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A new report from the Heritage Foundation has revealed that the Oversight Project has filed new lawsuits against the U.S. DOJ and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) due to both agencies’ failure to cooperate with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Per the report, the FOIA requests asked NARA to provide communication records between the Biden administration, the DOJ, the FBI, President Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, staff, and NARA. Communications between NARA and Trump’s staff at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower were requested as well.
The lawsuits come on the heels of scandalous allegations of a two-tiered justice system aimed at politically persecuting President Donald Trump. In early August, the 45th president’s private home in Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI, and an ongoing legal duel between the DOJ and Trump’s team has ensued.
According to the Heritage Foundation’s report, Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project, made the following statement regarding the lawsuits:
“The DOJ is conducting this investigation in an overtly partisan and corrupt manner. The authorized leaks and selective disclosures discredit their entire basis for withholding other information from valid requests such as ours. There is simply no valid ongoing investigation exemption for the communications we are seeking. The American people have a right to these communications, and the administration must turn them over.”
Howell further stated that Biden’s administration was “ripping the fabric of this country apart at the seams over a document retention issue…”
Per RSBN, the former director of NARA, David Ferriero, previously told the House Oversight Committee in early 2022 that his organization had been in touch with the DOJ ahead of the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, concerning information about Trump’s so-called “classified” documents.
Interestingly, Ferriero declined to communicate with the DOJ in 2015 when Hillary Clinton’s more than 30,000 work emails were called into question, illustrating what appeared to be a double standard between how Clinton was treated and how Trump has been treated.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, stated on Twitter, “Bill Clinton kept sensitive tapes in his sock drawer and didn’t turn them over to National Archives. @JudicialWatch sued and DOJ/National Archives/Court told us that he had a right to keep anything he wanted and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. #TrumpWasRight[.]”
Howell’s statement further contended that in regard to the communications between NARA and multiple agencies, “Failure to obtain and turn over these materials is an unacceptable double standard and another reason Americans across the political spectrum are losing trust in the Department of Justice.”