Under the Presidential Records Act, Presidential records are automatically transferred into the legal custody of the Archivist as soon as the president leaves office
The public can #FOIA those docs after 5 yrs but the president can invoke exemptions to keep secret up to 12 yrs
Interestingly, Biden vice presidential records will be subject to #FOIA on Jan. 20, 2022.
The PRA "establishes procedures for Congress, courts, and subsequent Administrations to obtain 'special access' to records from NARA that remain closed to the public, following a privilege review period by the former and incumbent Presidents"
Also, eventually, Trump will get a presidential library.
But caveat: The Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 "encouraged other Presidents to donate their historical materials to the government and ensured the preservation of Presidential papers and their availability to the American people"
And the Presidential Libraries Act of 1986 "made significant changes to Presidential Libraries, requiring private endowments linked to the size of the facility. The National Archives uses these endowments to offset a portion of the maintenance costs for the library"
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🚨Hours before Election Day, DOJ releases 13 secret pgs of Mueller's report in response to our #FOIA lawsuit that contains revelatory details about the probe into Asaange, WikiLeaks, Stone re: DNC hack & decisions not to charge them
The newly visible sections, found in the table of contents as well as on pages 9, 51, 65, 174, 176-179, 188-189, and 190-191, deal almost entirely with charging decisions by members of Mueller’s team regarding the hacks and WikiLeaks’ publication of the stolen emails.
The newly unveiled sections also include a small but noteworthy revelation previously redacted due to an ongoing investigation regarding Russian attempts to hack a company that makes voter registration software. The name of the company, VR Systems, had been redacted until now.
TOMORROW: After 1.5 yrs of litigation, DOJ w/be unredacting at least 15 pages of key sections of Mueller's report in response to my/@BuzzFeedNews & @EPICprivacy's #FOIA lawsuit
Relates to WikiLeaks/DNC email hack/Trump's campaign's interest
ADDITIONALLY: Tomorrow, @BuzzFeedNews and I and CNN will receive another production of FBI 302s (witness interview summaries) from the Mueller investigation in response to our #FOIA lawsuits. #MuellerMemos
We have been aggressively fighting for the release of documents for nearly 4 years with more than three dozen #FOIA lawsuits filed against multiple govt agencies. PLEASE support our sunshine efforts.
I am still receiving Miles Taylor emails in response to my #FOIA lawsuit and you can be sure I be aggressively challenging the redactions.
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It turns out that a year ago, I also filed a #FOIA lawsuit against FBI and other agencies for documents they had about the Anonymous op-ed published in the NYT
Mel Stride, the committee’s conservative chair, said the inquiry will examine what progress government regulators and law enforcement have made in preventing money laundering.
“It’s important that the relevant bodies are held to account and scrutinised effectively to ensure that the UK is a clean place to do business,” Stride wrote in a statement.
Last Nov, Sens Grassley & Johnson sent a letter to FinCEN Director Ken Blanco requesting suspicious activity reports on Hunter Biden, Burisma & others
FinCEN swiftly turned over docs & the sens have been sitting on it for a year waiting for the right moment to weaponize it
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In comparison, when the Senate Intelligence Committee requested suspicious activity reports on individuals & entities related to Trump & his campaign as part of their Russia probe FinCEN in some instances did not turn over any SARs or made the committee wait.
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Some of those latter SARs formed the basis of the #FinCENFiles
It's unclear to me what the records FinCEN turned over on Hunter Biden say or how Grassley/Johnson intend to use it w/media, if at all
But I'll just note FinCEN made this statement prior to #FinCENFiles pubbing
ICYMI: We had a good run and brought our #FOIA challenge related to Trump's Oct 6 declassification tweets all the way up to the WH, forcing Mark Meadows to sign a sworn declaration stating that Trump told him he didn't mean what he tweeted
Today Judge Reggie Walton sided with govt but in my opinion reluctantly. He said: "It is unfortunate that we are in this situation because obviously where there are references to the declassification of classified info, those words spoken should be artfully spoken.."
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Judge Walton said Trump's tweets were "Inartful."
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