supervision of attorneys. CREW’s call comes on the heels of the division’s latest blunder: the bungling of the DOJ’s case against four Blackwater security guards who were involved in a massacre that left 14 Iraqis dead and 20 others wounded.

The Division, despite repeated warnings, violated the Blackwater guards’ constitutional rights in the case by relying on compelled statements – even going so far as to use immunized testimony to obtain search warrant. This is the same DOJ unit that botched the government’s case against former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) by failing to provide defense attorneys with notes of an interview with a key witness. This prompted Attorney General Eric Holder to dismiss the otherwise “slam dunk” indictment against the corrupt former senator.

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said today:

The fact that prosecutors have bungled such well-publicized matters – where you’d think everyone would be at the top of their game – suggests misconduct, ineptitude and insufficient training may be rampant in less visible matters where defendants are not represented by elite criminal defense lawyers, who have the tools necessary to expose these deficiencies. All Americans lose when those charged with grave offenses escape prosecution not because of their innocence, but because the Department of Justice has failed to properly train and supervise its lawyers. An investigation by the IG and recommendations for systemic reform would help restore public confidence in the department.

Click here to read CREW’s letter to Inspector General Glenn Fine.
Click here to read the opinion in the Blackwater case.

CREW today called on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the destruction of emails of John Yoo and Patrick Philbin, two former DOJ employees during the Bush years who were involved in crafting the Office of Legal Counsel’s memos authorizing torture. In a July 2009 report from the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigating and subsequently exonerating the torture memos’ authors, it was revealed that OPR’s investigation had been hampered by the destruction of Mr. Yoo’s and Mr. Philbin’s emails from around the time the torture memos were being drafted.

The destruction of these emails represents a blatant violation of the Federal Records Act (FRA) and may break criminal laws. The Attorney General must determine if the emails were destroyed specifically to hinder the OPR investigation. Even though Mr. Yoo and Mr. Philbin were found by OPR not to have violated their professional responsibilities in writing the torture memos, they – or whoever is trying to hide the truth – may have broken the law by erasing their records.

Click here to read CREW’s letter to Attorney General Holder.

CREW today released data analyzing health care special interests’ donations since 2005 to the 21 House and Senate leaders, chairs and ranking members of committees with primary control over the health bills – all of whom will attend tomorrow’s health reform summit at the White House.

Since 2005, the health lobby has given nearly $28 million to these members. The amount of money being funneled from big-business health interests to members of Congress is staggering, but not surprising:

• Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), has received over $2.5 million in contributions, $777,113 from the pharmaceutical/health products sector alone;

• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has received over $2.2 million, $802,500 of which came from doctors, other medical professionals and their trade associations;

• Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), has received nearly $2 million, $483,750 of which came from the insurance, HMO and health services industries;

• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), has received almost $1.9 million, $572,237 of which was contributed by hospitals and nursing homes; and

• Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), has received over $1.8 million, and like Sen. McConnell, received a large portion of that -- $709,261 -- from health professionals.

Other members of Congress attending the White House summit rely overwhelmingly on the health sector for their fundraising. More than one-fifth of the money raised by Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Reps. Dave Camp (R-MI), Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI) came from the health care sector.

Members of Congress must put the needs of their constituents above the desires of their big-business funders. CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan said,

The health care industry has paid millions to insure its views are represented at tomorrow’s health care summit. The question is, who will be there representing the rest of us?

Click here for CREW’s list of the health care sector’s campaign contributions to the 21 House and Senate members initially invited to the summit.

CREW today sent a letter to C-SPAN chairman and CEO Brian Lamb, asking that his network not air tomorrow’s National Prayer Breakfast, or at least properly identify the event’s sponsor as the shadowy religious organization known as “the Fellowship” or “the Family.”

The National Prayer Breakfast is often misconstrued by the public as an official government event, a mistake reinforced by the plethora of presidential seals throughout the room, a yearly presidential address, and an organizing committee of members of Congress. In reality, the event is a recruiting and networking tool for the Family – a cult-like religious organization that has pushed an unorthodox brand of Christianity within powerful political, military and economic circles around the world for 50 years.

The Family is linked – via its infamous C Street House – to highly unethical members of Congress, including Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), and former Rep. “Chip” Pickering (R-MS). The organization’s members have also been behind the deplorable Ugandan anti-gay legislation calling for the death penalty for anyone convicted of having gay sex.

CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said:

“The mere fact that C-SPAN, which is dedicated to political coverage, broadcasts the breakfast contributes to the notion that it is an official government event. Viewers see images of a ballroom filled with presidential paraphernalia and high-ranking government officials, and the words ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ appearing on the bottom of their screens. By airing this, C-SPAN may be unwittingly contributing to the false perception the breakfast is government-sponsored and sanctioned. At a minimum, C-SPAN should label the event as sponsored by the Family and provide some context so viewers can fully appreciate what they are seeing: our top government leaders lending legitimacy to a shadowy, intolerant religious organization.”

Today’s letter follows a letter to the president and congressional leadership on Monday calling for a boycott of the event. Click here to read CREW’s letter to C-SPAN, click here to read CREW’s letter from Monday.

CREW today filed two complaints against Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for using his “charity”, The Frontier Foundation, to attend exclusive golf outings and funnel money from corporate donors to his campaign committee and leadership PAC.

Rep. Buyer helped found Frontier in 2003 as a way to provide Indiana students with scholarships to attend college, staffing the organization with his family members and political friends. To date, the foundation has provided not a single scholarship to the public, instead focusing on golf fundraisers where corporate clients are given direct access to the congressman. Rep. Buyer, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, appears to be trading legislative support for issues supported by these corporate players in exchange for donations to his campaign committee, PAC and foundation.

In one example out of many, the pharmaceutical group PhRMA has donated $200,000 to Frontier and hired Rep. Buyer’s son, Ryan, straight out of college. The congressman, in turn, has taken positions beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry, helping in 2007 to defeat a proposed three-year ban on advertising new drugs.

CREW asked the IRS to investigate whether Frontier’s actions have violated the tax laws governing charities and asked the OCE to determine whether Rep. Buyer violated any ethics laws.

CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said today:

Apparently, Rep. Buyer did not pay very close attention to the Jack Abramoff scandal. He seems to have missed the lesson that charities are not created to allow congressmen to play golf with their cronies. It is not quite stealing from orphans, but it is hard to imagine something much more callous than playing golf on the backs of poor students – at least one of whom surely could have gone to college on the money Frontier spent on Rep. Buyer’s golf trips. The IRS, at least, frowns on such behavior. There is always hope Congress will too.

Click here to review CREW's two complaints and the accompanying exhibits for each.

As 2009 draws to a close, CREW is looking back at what quickly became a busy year for ethical lapses in our federal government. Today, CREW released its list of the Top Ten Ethics Scandals of 2009 – a roundup of the year’s most outrageous government scandals.

The unranked list includes:

Believe us – we had a plethora of scandals to choose from.

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, explained CREW’s hopes for the new year:

It would be nice if 2010 proved to be the year politicians put Americans’ interests above their own, but I won’t hold my breath.

Click here (PDF) to read CREW’s Top Ten Ethics Scandals of 2009.

After over three years of waiting for a response, CREW finally received documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) on Wednesday related to our FOIA request from 2006. CREW had originally sent FOIA requests to the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in order to determine the details of their reporting requirements to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Oversight Board. This board provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence collection, analysis, and estimates of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence activities.

CREW was hoping to unearth records that could shine a light on the investigative activities of the CIA, FBI, and NSA and show how they have been contrary to the intelligence laws and directives which govern foreign counterintelligence and international terrorism investigations.

The investigative methods used by the Department of Defense, the NSA’s parent body, have been called into question and the NSA has recently been accused of violating U.S. laws and regulations. The Obama administration, in its efforts to maintain transparency and openness, has recently released documents to both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union about CIA investigations conducted under the anti-terrorism program during the George W. Bush administration. In June of 2009, CREW received a response to our FOIA request with the CIA for documents regarding their investigative activities. We encourage document reviewers to read the most recent documents we have received from the NSA as well as previous FOIA responses.

And don’t forget to keep checking back for new information after the holiday!

Nathan Deal is wearing three hats at the moment – U.S. Representative, Republican candidate for Georgia Governor, and the owner of a lucrative auto-salvage business that has become the subject of two House ethics investigations.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) and the House ethics committee both have inquired about Rep. Deal’s role as owner of Recovery Systems, Inc., which – through a no-bid-contract – has earned the representative a considerable amount of money. CREW asked the OCE to investigate Rep. Deal in August 2009, after the AJC broke the story that he had illegally and unethically intervened in Georgia state politics to preserve his company’s profitable agreement with the state.

Rep. Deal himself has acknowledged the ethics probe, but (predictably) denies any wrongdoing. And in an online chat on his gubernatorial campaign website, he had some choice words about CREW:

"On the subject of CREW, who filed the complaint," Deal wrote, "this is the same liberal organization that continues to attack the Bush administration. As a former Bush administration officials (sic) said they litigate for sport and distort the facts.'"

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, easily rebuffed the congressman:

"Given the hot water in which Rep. Deal finds himself, it is no wonder he is trying to change the subject," Sloan said. "It is not CREW investigating the congressman, however, it’s the House ethics committee and the Office of Congressional Ethics.”

Rep. Deal is trying to distract the public from his ethics-probe woes by attacking the organization that merely brought the AJC’s scoop to the attention of Congress’s internal ethics watchdog. We don’t view holding our elected representatives accountable to ethics laws as “litigating for sport” and we will not be dissuaded from our mission.

We believe Rep. Deal broke the law. Plain and simple. Do Georgians really want this man to run their state?

When CREW discovered in 2008 that millions of emails had gone missing from Bush White House servers – and that the administration had been aware of this problem since 2005 – CREW and the National Security Archive sued the White House and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), challenging their failure to take any action. Today, after a long-running legal battle to find the missing emails and institute a functioning archiving system, CREW and the NSA came to a settlement with the Obama White house.

The settlement terms dictate that a total of 94 days of missing emails will be restored and sent to NARA for preservation. These records will eventually be accessible to the public. The White House will also continue to provide CREW and the NSA with records that document:

• The causes of the email problem,
• The Bush White House’s response to that problem,
• The options the Bush White House considered for preserving electronic records, and
• A description of the current archiving system.

The Obama administration has already produced thousands of pages of documents relating to these issues, which CREW posts here for public review.

CREW writes analyses of these documents as we receive them, and so far has determined the Bush White House clearly lied about its knowledge of the problem and deliberately ignored the problem. We hope future documents released by the White House can answer some of the most pressing questions surrounding this affair:

• Why did then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers do nothing when the Office of Administration told her of this problem?
• Why did the Bush White House abandon its proposed solution system after spending millions of dollars to develop it?
• Did the missing email issue impact the Bush administration’s response to the DOJ’s investigation of the Valerie Plame Wilson leak?

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, lamented that we may never learn the full truth but thanked the Obama administration for living up to their promises of transparency:

We may never know exactly what happened to all the missing emails, and which Bush administration officials were involved in the coverup, but we do know the American public never got the full story. The Obama administration, which inherited the lawsuits and the dysfunctional White House email system, has done a terrific job straightening out the mess. Thanks to the Obama White House, a critical part of our nation’s missing history will be restored. This is yet another example of the administration living up to its promise of accountability and transparency.

Click here to read the terms of agreement (PDF).