Transparency leads to trust

Instapundit headline: Colorado: State refuses to let public see local virus spread model. Glenn Reynolds adds,

FOR PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURES TO SUCCEED THERE MUST BE TRUST. FOR THERE TO BE TRUST THERE MUST BE TRANSPARENCY.

Glenn links to this article in the Colorado Springs Gazette

The least transparent administration in history…

At 100percentFedUp.com we learn,

In addition to being the most divisive President in America’s history, it appears as though Barack Obama and his regime will also go down as the least transparent administration in history…

According to CBS -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.

Transparency

"Why doesn't Huma Abedin just put her emails out? Why does the Hillary campaign think the missing information should come from the FBI? If they sincerely want transparency, why don't they get transparent?"

One of the services Ann Althouse provides her blog readers is that she watches the Sunday "news" shows, so we don't have to. For example, Meet the Press. Ann writes,

Mike Pence was also a guest on the show. (And Todd really interrupted the hell out of him, but Pence kept his relentlessly on-task, solemn demeanor.) Pence brought out a point that I hadn't seen elsewhere: "[T]he F.B.I. director is keeping his word to the Congress that if new pertinent information came forward that justified the reopening of the case, that he would alert the Congress." If that's correct, that's the answer to the question why Comey came forward when he did.

Picking up the idea that Comey was keeping his word, that he had no choice, but a duty, Todd asked: "Do you think think Director Comey has a duty, though, to share more information of what's known?" Pence, ever somber, came out with: "I think he has a duty to move forward professionally and in a timely way on this." So, basically, no, Comey doesn't need to say anything more. In fact, Pence added, why doesn't Huma Abedin just put her emails out? Why does the Hillary campaign think the missing information should come from the FBI? If they sincerely want transparency, why don't they get transparent?

Read more here.

Saying one thing, doing another

Benghazi timeline

Byron York reports on a timeline compiled by the Benghazi committee:

When did the House Select Committee on Benghazi first learn that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept a secret email system? When did the State Department finally turn over even some of those emails to investigators? When did State first admit it didn't even possess all the former secretary's documents? That information, and more, is contained in a timeline created by the Benghazi committee as investigators seek to piece together just what the Obama administration did in response to House requests for information about the September 11, 2012 terror attack that left four Americans dead.

One of the things the timeline shows is that Chairman Gowdy has known since last summer that Secretary Clinton was using a non-governmental email address.
Read the timeline here.
thanks to Instapundit

Transparency? Accountability? That’s for suckers, not for Obama and his people.

Neo-neocon has

rage that someone so callow and disrespectful was allowed anywhere near the American presidency.

Transparency? Accountability? That’s for suckers, not for Obama and his people.

Read more here.