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Here’s a look at the investigations our team has been pursuing through public records requests in the last week:
Investigating GSA Transition Interference
Emily Murphy, a Trump political appointee at the General Services Administration (GSA), is reportedly refusing to sign a memo that would authorize President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work. On Monday, American Oversight launched an investigation into GSA’s refusal to approve the transition resources.
American Oversight filed Freedom of Information Act requests with GSA for officials’ communications, seeking to determine if the White House played any role in GSA's failure to comply with democratic norms.
“There is no reasonable basis for the GSA administrator to refuse to carry out her clear, nonpartisan responsibility to facilitate the continuity of government between administrations,” said Austin Evers, executive director at American Oversight. “Absent a credible explanation, the public is right to worry that Administrator Murphy is acting out of partisanship, concern for the president’s ego, or fear of retribution. We hope Administrator Murphy does the right thing.”
This isn’t the first time Murphy has made headlines in her role at GSA. The GSA inspector general previously found that Murphy may have misled Congress about President Donald Trump’s role in the decision to keep the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. You can read about our ongoing investigation into what influence the White House and the Trump Organization might have had over the FBI headquarters project — and Murphy’s role in the decision — over on our Twitter.
The Trump Administration’s Compliance with Document Preservation Laws
This week, we also furthered our ongoing investigation to ensure Trump administration records are properly preserved — and we’ve made it clear that we’re prepared to go to court to stop political appointees from destroying or removing documents on their way out the door.
U.S. laws, including the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act, require federal agencies and the White House to preserve substantive documents and communications. Destruction of these records is illegal, but the lack of an enforcement mechanism — especially when it comes to White House documents — leaves some observers concerned about their preservation.
These documents can provide transparency about government actions, power investigations to hold officials accountable, and contribute to the historical record. This information is also essential to an incoming administration so it can understand ongoing government action and past policy decisions.
The Trump administration’s history with preservation-related matters is rocky — so rocky the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has previously warned Trump White House lawyers about the need to comply with record preservation laws, as Politico reported in 2017. News reports and documents we obtained have shown that key officials in the Trump administration — from Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to cabinet members — repeatedly relied on private communications channels for government business, raising further questions about compliance with record preservation laws.
Records from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s tenure as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which we obtained through FOIA litigation, showed that he also frequently used a personal email account to conduct government work. We sent a letter on Oct. 22 to NARA, the CIA, and the State Department, urging them move quickly to recover any records that may not have been preserved as required by law. The day after the election, in response to our complaint, NARA asked the CIA for a report on Pompeo’s personal email use as director.
Bureau of Indian Education School Reopenings
On Sept. 16, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) reopened its schools. Native American communities have been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, and members of the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Subcommittee for Indigenous People of the United States have voiced serious concerns about the BIE’s decision and have asked the agency to provide more information about plans to keep students and teachers safe. We filed multiple FOIA requests to the BIE for assessments, data, emails and meeting agendas concerning the school reopenings. We also asked the Labor Department for records of any investigation into staff fatalities following the closing of BIE-run schools in March.
Interior Secretary’s Pro-Trump Pre-Election Video
In late October, just days before Election Day, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt shared a Department of the Interior video on his Twitter account that explicitly praised Trump for his “conservation record.” Bernhardt faced criticism for the video, which former Interior officials have characterized as a possible violation of the Hatch Act. In response to the outcry, the department’s official press Twitter account said that official tweets are approved by career ethics attorneys. We filed FOIA requests with the Interior Department for decision memos, communications, and ethics clearance records concerning the video.
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