WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A federal watchdog sued the Department of the Interior (DOI) last week for non-compliance with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that targeted high-ranking officials in the U.S. agency.
The lawsuit was filed on Nov. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after more than a full year since Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) received a reply from the DOI regarding Raina Thiele, Martha Williams, and Elizabeth Klein, who is Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's senior counselor.
“We believe the American public has a right to know which political appointees have received exemptions from the ethics restrictions that would normally apply,” said Michael Chamberlain, executive director of PPT. "Ethics obligations exist to ensure that government decisions that affect the lives and livelihoods of Americans are not influenced by conflicts of interest.”
Klein received a waiver for certain but unknown ethics restrictions, according to a press release.
“DOI has not provided the documents that contain the details of them,” Chamberlain told Legal Newsline. “Despite efforts by watchdogs and congressional oversight staff alike, the public still has not been told what is really going on.”
As previously reported in Legal Newsline, it is alleged that Klein failed to fully reveal to ethics officials the scope of her deputy director job at the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center (SEEIC), which is funded by billionaire and climate litigation advocate Michael Bloomberg.
The SEEIC has placed lawyers in the offices of Democratic state attorneys general that helped file more than 130 regulatory and legal challenges against Trump-era federal environmental policies.
"We expect to find the details of any waivers or exemptions that she received to federal ethics laws or the Biden Ethics Pledge," Chamberlain said. "We also seek to understand the basis for her inconsistent recusal statements that at one point allowed her to participate in a meeting with a former client while the former client was temporarily dropped from her official recusal list. This remains very concerning."
Thiele and Williams are the two political appointees at the Interior Department who received waivers to the ethics restrictions of the Biden Ethics Pledge.
Thiele works currently as senior advisor for Alaska Affairs and Strategic Priorities while Williams is the director of Fish & Wildlife Service.
“Officials who receive waivers are given exemptions to ethics restrictions that help to preserve the American public’s trust in its government,” Chamberlain added.