Mediaboss Marketing

President Obama gives a final press conference of 2016.

Last Updated Mar 14, 2017 8:06 AM EDT

WASHINGTON-- The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government.

For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldnt find a single page of files that were requested.

And it set records for outright denial of access to files, refusing to quickly consider requests described as especially newsworthy, and forcing people to pay for records who had asked the government to waive search and copy fees.

The government acknowledged when challenged that it had been wrong to initially refuse to turn over all or parts of records in more than one-third of such cases, the highest rate in at least six years.

In courtrooms, the number of lawsuits filed by news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act surged during the past four years, led by the New York Times, Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press, according to a litigation study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The AP on Monday settled its 2015 lawsuit against the State Department for files about Hillary Clintons time as secretary of state, at APs request, and received $150,546 from the department to cover part of its legal fees.

The AP has pending lawsuits against the FBI for records about its decision to impersonate an AP journalist during a criminal investigation and about who helped the FBI hack into a mass shooting suspects iPhone and how much the government paid to do it.

Of the $36.2 million in legal costs fighting such lawsuits last year, the Justice Department accounted for $12 million, the Homeland Security Department for $6.3 million and the Pentagon for $4.8 million. The three departments accounted for more than half the governments total records requests last year.

The figures reflect the final struggles of the Obama administration during the 2016 election to meet President Barack Obamas pledge that it was the most transparent administration in history, despite wide recognition of serious problems coping with requests under the information law. It received a record 788,769 requests for files last year and spent a record $478 million answering them and employed 4,263 full-time FOIA employees across more than 100 federal departments and agencies. That was higher by 142 such employees the previous year.

A spokesman for former President Obama did not immediately respond to an email request for comment late Monday. The White House under Obama routinely defended its efforts under the information law in recent years and said federal employees worked diligently on such requests for records.

It remains unclear how President Donald Trumps administration will perform under the Freedom of Information Act or other measures of government transparency. Trump has not spoken extensively about transparency. In his private business and his presidential campaign, Trump required employees and advisers to sign non-disclosure agreements that barred them from discussing their work. His administration has barred some mainstream news organizations from campaign rallies and one White House press briefing. And Trump broke with tradition by refusing to disclose his tax returns.

Trumps secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is traveling to Asia this week on a small plane without a contingent of journalists or a designated pool reporter who would send reports to the broader diplomatic press corps, departing from 50 years of practice.

Overall, in the final year of Obamas administration, people who asked for records last year under the law received censored files or nothing in 77 percent of requests, about the same as the previous year. In the first full year after Obamas election, that figure was only 65 percent of cases. The government released the new figures in the days ahead of Sunshine Week, which ends Sunday, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

Under the records law, citizens and foreigners can compel the U.S. government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas.

2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

See more here:
Obama admin spent $36M on lawsuits to keep info secret - CBS News

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that President Donald Trump doesnt really think that Barack Obama tapped his phone personally, seeming to walk back Trumps explosive and unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor ordered an illegal wiretap of Trump Tower.

He doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally, Spicer told reporters at the afternoon press briefing.

Story Continued Below

Spicer tried to argue that Trump had accused the Obama administration of general surveillance activities, and not a literal wiretap, even though Trump himself had use the term wire tapping in one of several tweets making the claim without evidence on March 4. Spicer claimed that the fact that Trump put quotation marks around the words wire tapping in one tweet was proof that he was not speaking literally.

I think there is no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election. That is a widely-reported activity that occurred back then, Spicer said. The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that.

He added: It is interesting how many news outlets reported that this activity was taking place during the 2016 election cycle, and now we're wondering where the proof is. It is many of the same outlets in this room that talked about the activities that were going on back then.

It is unclear what reports Spicer was referring to. News outlets have reported that intelligence officials have been investigating whether there were inappropriate ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. As part of the probe into the countrys suspected attempts to meddle in the election and regular surveillance on Russias ambassador, they have reportedly intercepted communications between some campaign aides and Russian officials.

But no credible mainstream American outlets have reported that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump Tower or the Trump campaign, whether in the form of a court-ordered wiretap or something else.

Last week, Trumps tweets drew immediate criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who demanded that Trump provide proof to back up his claim, especially after both Obama and his former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, publicly denied that it was true. Trump still has not provided any evidence to support it, though the White House has instead called on the House and Senate intelligence agencies to investigate it.

The tweets had explicitly accused Obama of ordering a wiretap of Trumps phones.

Is it legal for a sitting President to be wire tapping a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! Trump said in one.

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election! said another.

The third: How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

Follow this link:
Spicer: Trump 'doesn't really think' Obama wiretapped him ...

Traffic flows past Trump Tower in New York in November 2016. The Trump administration wants more time to produce evidence that then-President Barack Obama ordered surveillance on Donald Trump during last year's election. Trump says his predecessor ordered his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower. Mark Lennihan/AP hide caption

Traffic flows past Trump Tower in New York in November 2016. The Trump administration wants more time to produce evidence that then-President Barack Obama ordered surveillance on Donald Trump during last year's election. Trump says his predecessor ordered his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower.

Updated 6:30 p.m. ET

The Justice Department has asked for more time to respond to a congressional committee about any evidence that President Barack Obama ordered surveillance of then-candidate Donald Trump last year, as Trump has claimed.

The House Intelligence Committee had set the deadline of Monday in a letter to Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente last week in which it asked for proof of the claim, which Obama and others have said is baseless.

Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and ranking Democrat Adam Schiff requested any applications for surveillance of Trump or his associates that were made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any court orders supporting such surveillance made by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, NPR's David Welna reports.

David adds that a copy of the letter also was sent to FBI Director James Comey, who has asked the Justice Department to publicly deny President Trump's claims.

The Justice Department issued this statement Monday:

"This afternoon, the Department of Justice placed calls to representatives of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to ask for additional time to review the request in compliance with the governing legal authorities and to determine what if any responsive documents may exist."

The wiretapping claims came as the House Intelligence Committee was already in the process of looking into U.S. allegations that Russia sought to influence last year's presidential election allegations that have also included ties between some in Trump's camp and Russian officials. Nunes has said the panel will also look at the president's accusation.

Sen. John McCain is among those who have asked for proof of Trump's claim, telling CNN on Sunday, "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or ... provide the information that the American people deserve, because, if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least."

Monday's deadline came more than a week after Trump said Obama "was tapping my phones in October," in a series of tweets that accused his predecessor of "McCarthyism" and called Obama a "Bad (or sick) guy!"

Trump did not provide any evidence to bolster his claim; instead, the White House released a statement calling for Congress to investigate the allegations made by one president against another.

As NPR's David Folkenflik has reported, Trump's claim is seen as having its origins in a March 2 broadcast by conservative talk radio host Mark Levin, who accused Obama "and his surrogates" of using "intelligence activities to surveil members of the Trump campaign" to help Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. After that, David said, the claim was repeated by the Breitbart website.

"That seems to have inspired, very directly, a series of tweets," Folkenflik said.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis says the Obama White House observed a policy against interfering with "any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice."

Lewis added, "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

The morning after Trump made his claim, principal deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about it on ABC's This Week; here's what she said: "Look, I think he is going off of information that he's saying that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential."

Continued here:
Trump Administration Asks For More Time To Provide Proof That ...

WASHINGTON -- The White House has yet to provide any evidence to backPresident Trumps claim that President Obama tapped his phone during the campaign. On Monday, the story changed, with Mr. Trumps spokesman saying the alleged eavesdropping may not have involved a telephone.

President Trump again ignored questions about what evidence he has to back up a week-old claim on twitter that President Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower.

I think if you look at the presidents tweet, he said very clearly wire-tapping in quotes, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

A series of tweets from President Trump allege that former President Obama wire tapped phones at Trump Tower.

CBS Evening News

So, according to Spicer, that could mean any type of surveillance.

Spicer said Mr. Trumps tweets spoke for themselves. The first and second did put wire tapping in quotes but the third and fourth did not -- and the fourth accused Mr. Obama of a crime similar to Watergate, calling him bad and sick.

Spicer said Mr. Trump hasnt directed the Department of Justice to turn over evidence requested by the House Intelligence Committee.

So youre saying Mr. Trump doesnt have an obligation to provide any evidence, CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett asked during Mondays White House press briefing.

No, Im not saying that at all, Spicer said. There is no question there have been an abundance of reports, regarding surveillance and other types of activities that occurred during the 2016 election.

Play Video

The Trump administration faces a deadline Monday to turn over evidence supporting the president's claim that his campaign phones were tapped by f...

Garret followed up saying, That leads us to believe that Mr. Trumps only evidence are these reports?

Spicer responded: No that leads you to believe that.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also said she has no evidence of the wiretapping.

There are many ways to surveil each othernow unfortunately, Conway said. There was an article this week that said you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets -- any number of different ways microwaves that turn into cameras, etc.

Play Video

John Dickerson, CBS News political director and anchor of "Face the Nation," gives his assessment of President Trump's first 50 days in office an...

In another interview, Conway clarified: Im not Inspector Gadget I dont believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. However, Im not in the job of having evidence.

It appears no one at the White House has that job: The one about providing evidence.

The Justice Department late Monday told CBS News that theyve asked the House Intelligence Committee for more time so it could determine what if any responsive documents may exist.

2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Go here to see the original:
New wrinkle on President Trump's claims of Obama wiretapping ...

Long after it seemed the issue of Barack Obamas birthplace was no longer an issue,thanks to his half-brother, the topic is back in the news again.

Malik Obama tweeted a copy of what he claims is a valid birth certificate proving that his half-brother was born not in the USA, but in Mombasa, Kenya.

It is likely that with the tweet, the subject will be picked up again in the fractured world of US politics, where right-wing opponents and conspiracy theorists of the former president have long claimed he was not born in the US.

MORE: Matt Damon was right Growing potatoes on Mars might work

MORE: Statue of ancient Egyptian ruler found in Cairo slum

The message has been re-tweeted more than 12,000 times

The certificate claims that Barack Obama was born in theCoast Province General Hospital in Mombasa, on August 4, 1961. The former president was born in Honolulu and has previously published a birth certificate to show he was born there on August 4, 1961. His birth details were also publishedin the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper.

Barack Obama has published proof of his US birth (Rex)

Malik has reportedly long had a strained relationship with his half-brother and has also publicly backed Donald Trump, one of the biggest voices of the birther movement. He also has accused his half-brother of not doing enough to help his Kenyan relatives.

The US Constitution says that only natural-born citizens can become President. If Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that would have disqualified him from becoming US president.

Malik Obamas tweet (Twitter)

Trump was one of the most prominent backers of the Birther movement who claimed in 2011, when he announced he was thinking of running as president, that he did not believe Obamas claims about being born in the US.

In 2012, he even offered $5 million for charity if Obama could prove where he was born, even though that was a year after Obama had published his long form birth certificate to certify that he was born in the US.

It was only last year that Trump conceded that Obama was born in the US. He then falsely accused Hillary Clinton of being behind the original rumour.

With the Trump administration carrying out attacks recently on Barack Obama, its not impossible that the issue could become sensitive again, despite the proof from the former president and the denial of the issue from the current one

Go here to see the original:
Why has Barack Obama's half-brother raised the "birther ...