Secret Service must hand over Abramoff logs

[AlCzervik]

Source: The Hill

Secret Service must hand over Abramoff logs
By Susan Crabtree
Posted: 10/02/08 01:24 PM
The Secret Service has 18 days to hand over White House visitor logs detailing disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s visits, according to Judicial Watch, a public interest legal group.
Judicial Watch on Thursday announced that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier in the week ruled against the Secret Service motion to dismiss the group’s open-records requests. The court’s Tuesday decision ordered the agency to finish processing the requests and provide all non-exempt records within 20 days of the court order.

The court ruled that the Secret Service violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by not thoroughly searching White House visitor records that could contain information about Abramoff’s visits. The Secret Service had argued that these additional visitor records, called “Sensitive Security Records,” were so secret that the agency could neither confirm nor deny their existence.

It has been three years since Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the Secret Service seeking all White House visitor logs from Jan. 1, 2001, to the present time. After the Secret Service failed to respond, Judicial Watch filed lawsuits on Feb. 22, 2006, and April 25, 2006. The Secret Service’s response to a previous court order was incomplete, so Judicial Watch continued to press its legal case.

Read more: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/secret-service-must-hand-over-abramoff-logs-2008-10-02.html

[pattmarty]

1. I'll bet that most of them are "lost".

[DemoTex]

2. Sorry about those logs, boss.

December 19, 2007

[OKthatsIT]

14. Good Job! Where did you want that money sent? Bahamas?

[truthisfreedom]

3. Will they be so incomplete as to show a Guckert-like pattern of sleepovers?

Remember that shit? Gannon/Guckert going in but never coming out?

[yodermon]

6. augh, my eyes n/t

[redqueen]

4. 18 days?

Let's hope they meet that deadline.

:7

[AlCzervik]

5. yes indeed, the timing could not be better.

[Imagevision]

7. Also get frggin Rove and Miers to show up for that investigation!

[Demeter]

8. Why Would The Secret Service Feel Obliged To Protect Criminals?

If the corruption reached that deep, we are in serious trouble. Obama better clean out the Secret Service AND the Justice Department first thing.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

11. Secret Service was transferred

Effective March 1, 2003, the Secret Service was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the newly established Department of Homeland Security.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service

[Demeter]

12. Ohhhhh!

That DOES explain a lot. Thanks. (I'll just go in this corner and have a nervous breakdown, now.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. And what's the betting they put in some legal challenge at the last minute

so that they get another few weeks' delay - and they don't come out until after the election? Sometimes, I wish we could get a Democratic October Surprise to show the Republicans for the corrupt POSs they are, but I feel this won't be it.

[maddezmom]

10. Judge orders more searches for Abramoff visits

Judge orders more searches for Abramoff visits

WASHINGTON (AP) A federal judge has rejected the Bush administration's attempt to shield records that may shed light on the White House visits of now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

In several orders this week, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sided with watchdog groups Judicial Watch and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which are suing the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security for access to the logs.

The administration in 2006 agreed to produce all responsive records about the visits ''without redactions or claims of exemption.'' But it soon argued that the contents of certain ''Sensitive Security Records,'' which are created in the course of conducting more extensive background checks on particular White House visitors, cannot be publicly revealed even though they could show some of Abramoff's visits.

Lamberth disagreed this week, saying those security records are not exempt under the federal Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that the information could promote criminal activity.

''The court is not convinced that the information plaintiff primarily seeks the name of a visitor, the dates and times of his visits, and the person(s) visited would allow even the most dedicated would-be criminal to discern what visitor characteristics trigger ... a security check,'' Lamberth wrote in one of the orders.

He also ordered DHS and the Secret Service to search visitor records that had been transferred to White House control.

more:http://cbs4denver.com/businesswire/22.0.html?type=national&serviceLevel=f&category=f&filename=Bush-Abramoff.xml

[blogslut]

13. kickers

:)

[L. Coyote]

15. DITTO

[goforit]

16. Judicial Watch won't get them.....Goodluck ! Naivete fools.