Leahy | Impeachment and the ongoing importance of the Freedom of Information Act – Bennington Banner

By Sen. Patrick Leahy

Last Tuesday night, just as Senate Republicans voted to blindfold the Senate from key witnesses and evidence during the Senate's impeachment trial of President Trump, even more damaging bits and pieces of his illegal Ukraine aid freeze spilled into public view thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. These documents - heavily and inappropriately redacted by the Trump administration - shed light on just how much more information remains hidden about the alleged misconduct for which the President has been impeached. And it is Congress's constitutional obligation - not as Republicans or Democrats, but as a coequal branch of government - to fight systematic efforts to keep us and the American people in the dark.

Although a lot of news coverage has focused on the president's alleged abuse of power by using his public office for personal gain, I believe his wholesale obstruction of a co-equal branch's constitutional oversight responsibilities merits equal attention, as it threatens a fundamental premise underlying our democracy.

No other president in our history has engaged in such a complete stonewalling of Congress. Throughout the impeachment inquiry and trial, the president directed Executive Branch officials not to cooperate at all, and through overly aggressive classification efforts and baseless executive privilege claims, not a single subpoenaed document was turned over. Numerous key witnesses defied Congress and followed the president's instruction. President Trump isn't even working to hide this obstruction. As he boasted earlier this week, "we have all the material. They don't have the material."

Despite this obstruction, some of the very documents President Trump kept hidden from Congress and the American people have recently been made public through FOIA. FOIA empowers the public to request and obtain information from the federal government. Using FOIA, organizations like American Oversight have obtained documents that - despite the Trump administration's rampant abuse of FOIA exemptions and redactions - show White House staff laying the groundwork for the unlawful aid delay the day before, and even during, President Trump's infamous July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president.

As the son of Vermont printers, I've worked for decades to improve government transparency, in particular through FOIA. The American people have a right to know what their government is doing. This transparency is necessary to hold our government to account, to ensure it acts in the public interest and follows the law, and to understand what happened if the government falls short. That is especially true if, as the House has alleged, taxpayer money has been used, in violation of the law, to extract a personal favor for the president.

But even when FOIA works perfectly, it was never meant to replace Congress's oversight authority, which is deeply rooted in the Constitution. Republicans and Democrats alike have agreed: Congress, by virtue of its constitutional mandate and position of public responsibility, should receive more information than the FOIA statute requires, not less.

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That the Trump administration provided documents to private FOIA litigants but refused to provide those very same documents to Congress should offend all members of Congress. Such obstruction is an affront to our Constitution's carefully calibrated system of checks and balances that have defined our fragile but, so far, durable democracy for more than two centuries.

The House of Representatives tried valiantly to obtain these documents from President Trump, but was stonewalled at every turn. Now the Senate has the chance to serve as the check and balance on the executive branch it is meant to be - and compel the Trump administration to provide us with the basic transparency that we deserve as a coequal branch, and that we need to uncover the whole truth.

As Congressman Adam Schiff, who is the lead House Manager prosecuting President Trump, pointed out this week, this information is going to get out one way or another. Through FOIA, through good journalism, or through John Bolton's forthcoming book, the American people will ultimately learn the full story. If Senate Republicans bury their heads in the sand now which will forever damage the Senate and do nothing to heal the country they do not even know the extent of what they're covering up.

During the Senate trial, President Trump will have the opportunity to present evidence that he has thus far kept hidden. That includes key documents and critical witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the president's actions, including John Bolton, the president's former National Security Adviser. Bolton described the Trump administration's efforts in Ukraine as "a drug deal" and said this week he would testify before the Senate if asked. If any of the evidence that the President has thus far kept under wraps helps his case, I would think he would seize this opportunity. If he does not, the Senate consistent with its constitutional duties can and should compel cooperation from the President and relevant witnesses. We can do so with just 51 votes. And that means just four Republican senators.

FOIA continues to play a critical role in shining a light on government misconduct. And I will continue to work hard to improve compliance with the letter and spirit of that law. But FOIA is no substitute for the Senate's constitutional duty to pursue the truth and to impartially weigh the impeachment charges presented to it. At stake is whether the president can be permitted to keep both the Senate and American people in the dark, to stand beyond the reach of accountability for his actions. In our democracy, no one not even a president is above the law.

The Senate's actions in the days and weeks ahead will shape our system of checks and balances for decades to come. FOIA is doing its job, and slowly, steadily exposing pieces of the truth. Now senators must do theirs and demand all of it.

Patrick Leahy (D) is Vermont's senior United States Senator, the vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and the dean of the Senate. He has long been Congress's leading champion of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and in 1996 was inducted into the FOIA Hall of Fame.

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Leahy | Impeachment and the ongoing importance of the Freedom of Information Act - Bennington Banner