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The corporate propaganda press is very upset that former President Donald Trump’s allies have been filing public records requests targeting the Biden administration.
In a report filed last Friday, Politico complained that “[c]onservative groups and activists have filed tens of thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests for federal employees’ emails throughout President Joe Biden’s time in the White House.”
Conservative outfits are scouring feds’ emails https://t.co/U511xgzAFc
— POLITICO (@politico) November 1, 2024
The report prompted massive mockery because of the solid belief that real journalists are supposed to support using the filing of public records to make the government more transparent.
“Filing FOIA requests to access the internal communications of US Government officials is called ‘journalism,’” Glenn Greenwald, an award-winning journalist (an actual one, not a fake one), tweeted.
“In fact, that’s one of the key tools to bring transparency to the government: a core function of journalism,” he added.
See more responses below:
“Journalists against journalism”
— Derek Brown (@DerekEsq) November 1, 2024
This is called journalism you nitwits.
— Rob Eno (@Robeno) November 2, 2024
Investigative journalism is “conservative” now.
— Good Dog, Blue. (@sasimmons) November 2, 2024
Yes, this is what all journalists should be doing — why aren’t you?
— evolian (@gen0m1cs) November 1, 2024
Government employees are open to scrutiny. This is basic knowledge.
— Devil’s Child (@CJDanielsFarms) November 1, 2024
If only there was a dedicated investigative entity with broad reach in print or TV whose sole focus was to document or “journal” things that elected officials were doing for the public’s knowledge and benefit.
— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) November 4, 2024
Filing FOIA requests to access the internal communications of US Government officials is called “journalism.” In fact, that’s one of the key tools to bring transparency to the government: a core function of journalism.
Using FOIA is not some sinister right-wing plot: https://t.co/ASuN0x1fGY
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 4, 2024
So why is Politico freaking out over public records requests? The blatantly partisan, leftist outlet is concerned that, if Trump wins reelection, this information will be used to pinpoint and then purge entrenched “deep state” bureaucrats who are die-hard leftists at heart.
“The groups are seeking a broad range of documents, including specific requests for civil servants’ communications that could potentially be used to oust or target employees suspected of disloyalty to Trump [and his agenda],” Politico complains.
But these sorts of “party over country” partisans were a major problem during Trump’s first administration, as they actively worked to thwart his agenda — much to the glee of Democrats and their partisan media allies.
The examples are numerous.
“Career employees in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division refused to prosecute cases they ideologically disagreed with, even when the facts showed clear legal violations,” according to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI).
“This included Civil Rights Division career staff refusing to work on cases charging Yale University for racial discrimination against Asian-Americans and protecting nurses from being forced to participate in abortions,” the institute’s reporting continues.
But it gets worse.
“Career staff at the Department of Education assigned to work on politically sensitive regulations, including the Title IX due process regulations, would either produce legally unusable drafts that would never withstand judicial review or drafts that significantly diverged from the Department’s policy goals,” the AFPI notes. “As a result, political appointees had to draft the regulations primarily by themselves.”
This is the nonsense that Trump and his allies hope to avoid if given another chance to govern the country.
Ben Shapiro: The democratic subversion of democracy https://t.co/2XzmA2qh1P
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) June 20, 2024
Writing in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal two years ago, former Trump administration official James Sherk argued that the president “needs the power to fire” these sorts of malicious bureaucrats.
“This resistance, so widespread that it made national news, significantly delayed many policy initiatives and killed others,” he wrote. “This behavior undermines our democracy. No one votes for career bureaucrats, and they have no authority to replace elected officials’ policies with their own.”
“Career employees get away with this behavior largely because they have extensive removal protections. While it isn’t impossible to fire federal employees, it is difficult, uncertain and time-consuming,” he added.
This is why, if reelected, Trump plans to move ahead with Schedule F, a policy proposal that would “enable[] agencies to remove senior employees swiftly for poor performance or policy resistance.”
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