Departmental Magic At The White House

In a May lawsuit, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington made moves via official and proper channels (read: FOIA requests) to gain access to White House Office of Administration documents concerning the deletion of millions of White House emails.

The Bush administration filed papers this week claiming that the White House Office of Administration is not actually subject to FOIA requests because it is not properly an agency.

In some ways, the possibility exists for a smidgen of credibility for the argument that some parts of the Executive Branch are not subject to FOIA requests:

Much of the White House, including the offices of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, is not subject to FOIA, which allows the media and the public to demand disclosure of federal public records. But the Office of Administration, which was formed in 1977 and handles various administrative and technology duties, responded to 65 FOIA requests last year and even has its own FOIA officer, records show.

That last part is the kicker though. The Justice Department feels like that doesn't matter so much, arguing in the official brief that although the National Security Council was responsive to such requests before being ruled immune to them, they were relegated outside the bounds of FOIA in 1996 by the courts. But obviously no one thought twice about responding to FOIA requests until someone decided that they would really rather the Office of Administration not be required to.

Now I'm not a judge or a lawyer, but I do think that the reactionary flavor of this response is telling. Rather than addressing the premise of where the emails are, the administration has made the question focus on whether the Office of Administration has to tell anyone anything at all. This is sort of thing executives do when maintenance of power is more important than transparency of government.