Another White House Email Scandal Erupts

WND reports on CEI's Freedom of Information Act request, quoting Sam Kazman on the issue. 

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), does not want to provide the content of the emails in question, according to the free-market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The CEI filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2013 for policy emails Holdren kept on his private email account at his former employer, the environmental-pressure group Woods Hole Research Center.

OSTP turned down the FOIA request, claiming that Holdren’s private account was outside its control and therefore wasn’t subject to the FOIA. CEI filed a lawsuit in May 2014 to force OSTP to produce the emails, citing that the use of non-official accounts for agency business frustrates federal open-government laws, undermines government accountability and evades congressional oversight efforts.

Kazman said the Clinton matter has shed some light on what’s happening throughout the Obama administration where several White House officials – including Holdren as well as EPA officials – have sought to withhold communications.

“It’s not an atypical practice,” Kazman said. “I wouldn’t say it’s an everyday practice by everyone in the administration, but this White House pledged to be the most transparent administration in history. Our joke is when this administration says transparency they mean invisible.”

Read the full article at WND