Why Did Obama Spend $36.2 Mil To Hide Certain Records In His Final Months? Now We Know…
There are things that just are not cool. One of those according to former President Barrack Obama is ignorance.
In 2016, then-President Obama said during a Rutgers University commencement address: “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about,” in what could be clearly viewed as a swipe at Donald Trump, who at the time was the likely Republican nominee for president.
It seems to be quite a mouthful for a man who during his 2008 campaign promised to be part of the most transparent administration ever.
The entirety of the Obama presidency was one shrouded in secrecy and innuendo and division. If you were not on Obama’s side and 100% in compliance with his agenda? You were the enemy and you would be eliminated, sometimes through very public and scandalous means.
Far from transparency, the Obama administration is most likely to go down in history as the LEAST transparent and the MOST corrupt in history.
CBS News reports:
“The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government.
“For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists, and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page of files that were requested .
“And it set records for outright denial of access to files, refusing to quickly consider requests described as especially newsworthy, and forcing people to pay for records who had asked the government to waive search and copy fees.
“The government acknowledged when challenged that it had been wrong to initially refuse to turn over all or parts of records in more than one-third of such cases, the highest rate in at least six years.
“In courtrooms, the number of lawsuits filed by news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act surged during the past four years, led by the New York Times, Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press, according to a litigation study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The AP on Monday settled its 2015 lawsuit against the State Department for files about Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, at AP’s request, and received $150,546 from the department to cover part of its legal fees .
“The AP has pending lawsuits against the FBI for records about its decision to impersonate an AP journalist during a criminal investigation and about who helped the FBI hack into a mass shooting suspect’s iPhone and how much the government paid to do it.
“Of the $36.2 million in legal costs fighting such lawsuits last year, the Justice Department accounted for $12 million, the Homeland Security Department for $6.3 million and the Pentagon for $4.8 million.
The three departments accounted for more than half the government’s total records requests last year.
“The figures reflect the final struggles of the Obama administration during the 2016 election to meet President Barack Obama’s pledge that it was “the most transparent administration in history,” despite wide recognition of serious problems coping with requests under the information law.”
“It received a record 788,769 requests for files last year and spent a record $478 million answering them and employed 4,263 full-time FOIA employees across more than 100 federal departments and agencies.
That was higher by 142 such employees the previous year.”
The mainstream media continues to cry about current President Donald Trump and his accusations of “fake news”… factually based accusations mind you… and claim that he is a threat to the so-called “free press.”
It is vitally important to remember that in addition to restricting the access to information that should be freely available, costing American taxpayers exponential amounts in court costs and attorney fees in an effort to hide their shady business, journalists that attempted to expose the nature of that business were targeted and systematically attacked.
Just hitting the highlights from Investigative Journalist Sharyl Attkisson:
The IRS secretly begins “targeting” conservative groups that are seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status, by singling out ones that have “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names.
Obama administration pursues espionage charges against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. (According to the ACLU: spy charges were later dropped and Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The judge called the government’s conduct in the case “unconscionable.”)
The Obama administration also secretly applied for a FISA warrant to obtain Google email information of Fox News reporter James Rosen in a leak investigation, without telling Rosen.
In 2011 –
Obama intel officials capture and record incidental private communications between Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, and a Libyan official. The recordings are later leaked to the press.
Fox News reporter Mike Levine is subpoenaed by the Department of Justice regarding a story he reported about a federal grand jury’s indictments of terrorism suspects. The subpoena is later dropped.
Obama U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke secretly leaks sensitive government information to Fox News, allegedly to retaliate against ATF whistleblower John Dodson in the Fast and Furious case. (Burke is the former chief of staff to former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.)
Obama administration secretly changes longstanding policy. The change creates a “loophole” that Sen. Ron Wyden would later say allows the NSA to conduct “backdoor searches” of “incidental collection” of U.S. citizens’ domestic communications.
In 2012 –
CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson is targeted on both her home and work computers for her investigative work researching the Department of Justice “gunwalking” operation nicknamed “Fast and Furious” that secretly let thousands of weapons be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels.
One of the “walked” guns had been used by illegal aliens who murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
The FBI incidentally stumbles across emails revealing CIA Director Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Broadwell. FBI Director Robert Mueller is notified of the affair on a date the government will not disclose. The FBI later says it interviewed Petraeus and Broadwell and concluded national security hasn’t been breached. The FBI keeps all of this information secret.
And these incidents are just a handful of many that took place during Obama’s 8-year reign of terror over Washington and over America, as our rights were stripped, the Constitution became little more than words on paper, and the foundational concepts of freedom and liberty became something you simply read about.
More continues to be uncovered as we finish year two of the Trump administration, yet very little if anything has been done. Many are beginning to wonder if anything ever will be.
https://rwnofficial.com/why-did-obama-spend-3...w-we-know/
There are things that just are not cool. One of those according to former President Barrack Obama is ignorance.
In 2016, then-President Obama said during a Rutgers University commencement address: “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about,” in what could be clearly viewed as a swipe at Donald Trump, who at the time was the likely Republican nominee for president.
It seems to be quite a mouthful for a man who during his 2008 campaign promised to be part of the most transparent administration ever.
The entirety of the Obama presidency was one shrouded in secrecy and innuendo and division. If you were not on Obama’s side and 100% in compliance with his agenda? You were the enemy and you would be eliminated, sometimes through very public and scandalous means.
Far from transparency, the Obama administration is most likely to go down in history as the LEAST transparent and the MOST corrupt in history.
CBS News reports:
“The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government.
“For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists, and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page of files that were requested .
“And it set records for outright denial of access to files, refusing to quickly consider requests described as especially newsworthy, and forcing people to pay for records who had asked the government to waive search and copy fees.
“The government acknowledged when challenged that it had been wrong to initially refuse to turn over all or parts of records in more than one-third of such cases, the highest rate in at least six years.
“In courtrooms, the number of lawsuits filed by news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act surged during the past four years, led by the New York Times, Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press, according to a litigation study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The AP on Monday settled its 2015 lawsuit against the State Department for files about Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, at AP’s request, and received $150,546 from the department to cover part of its legal fees .
“The AP has pending lawsuits against the FBI for records about its decision to impersonate an AP journalist during a criminal investigation and about who helped the FBI hack into a mass shooting suspect’s iPhone and how much the government paid to do it.
“Of the $36.2 million in legal costs fighting such lawsuits last year, the Justice Department accounted for $12 million, the Homeland Security Department for $6.3 million and the Pentagon for $4.8 million.
The three departments accounted for more than half the government’s total records requests last year.
“The figures reflect the final struggles of the Obama administration during the 2016 election to meet President Barack Obama’s pledge that it was “the most transparent administration in history,” despite wide recognition of serious problems coping with requests under the information law.”
“It received a record 788,769 requests for files last year and spent a record $478 million answering them and employed 4,263 full-time FOIA employees across more than 100 federal departments and agencies.
That was higher by 142 such employees the previous year.”
The mainstream media continues to cry about current President Donald Trump and his accusations of “fake news”… factually based accusations mind you… and claim that he is a threat to the so-called “free press.”
It is vitally important to remember that in addition to restricting the access to information that should be freely available, costing American taxpayers exponential amounts in court costs and attorney fees in an effort to hide their shady business, journalists that attempted to expose the nature of that business were targeted and systematically attacked.
Just hitting the highlights from Investigative Journalist Sharyl Attkisson:
The IRS secretly begins “targeting” conservative groups that are seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status, by singling out ones that have “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names.
Obama administration pursues espionage charges against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. (According to the ACLU: spy charges were later dropped and Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The judge called the government’s conduct in the case “unconscionable.”)
The Obama administration also secretly applied for a FISA warrant to obtain Google email information of Fox News reporter James Rosen in a leak investigation, without telling Rosen.
In 2011 –
Obama intel officials capture and record incidental private communications between Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, and a Libyan official. The recordings are later leaked to the press.
Fox News reporter Mike Levine is subpoenaed by the Department of Justice regarding a story he reported about a federal grand jury’s indictments of terrorism suspects. The subpoena is later dropped.
Obama U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke secretly leaks sensitive government information to Fox News, allegedly to retaliate against ATF whistleblower John Dodson in the Fast and Furious case. (Burke is the former chief of staff to former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.)
Obama administration secretly changes longstanding policy. The change creates a “loophole” that Sen. Ron Wyden would later say allows the NSA to conduct “backdoor searches” of “incidental collection” of U.S. citizens’ domestic communications.
In 2012 –
CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson is targeted on both her home and work computers for her investigative work researching the Department of Justice “gunwalking” operation nicknamed “Fast and Furious” that secretly let thousands of weapons be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels.
One of the “walked” guns had been used by illegal aliens who murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
The FBI incidentally stumbles across emails revealing CIA Director Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Broadwell. FBI Director Robert Mueller is notified of the affair on a date the government will not disclose. The FBI later says it interviewed Petraeus and Broadwell and concluded national security hasn’t been breached. The FBI keeps all of this information secret.
And these incidents are just a handful of many that took place during Obama’s 8-year reign of terror over Washington and over America, as our rights were stripped, the Constitution became little more than words on paper, and the foundational concepts of freedom and liberty became something you simply read about.
More continues to be uncovered as we finish year two of the Trump administration, yet very little if anything has been done. Many are beginning to wonder if anything ever will be.
https://rwnofficial.com/why-did-obama-spend-3...w-we-know/
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