Transparency News 5/11/17

Thursday, May 11, 2017


State and Local Stories

A group of Bedford County officials named in a $3 million lawsuit against the county by a former tourism director alleging a retaliatory scheme that led to his firing has responded in federal court by denying most of the suit’s claims. Filed as a group by County Administrator Carl Boggess and three county supervisors in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg, the papers not only reject the allegations by the ex-staffer but say he has no financial liability claim against them or the local government entity. Craig’s civil action claims he was ousted improperly as tourism director in retaliation against “protected political expression” stemming from his actions regarding a tax issue dividing the local branch of the Republican Party.
News & Advance

The owner of a used-car lot has withdrawn his defamation lawsuit against a former candidate for Spotsylvania County sheriff. Gary Fredo, the owner of Cambridge Auto Sales on Courthouse Road, filed the $1 million suit in October 2015 after then-sheriff candidate Bill Gill alleged the dealership received preferential treatment from the Sheriff’s Office. His attorney submitted paperwork Friday to drop the suit against Gill, and Circuit Judge Victoria Willis signed the motion to nonsuit Tuesday. Attorney Jason Pelt, who represented Gill, said he thought the suit was an attempt to suppress free speech ahead of the November 2015 election between Gill and Sheriff Roger Harris. “Freedom of speech, and especially political speech, is a hallmark of the Constitution,” Pelt stated in a news release he sent to The Free Lance–Star.
Free Lance-Star


National Stories

As Donald Trump's administration continues to strip climate change information from federal websites, two advocacy groups and a conservation biologist are using a novel technique to try to force the government to republish the pages. A new provision in open records law, added by Congress last year, requires agencies to publish electronically any information that is requested at least three times through the federal Freedom of Information Act, so long as that information is not otherwise exempt from disclosure. Last week, the advocacy groups and the biologist submitted identical requests for climate change information, hoping to trigger that provision, and they just might succeed. The effort by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Media and Democracy, and Stuart Pimm, a professor at Duke University, is the latest in a broad campaign by scientists and advocates to cache federal data about climate change and other topics that they fear may be deleted by the Trump administration.
Inside Climate News

A federal judge has given Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach until Friday to give the American Civil Liberties Union two documents outlining proposed changes to a federal voting law. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson said Wednesday that she privately reviewed the documents, including the one Kobach was photographed taking into a meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump in November.
McClatchy

On Wednesday morning as controversy swirled over the president abruptly firing his FBI chief amid an investigation of possible ties between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, the president met in the Oval Office with none other than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. But the meeting was closed press, meaning the rotating pool of photographers, reporters and camera operators who follow the president weren't allowed in. Controversy over access to meetings with the president is not new. Barack Obama's White House was widely criticized for holding closed press meetings, only to later share photos shot by the president's official photographer Pete Souza. In 2013, the White House Correspondents’ Association said that practice amounted to establishing "the White House’s own Soviet-style news service."
Politico

A West Virginia journalist was arrested and jailed after following U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price down a hallway in the state's capitol building and peppering him with questions about healthcare policy, the reporter said. Journalist Dan Heyman was grabbed by security and handcuffed after repeatedly calling out a question to Price as the health secretary visited the Charleston legislature with White House advisor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday, Heyman said at a press conference after the incident.
Reuters

At least three federal government agencies have agreed to seemingly conceal official communications with a congressional committee from public information requests, following letters sent last month by the chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services. Congressman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas, sent letters in April to the heads of several federal agencies his committee oversees, declaring that communications and documents produced between the two offices will remain in the committee's control and will not be considered "agency records" — therefore exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the National Credit Union Administration all responded to Hensarling's letter agreeing to decline requests to release documents if requested under FOIA.
BuzzFeed News