A Conservative Think Tank Wants The White House Science Czar’s Private Emails

The Daily Caller cites CEI`s Sam Kazman on the private email accounts by top Obama administration officials:

“There are a growing number of scandals concerning the use of private email accounts by top Obama administration officials,” Sam Kazman, CEI’s general counsel, said in a statement. “ While President Obama claims his administration is the most transparent in history, his officers seem to confuse being transparent with being invisible.”

This is the think tank’s second attempt at getting Holdren’s emails. In March, a federal judge sided against CEI, ruling Holdren’s private email account was outside the purview of the Freedom of Information Act. The Staff at CEI disagrees, and says Holdren was using a private email account associated with the Woods Hole Research Institute.

CEI argues that FOIA applies to the work-related records of agency employees regardless of where they are stored.  Many agencies routinely instruct their staff to preserve any such documents that they might have on their personal email accounts.  In CEI’s case, however, John Holdren, the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) either missed the memo or refused to issue it.

“The court ruling that we are appealing will only add to those scandals, because it legitimizes private email accounts as way to evade FOIA,” Kazman said.