The Bush administration has been busily trying to distance itself from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The latest move is especially egregious.
CNN:
The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.
The Bush administration did not reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall.
The White House is using it to deal with a legal problem on a separate front, a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.
In a federal appeals court filing three weeks ago, the administration's lawyers used the memo in a legal argument aimed at overturning the judge's ruling. The Washington Post is suing for access to the Secret Service logs.
The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records.
Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
You know what they say, where there's smoke...
The Bush administration's agreement with the Secret Service "at a minimum will serve to postpone a final resolution of who these records belong to," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists told CNN. "This memo reflects the Bush administration's view of American government, which is that the people's business should be conducted behind closed doors."
A house investigation found 485 contacts between the White House and Abramoff, including 10 with Karl Rove.
Tags: news | politics | Bush | crime | corruption | secrecy | Jack Abramoff | White House | Secret Service
