Transparency_Attys

While there are a lot of laws that the government is required to follow, the courts often don’t allow individuals to file suit to enforce them. The legal doctrine is called “standing,” and you usually need to show a “particularized harm.” But that’s a great question. We’ll take a look at what specific laws might apply and whether there is a way to bring a suit. Otherwise, it’s something that has to be handled politically (ie, at the ballot box). Not a satisfying answer, we know.

The Mueller Report is currently available and can be found online. The problem is that there are many redactions in the report that are not appropriate. That is what we are litigating in court and what the judge decided to look at. The judge is going to review the completely unredacted report in camera (meaning “in private”) and determine if the government must release more of what was withheld. The opinion contained some scathing language for various government actors including AG Barr himself. It’s definitely worth a read.

I am hopeful and optimistic that we will get a decision from the judge relatively quickly by legal standards. We could potentially get the judge’s decision in the next few months, which would be well in advance of the election. If more of the redacted information is released, the public could get a chance to see it before casting their votes.

Many people respond more to specific examples about how laws affect them, more than philosophical debates. (That's often true for judges too.)

Stamina. The government often tries to grind people down and wear them out, including us. But it's worth the fight.

1) For some of the redacted parts it is impossible to say what is being withheld. In other areas some general inferences can be made, some of which we laid out in our publicly available briefing. For example, we stated in our brief that “DOJ has indiscriminately redacted nearly everything about [Roger] Stone.” The redactions also would likely shed light on why “Donald Trump, Jr. was never even brought before the grand jury.” I hope to see much of the redacted material released.

2) The documentary "A Good American" is the whistleblowers themselves telling the story of what happened. The article linked in the post is probably the best piece to read for a better understanding. https://www.justsecurity.org/47632/hayden-nsa-road-911/ The author of the piece, Pat Eddington from CATO Institute, is our client in the lawsuit against the Department of Defense. Under FOIA, any regular person may request records from government agencies. If the agency refuses to produce the requested records in violation of the law we can step in and file suit. In this case we are suing to force the release of records, namely the Pentagon’s internal investigative report of the debacle.

The short version of the story is that Bill Binney created a program, ThinThread, that would have detected the 9/11 attacks before they occurred. Binney was not as popular as other people at NSA though so instead of using his program the NSA went with another program, Trailblazer. Trailblazer was a massive failure costing the American taxpayers untold millions of dollars. And it obviously did not help the NSA prevent the 9/11 attacks.

3) While I am not well acquainted with the facts of the case, the reporting I have seen makes me extremely skeptical that Epstein killed himself. This was an instance where our legal system did not inspire as much confidence as I would have liked.