WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A federal watchdog has sued the U.S. Department of State alleging that it is wrongfully withholding records related to the Office of the Special Envoy for Climate Change, chaired by John Kerry.
Protect the Public’s Trust filed the lawsuit on March 23 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the State Department indicated it wouldn’t be able to complete the request until Nov. 18, 2024, which is after the next presidential election.
“We think that delaying the release of the records calls into question what they may not want the public to know about until after the election and if people have questions about or concerns about why the American public's trust in their government is at an all-time low, this is one of the reasons,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public's Trust.
Kerry is a former presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State.
“This is one of the highest-profile individuals and the highest priority policies of the current administration and so our interest is to find out the information that the public needs to know about what's going on in that office, including who the highest-level officials are meeting with, what kinds of topics they're discussing, and the items that are involved,” Chamberlain told Legal Newsline.
Last week, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo to the heads of agencies and departments within the federal government reminding them of the need for transparency because an informed citizenry is vital to the operations of the country.
“As far as we can tell from just the publicly available information via the media, their interest crosses over into lots of different areas with international relations,” Chamberlain said. “There are discussions with nations like Russia or involving nations like Russia, China, Iran, European countries, or European allies. So, there's a lot involved in that office. Because it is such a high priority for the administration, we believe that the American public deserves to know about the discussions that are going on because these are going to have a tremendous impact on American lives.”
Garland’s memorandum is dated March 15.
“We don't know for sure but certainly on its face it appears as if politics may have influenced their decision about processing our request,” Chamberlain added. “The state department's communications to us, which first indicated they would not be completing the FOIA until November 2024, came before the Russian invasion into Ukraine so it's unlikely that had an influence on our request but there are many other things happening around the world.”