No surprise, nor shame here.

The very perfect folks over at the White House, the ones who were deeply concerned about Ukrainian corruption and whether France would pay more aid to Ukraine, will not hand over the emails that would prove they were worried about corruption and France.

The New York Times made a FOIA request for the emails and were told to get bent by the OMB press office. The perfect folks in the White House will not even hand the documents over with “redactions” of classified information because they don’t contain any classified information and reasons, that’s why.

The Trump White House believes that all communication between “presidential staff” involving “internal policy discussions” are exempt from the FOIA. That is most unfortunate, because – taken to its logical extremes – all Article II officials could be considered “presidential staff,” if needed, in any situation, and everything could be an “internal policy discussion.” What is the definition of “presidential staff”? Informally, we know it includes people working in and around “the president.” Such a reading renders the FOIA useless.

This is, of course, expected, and it is just as much complete horse nuts. Everyone who has ever worked for a government agency knows that the “e” in “email” stands for “evidence,” including even Ivanka. She used her personal email account, despite being part of the “presidential staff.” There is no question those emails are subject to FOIA requests so long as not classified, and they’re not classified.

Frankly, I am shocked that Mulvaney would be reckless enough to write “internal policy discussions” in an email. He could pick up the phone, hoping to avoid ever having to testify, and preserve his privilege to lie.

Anyhoo, the twenty emails from Mulvaney to OMB official Michael Duffy, the ones discussing that Trump needs more evidence that Ukraine is corruption-free, and whether or not anyone has figured out how much France and the U.K. are contributing, will not be handed over by the White House, not without a big fight.

It will take a judge to get them, and we may not have time for a “big fight.” Maybe we do.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

jmiciak@yahoo.com and on Twitter @MiciakZoom