September, 17 2018, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
David Carle, 202-224-3693
Leahy And Other Senators File Suit For Hidden Kavanaugh Documents
Blumenthal, Leahy and others seek injunction today to compel the National archives and CIA to release supreme court nominee’s records
WASHINGTON
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), joined by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and others, are filing a lawsuit to compel the National Archives and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to release all records involving Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his time as an associate in the White House Counsel's office and as White House Staff Secretary. The senators are represented in this effort by American Oversight, a nonpartisan ethics and accountability watchdog.
Also joining the lawsuit are Senators Cory A. Booker (D-NJ), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Kamala Harris (D-CA).
In the lawsuit filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the senators ask the court to order the National Archives and the CIA to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted on August 8, 2018. More than a month later, neither agency has provided the requested records. The lawsuit is accompanied by a motion seeking a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order to require the agencies to respond immediately.
"The Trump Administration and Senate Republicans' refusal to do their job--blocking us from doing ours -- has forced us to turn to the courts. Reviewing the full record of a nominee for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land isn't optional - it's obligatory," Blumenthal said. "Senate Republicans' shameful abdication of their Constitutional responsibility to vet this nominee now requires us to seek judicial intervention to obtain his record. There is too much at stake to accept anything less than a complete picture of Judge Kavanaugh's background."
Leahy said, "Any claims that the vetting of Judge Kavanaugh's record has been a transparent process are purely Orwellian. Senate Republicans have systematically blocked access to more than 90 percent of Judge Kavanaugh's record from the American people in a rush to confirm President Trump's nominee. In light of recent allegations, it is more important than ever for the Senate to have a full picture of Judge Kavanaugh's views, credibility, and character. Republicans have left us with no choice but to seek redress in a court of law - and to obtain documents that already should have been provided to the Senate. Hopefully this FOIA lawsuit will shine light on the vast tracts of Judge Kavanaugh's record that Republicans have kept hidden."
This lawsuit follows months of repeated efforts by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to obtain and review Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh's full record. In August, in the face of repeated obstruction by Senate Republicans, Blumenthal led all the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in submitting FOIA requests to the National Archives, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA.
The senators' FOIA requests were filed only after Republicans established a precedent-breaking, parallel document production process to circumvent established procedures for congressional review of a nominee's record and, in turn, keep secret a large majority of Judge Kavanaugh's long career paper trail.
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Tens of Thousands Call for Federal Marijuana Decriminalization
"When it comes to the DOJ's proposal to reschedule marijuana, public opinion could not be clearer," said a campaigner with Drug Policy Alliance, which analyzed public comments on the pending change.
Jul 23, 2024
Shortly after the public comment period for the Biden administration's proposed rule to reschedule marijuana closed, a reform group on Tuesday released an analysis showing that the majority of submissions advocate for federal decriminalization.
When President Joe Biden pardoned U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents convicted of simple federal marijuana possession in October 2022, he also ordered the departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services to review how cannabis is treated under the Controlled Substances Act.
Marijuana is currently Schedule I, the federal law's most restrictive category, despite dozens of states allowing adult recreational or medicinal use. In May, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which is part of the DOJ, proposed a shift to Schedule III and initiated the public comment period that ended Monday.
"Participation in public comment processes gives the American public a chance to speak from personal experience and provide feedback on proposed legal changes—and it gives the federal government an opportunity to adjust their proposals to reflect public opinion," said Cat Packer of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), which reviewed submissions.
"When it comes to the DOJ's proposal to reschedule marijuana, public opinion could not be clearer," added Packer, DPA's director of drug markets and legal regulation. "Rescheduling is simply not enough."
As DPA detailed in a statement, after analyzing the 42,910 public comments, the group found:
- 69.3% or 29,750 of comments support descheduling, decriminalizing, or legalizing marijuana at the federal level;
- 42.4% or 18,207 commentsmention the need for federal marijuana reform to advance racial justice or social equity; and
- 24% or 10,327 comments were submitted through a public comment tool hosted by United for Marijuana Decriminalization (UMD), a coalition that DPA convenes. These comments were the result of months of grassroots outreach to communities that have been impacted by marijuana criminalization.
"The people are demanding the Biden administration do more to deliver on the marijuana reforms that communities deserve," Packer said, pointing to previous promises from Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee to face former Republican President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election.
Packer highlighted that nearly half of the comments "recognize that ending federal criminalization is key to achieving racial justice and social equity," and "this is something that the Biden administration has repeatedly identified as a priority in their marijuana reform efforts."
"However, under Schedule III, communities of color would still face disproportionate harms and lifelong consequences from federal marijuana criminalization," she explained. "Under Schedule III, people could still be jailed or deported for marijuana violations, even in states where it is legal. Under Schedule III, people could lose their jobs, their housing, their... food stamp benefits, or even lose custody of their children for marijuana violations."
Earlier this month, DPA and Human Rights Watch released a 91-page report detailing how the U.S. War on Drugs has impacted the lives of immigrants, "punishing people with deep connections to the United States, where they have formed families, attained education, and built their lives."
Packer argued Tuesday that "if the Biden administration wants to be responsive to public opinion and live up to their own stated values of racial justice and repair, marijuana must be federally decriminalized and additional actions must be taken to end the lifelong collateral consequences that result from marijuana criminalization."
"This is a galvanizing moment for our movement for drug policies grounded in health, equity, and reinvestment," she stressed. "Even if marijuana is ultimately rescheduled through this process, there are additional actions that President Biden and Congress can take. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue working with our allies to urge President Biden to take a whole government approach to advance equity in federal marijuana policy and mitigate the harms of criminalization."
"That means expanding pardons and commutations, protecting state marijuana programs, and directing federal agencies to cease punishing people for marijuana use," she said. "We know that the people and the evidence are on our side. It is time that our federal government listened."
Despite support from top figures including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), there is little hope that the current divided Congress would decriminalize marijuana. As Marijuana Momentreported shortly before House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was voted into his role last year, he "has consistently voted against cannabis-related legislation."
The cannabis industry analytics firm Headset on Tuesday also reviewed public submissions for the new proposal and noted that "this comment period has shattered previous DEA records, surpassing even the highly contentious 2020 telemedicine rules that garnered approximately 38,000 comments."
"To put this into perspective, that's roughly equivalent to the entire population of Juneau, the capital city of Alaska," the firm highlighted. "It's as if every resident of a small state capital took the time to voice their opinion on this crucial issue."
Headset found that 92.45% of comments were in favor of changing cannabis' schedule, with 61.7% of them advocating for descheduling and 38.3% supporting a shift to a less restrictive category. Just 7.55% wanted to retain Schedule I.
"Those supporting rescheduling emphasized potential medical benefits, increased research opportunities, and alignment with state laws," Headset said. "Proponents of descheduling, the largest group, advocated for complete legalization, citing social justice concerns, economic opportunities, and personal liberty."
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'Woah!': FTC Applauded for Launching Inquiry Into Surveillance Pricing
"Firms that harvest Americans' personal data can put people's privacy at risk," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. "Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices."
Jul 23, 2024
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday launched an investigation into surveillance pricing and requested information from eight companies on the practice.
The FTC inquiry will look at the effect of surveillance pricing—using data on consumers' behavior or characteristics to manipulate the price for them as individuals—on privacy, competition, and consumer protection.
The agency asked Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, and McKinsey for information on the practice, as well as four less well-known companies that service major corporations.
"Firms that harvest Americans' personal data can put people's privacy at risk," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. "Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices."
"Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, and the FTC's inquiry will shed light on this shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen," she added.
1. Firms harvest a trove of Americans’ personal data, from your browsing history to your biometrics. Now firms could be using this data to target you with an individualized price.
Today @FTC launched an inquiry into these surveillance pricing tactics. https://t.co/G4uc8lHWOV
— Lina Khan (@linakhanFTC) July 23, 2024
Progressive advocacy groups, which have long considered Khan to be one of their strongest allies in the Biden administration, and which argue that discriminatory pricing is unfair, celebrated the FTC's announcement.
"We're thrilled to see the FTC crack down on the dystopian practice of surveillance pricing," Lee Hepner, legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement. "It's chilling to think that companies have so much control over our lives that they can leverage personal data they've harvested—including your location, demographic, and shopping history—to turn our habits against us and hike up prices on essential goods. But it's already happening."
Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens also praised the FTC move, warning that "a personalized price might sound nice, but it is actually a three-part corporate strategy to spy on you, isolate you, and overcharge you."
"Today's investigation is an important step in cracking down on the methods big corporations use to spy on consumers to rip them off," Owens said in a statement.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, a director at Demand Progress Education Fund, said in a statement that Tuesday's announcement was "another strong sign that the FTC is fighting for consumer power over corporate power."
Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham University who has helped lead the opposition to surveillance pricing, reacted with excitement on Tuesday.
"Woah!" she wrote on social media. "The FTC is going there! So excited to see the FTC launching a full study into how companies use data to serve different prices to different people. We know the incentive and capacity is there, but the reality of surveillance pricing has been a triple-locked black box!"
Advocates of surveillance pricing sometimes call it personalized pricing and argue that it efficiently allocates resources. Such pricing questions are the subject of great interest among business school academics, especially at elite institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, according to a detailed article in The American Prospect last month.
A crackdown on the practice could conceivably have support across the political spectrum. Stock guru Jim Cramer of CNBC—a frequent and vociferous critic of Khan—praised the FTC's announcement on air on Tuesday, while expressing disbelief that he was doing so.
7/ Even @jimcramer agrees that surveillance pricing is not an honest or ethical way to treat customers.
“How could you live with yourself?” if you’re a business that uses this strategy, he asked this morning.
“That is a great report. I agree with [@FTC].” pic.twitter.com/23HEDk8Yqf
— American Economic Liberties Project (@econliberties) July 23, 2024
All five FTC commissioners, including two Republicans, voted to move forward with the investigation, which will focus on intermediary firms—"the middlemen enabling firms to algorithmically tweak and target their prices," according to a blog post the FTC also published Tuesday.
The requests for information don't indicate that the eight firms engaged in wrongdoing, but rather that they can be useful sources of information, an unnamed FTC official toldThe Hill.
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'What's the Holdup?' Menendez to Resign Next Month
"It's time for New Jersey to move forward," said U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, who is running to replace the senator.
Jul 23, 2024
One day after the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee notified Sen. Bob Menendez that it had voted to move toward a potential vote on expelling him from the upper chamber of Congress, the New Jersey Democrat told Gov. Phil Murphy that he would resign, effective August 20.
Menendez announced his resignation a week after he was convicted of 16 counts of bribery and acting as a foreign agent.
But with senators and members of the U.S. House long having called on the lawmaker to resign over the federal bribery charges, one leading ethics group asked why Menendez was waiting nearly a month to leave office.
"What's the holdup?" asked Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Menendez was convicted last week of accepting bribes from three businessmen and acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the Egyptian government. He pleaded not guilty.
CREW promptly called on Menendez to resign after his conviction, saying he had spent years "ducking accountability for corruption."
"There is no room in the Senate for a convicted felon, especially not one convicted of taking bribes," said CREW president Noah Bookbinder last week. "He must resign today or be immediately expelled."
Manu Raju of CNN pointed out that the August 20 resignation date allows Menendez "to collect another taxpayer-funded paycheck."
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), the chair and vice chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, respectively, said Monday that the panel had voted to begin "an adjudicatory review of [Menendez's] alleged violations of Senate Rules."
"An adjudicatory review is required when the committee considers disciplinary actions, such as expulsion or censure," said the senators.
Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis noted that lawmakers' resignation before their colleagues have a chance to recommend their expulsion is "a pattern throughout history."
Menendez was convicted of using his influence to meddle in three state and federal criminal cases to protect his associates, as well as taking actions that benefited the government of Egypt in exchange for bribes. Prosecutors said he ghostwrote a letter to his Senate colleagues about lifting a hold on military aid to Egypt. He did the favors in exchange for stacks of gold bars and $480,000 in cash that he hid in his home.
The senator wrote to Murphy that "I fully intend to appeal the jury's verdict, all the way and including to the Supreme Court."
Menendez's term was set to expire in January 2025; following his resignation, Murphy will be empowered to appoint someone to serve for the remainder of the senator's term. U.S. Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is running to replace Menendez and is favored to win against Republican Curtis Bagshaw. The disgraced senator also launched a bid last month to run for his seat as an Independent.
Kim said Tuesday that Menendez had "made the right decision for New Jersey by agreeing to step down next month."
"It's time for New Jersey to move forward," he said. "We have big challenges ahead of us, and we can only tackle them if we show the people of our state that this is the beginning of a new era of politics built on integrity, service, and delivering for all families."
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