Secret Service must hand over Abramoff logs

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/secret-service-must-hand-over-abramoff-logs-2008-10-02.html

Secret Service must hand over Abramoff logs
By Susan Crabtree
Posted: 10/02/08 01:24 PM


The Secret Service has 18 days to hand over White House visitor logs detailing disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s visits, according to Judicial Watch, a public interest legal group.

Judicial Watch on Thursday announced that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier in the week ruled against the Secret Service motion to dismiss the group’s open-records requests. The court’s Tuesday decision ordered the agency to finish processing the requests and provide all non-exempt records within 20 days of the court order.

The court ruled that the Secret Service violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by not thoroughly searching White House visitor records that could contain information about Abramoff’s visits. The Secret Service had argued that these additional visitor records, called “Sensitive Security Records,” were so secret that the agency could neither confirm nor deny their existence.

It has been three years since Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the Secret Service seeking all White House visitor logs from Jan. 1, 2001, to the present time. After the Secret Service failed to respond, Judicial Watch filed lawsuits on Feb. 22, 2006, and April 25, 2006. The Secret Service’s response to a previous court order was incomplete, so Judicial Watch continued to press its legal case.

"The court has obviously had enough of the gamesmanship by the Secret Service," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "We're very pleased with the court's ruling. This is a tremendous victory for transparency in government. In this case, we hope the Bush administration stops trying to evade FOIA law."

Jack Abramoff: John McCain’s other Lobbyist problem..., February 22, 2008

this is the fastest way to get there. No degrees of separation between McBomb, Rove, Abramoff.

Judge orders more searches for Abramoff visits
2 hours ago - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jqNPqvQT05DQyiW1KlCSU0XQpPBgD93IGEDO0


WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has rejected the Bush administration's attempt to shield records that may shed light on the White House visits of now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

In several orders this week, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sided with watchdog groups Judicial Watch and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which are suing the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security for access to the logs.

The administration in 2006 agreed to produce all responsive records about the visits "without redactions or claims of exemption." But it soon argued that the contents of certain "Sensitive Security Records," which are created in the course of conducting more extensive background checks on particular White House visitors, cannot be publicly revealed even though they could show some of Abramoff's visits.

Lamberth disagreed this week, saying those security records are not exempt under the federal Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that the information could promote criminal activity. ............

:kick:

What do we have to do to get the logs for the Cheney Energy meetings?