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[Tovarisc]

Trump's aides are trying to shut down the release of information that could be used to attack the president.

The White House is telling federal agencies to blow off Democratic lawmakers' oversight requests, as Republicans fear the information could be weaponized against President Donald Trump.

At meetings with top officials for various government departments this spring, Uttam Dhillon, a White House lawyer, told agencies not to cooperate with such requests from Democrats, according to Republican sources inside and outside the administration.

It appears to be a formalization of a practice that had already taken hold, as Democrats have complained that their oversight letters requesting information from agencies have gone unanswered since January, and the Trump administration has not yet explained the rationale.

The declaration amounts to a new level of partisanship in Washington, where the president and his administration already feels besieged by media reports and attacks from Democrats. The idea, Republicans said, is to choke off the Democratic congressional minorities from gaining new information that could be used to attack the president.

A White House spokeswoman said the policy of the administration is ”to accommodate the requests of chairmen, regardless of their political party." There are no Democratic chairmen, as Congress is controlled by Republicans.

The administration also responds to ”all non-oversight inquiries, including the Senate's inquiries for purposes of providing advice and consent on nominees, without regard to the political party of the requester," the spokeswoman said. ” Multiple agencies have, in fact, responded to minority member requests. No agencies have been directed not to respond to minority requests."

Republicans said that President Barack Obama's administration was not always quick to respond to them and sometimes ignored them. However, the Obama White House never ordered agencies to stop cooperating with Republican oversight requests altogether, making the marching orders from Trump's aides that much more unusual.

”What I do not remember is a blanket request from the Obama administration not to respond to Republicans," said a former longtime senior Republican staffer.

Congressional minorities frequently ask questions of the administration intended to embarrass the president or garner a quick headline. And Democrats have fired off requests they surely knew the administration would not answer, such as asking the White House in March to make visitor logs of Trump Tower and Mar-A-Lago publicly available.

But House and Senate lawmakers also routinely fire off much more obscure requests not intended to generate news coverage. And the Trump administration's plans to stonewall Democrats is in many ways unprecedented and could lead to a worsening of the gridlock in Washington.

”Instructing agencies not to communicate with members of the minority party will poison the well. It will damage relationships between career staffers at agencies and subject matter experts in Congress," Evers said. ”One of the reasons you respond to letters from the minority party is to explain yourself. It is to put on the record that even accusations that you find unreasonable are not accurate."

One month ago, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management asking for cybersecurity information after it was revealed that millions of people had their identities compromised. The letterasked questions about how cybersecurity officials were hired, and in Rice's view, it ”was not a political letter at all."

"The answer we got back is, ‘We only speak to the chair people of committees.' We said, ‘That's absurd, what are you talking about?'" Rice said in an interview. ”I was dumbfounded at their response. I had never gotten anything like that ... The administration has installed loyalists at every agency to keep tabs on what information people can get."

In February, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for information on changes to healthcare.gov from the Health and Human Services Department. They're still waiting for an answer. In early May, Murray and six other senators asked the president about why Vivek Murthy was dismissed as surgeon general. There was no response, and her staff said those are just a couple of the requests that have gone unanswered.

A senior Democratic aide said that of the Senate Democrats' 225 oversight letters sent to the Trump administration since January asking for information, the vast majority have received no response.

”When it comes to almost anything we've done at a federal agency, very close to 100 percent of those we haven't heard anything back. And at the White House it's definitely 100 percent," said a second senior Democratic aide. ”This is rampant all over committee land."

Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/...equests-democrats-white-house-239034?cmpid=sf

 

[Dan]

Infuriating and undemocratic.

 

[Palette Swap]

Transparency and accountability? Fuck that in Trump's corrupt America.

 

[SolarPowered]

Aiding and abetting

If there were justice then at Trump's trial they'd have to fill the entire courtroom with republican Trump enablers and their lawyers.

 

[Mahonay]

No fascist. No fascist. You're the fascist.

 

[Aaron Strife]

You just know had Hillary been elected they would have complied 100% with the inevitable Republican witch hunts (led by Chaffetz whose foot suddenly doesn't hurt anymore). Then when no wrongdoing was found they'd impeach her anyway for having shifty eyes.

Fuck anyone who says both parties are the same.

 

[madstarr12]

But her Electronic Mails, they're both the same.

 

[super-famicom]

Fire them all

 

[Ithil]

"We exempt all our former lobbyists and special interests from any ethics, take bribes from other nations and from corporations, refuse any press briefings, and ignore any oversight requests, but uh, we're totally the most transparent administration, drain the swamp ya'll"

 

[LiK]

Fuck Trump

 

[Linkark07]

Orange Turd and his disgusting cronies is putting to shame Latin American Governments. He is managing to make the USA more Banana Republic than the real Banana Republics.

 

[Lord Frieza]

I really hope Dems can take back the House next year. They want a gridlock, they'll get even more of one then.

 

[Karkador]

He said he'd unify the country

 

[LiK]

He said he'd unify the country

Unify the rich and morons.

 

[commedieu]

I wish one day, Republicans can get Obama's dick out of their mouths.

 

[Master Yoshi]

You know that scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn pleads for Legolas to bring down the Uruk Hai with the torch? That's how helpless I feel today.

 

[PandaPandaPanda]

He said he'd unify the country

unify the country = fill my pockets and shit on everything obama did while in office

 

[Mahonay]

He said he'd unify the country

 

[super-famicom]

He said he'd unify the country

He's unifying a bunch of people into coming together and saying FUCK TRUMP

 

[Slayven]

Shouldn't that be illegal?

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Disgusting. I honestly wonder if the American two party system can survive after the Trump administration

 

[titiklabingapat]

If he is gonna be this petty, I hope his replacement and the Democrats become just as petty once they take power back. It's not a matter of if, but when.

 

[Duxxy3]

More obstruction of justice.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Did not see that coming

 

[slit]

He said he'd unify the country

He unified "the ones that count."

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

God I hate that fucking gif. It's like watching a 5 year old as his parents wrongly blame his brother for his fuck up. He's so far from, and will never be any semblance of a grown man and every single day I see children acting more mature than this orange fuck.

 

[slightconfuse]

This seems illegal.

Not that it matters

 

[Kenai]

My one dream is that they are held accountable for this later. All of them. Because I know they won't be now.

 

[PandaPandaPanda]

Shouldn't that be illegal?

Congress is supposed to hold the Executive accountable

so basically, nothing will be done

 

[Dyle]

At this rate I wonder how much longer the executive branch will honor FOIA requests. If they can delay this long for members of congress, what's to stop them from essentially denying requests from journalists and the general public?

 

[Skyline Owl]

Hey you! Yeah you, White House:

 

[CadetMahoney]

God I hate that fucking gif. It's like watching a 5 year old as his parents wrongly blame his brother for his fuck up. He's so far from, and will never be any semblance of a grown man and every single day I see children acting more mature than this orange fuck.

nah I've seen some sick memes with this.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

This will end in Civil War. Millions of us will die. A nation cannot handle this level of hatred and vitriol between competing ideologies without descending into violence and chaos.

 

[theWB27]

But people keep wanting to complain about the Dems not doing enough of whatever with this blatant BS right in front of their face.

 

[Horns]

Could you imagine the outrage if the black president did something like this? This is extremely maddening.

 

[Netherscourge]

Legalized obstruction of justice.

 

[Buckle]

Disgusting.

The corruption of the republican party has never been more apparent.

They're using every tool at their disposal to try to abuse the system and stop justice from being done.

 

[TestOfTide]

Shouldn't that be illegal?

Yes, and while it's not enforced while the GOP is charge, it sure as fuck can be enforced against Trump when the Democrats retake power.

Odds are when Trump is no longer POTUS, he's gonna try to hide off in Russia so that NY AG Schneider doesn't throw him in state prison permanently.

 

[Mahonay]

This will end in Civil War. Millions of us will die. A nation cannot handle this level of hatred and vitriol between competing ideologies without descending into violence and chaos.

Uhhh....

 

[GabeTheGrouch76]

On the bright side, all this would do is just embolden people to keep leaking as much shit on this administration as possible. There's no non-legal obligation for people to not continue clogging this administration's toilet to the point of overflow if the White House is going to such lengths to deny the public even genuinely critical information. Especially given how Trump has waging war against the media with his "FAKE NEWS!1" accusations and the IC with Comey's firing as it is.

 

[SolarPowered]

Could you imagine the outrage if the black president did something like this? This is extremely maddening.

Outrage? There'd be an armed uprising.

 

[Surfinn]

Shouldn't that be illegal?

How many times a day do we say this now

:/

This will end in Civil War. Millions of us will die. A nation cannot handle this level of hatred and vitriol between competing ideologies without descending into violence and chaos.

Nah. We gotta keep a level head

 

[timetokill]

It's actually incredible how much Trump has exposed how shaky the foundations of our democracy are.

 

[manakel]

How many times a day do we say this now

:/

Exactly. I'm so sick of seeing "unprecedented" as well. All of it is and it seems like every thing they fucking do is illegal, but this system is so broken and it's so apparent now.

 

[EdibleKnife]

But people keep wanting to complain about the Dems not doing enough of whatever with this blatant BS right in front of their face.

Right? This is literally obstruction on all fronts by a party that only knows how to deny answers to their constituents as they fuck them over and hide or block any inquiries as to why. I'm fine saying dems are weak on some issues but the larger problem for them is an opposition that singly seeks to stop accountability for their heinous actions.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

They should ask their Russian friends to teach them about a thing called "glasnost"...

 

[WedgeX]

"We've saved so much money, the most money the American people could ever save, by ignoring those bad Democrats. Bad people. Bad people who want bad information. No administration has ever, no administration that ever had a massive landslide victory as I did, has ever saved as much money."

 

[Exile20]

Those request were probably for Obama's birth certificate. Fuck republicans.

 

[Surfinn]

It's actually incredible how much Trump has exposed how shaky the foundations of our democracy are.

Well at least it's working in some areas. Travel ban, for one

 

[kess]

Why fascism is corrupt 101