Judge backs White House office in e-mail controversy

[babylonsister]

Judge rules for White House in e-mail controversy

Judge backs White House office in e-mail controversy

PETE YOST
AP News

Jun 16, 2008 10:43 EST


A federal judge ruled Monday that a White House office that has records about millions of possibly missing e-mails does not have to make them public.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says the Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, enabling the White House to maintain the secrecy of a lengthy internal paper trail about its problem-plagued e-mail system.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed against the administration by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private group that has been trying to find out the extent of the White House's e-mail problems for more than a year.

more...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/06/judge_rules_for_white_house_in.php

[gateley]

1. Oops, part of her name wasn't included

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (R)

[WCGreen]

2. Who appointed her?

[gatorboy]

3. Clinton in 1997

D'oh!

[WCGreen]

11. Triangulation equals strangulation and much tribulation

for the whole damn Nation....

[madokie]

4. link to her

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/kotelly-bio.html

[lyonn]

9. Interesting, yup, Bill did nominate her to the U.S. District Court, but

further down it says this:

".......Judge Kotelly was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to serve as a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Financial Disclosure from June 2000 through May 2002, and in May 2002 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge Kotelly to serve as Presiding Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court , which is a 7-year appointment."


I vaguely remember Clinton having a hard time getting Judges approved due to the Senate being controlled by the repubs. Hatch was in his glory during that era, ugh.

[sellitman]

5. This sucks bigtime.

basically bushco can do anything it wants.

Like a dictator.

And Impeachment is off the table.

Wow. Just wow.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

6. YOU JUST DON'T GET IT DO YOU COLLEN

ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION IS A CRIMINAL GANG

[lyonn]

7. The Courts have been stacked against us

Just think, Nixon and Ford for 12 yrs. (?), Carter for 4 yrs., Reagan and George G. H. and George W. (20 yrs.) together amount to about 32 years of Repubs. electing Judges versus, 12 yrs. for Carter and Clinton. It looks like the only way we will ever see any documents from this Admin. is if those that received those documents saved them and expose them. When George leaves office there won't be a scrap of paper left laying around.

[onenote]

8. Poll for those posting upthread: how many of you actually have read the opinion in this case?

I"m guessing the answer is zero.

The judge is a respected Clinton appointee. She has ruled against chimpy in other cases in the past. In her opinion, she struggled with what she characterized as a close legal question. I wish she had come out the other way, but her reasoning, as spelled out in her opinion, is not unreasonable. Its a close enough case that I hope it is appealed to the Court of Appeals, where maybe it could be reversed.

And, by the way, the documents that were the subject of the FOIA request were not the missing emails, but rather documents relating to an analysis of how/why the emails weren't retained. That information should be made public and I'm hopeful it eventually will.

But the knee jerk damning of a judge based on one opinion that you haven't read is really stunningly immature.

[Hangingon]

12. A sane response

[Supersedeas]

10. open and honest government -- not from these Repukes