no, we have a sworn declaration from the chief foia officer of the fbi. they were classified at the time comey wrote them. lou: and while that may not be determinant, i suppose at some point forward in litigation should it come to that, it is determinant in the case of foia and gives us a clear understanding it would seem the thinking of the fbi as to the level of classification for all of those memorandum. >> well it's also mishandling of national defense information which is a crime so it's clear that mr. comey not only authored those documents but then knowing ly and willfully leaked them to persons unauthorized which is in and of itself a national security crime. mr. comey should have been read his rights back on june 8 when he testified before the senate. lou: and he's not been read his rights yet? he's not been charged yet. who would be the charging party would it be the fbi itself or -- >> or the attorney general of the united states the department of justice would bring an indictment once they get a grand jury but the investigative process of cour

he's reassigned staff throughout the building to help as part of what he calls a foia surge. now many of those assigned include senior employees who used to be detailed to other agencies, or offices created by president obama as pollsy priorities, which the trump administration does not support. now the state department denies political retribution is involved. spokeswoman heather nauert says it's an all hands on deck effort. in a statement to cnn nauert says, quote, it may not be a glamorous job but it's an important one. people are asked to serve there because there's a need. it is without regard to politics. and many of these employees are saying, we're happy to help, but they want to be given substantive work on these issues like handling classified information, or dealing with foreign governments named in the documents. they want to know why they are being asked to do the most menial of the tasks. they ask how could they be negotiating foreign governments or advising the national security adviser, even the president on national security matters a few months ago, now they

on its face, section 104 of that legislation also imported the agency's interpretation of the foia law but widening it to include the safety and effectiveness of data rejected, withdrawn, or abandoned but also approved ones as well. then congressman henry waxman sponsored the addition of the disclosure provision to the bill. after it was passed in the house, however, then commissioner of the fda frank young wrote to senator hatch, advising that the fda would consider that the extraordinary circumstances test would have been met provided the sponsor demonstrated the data had ongoing commercial value. the fundamental point here is less about where the fda ended up and more about the discretion that the agency continuously exercised about what is and what is not cci. court decisions through the 1980s and beyond constrained that discretion, but so too has the agency gained a statutory mandate from congress to disclose safety alerts, warning lerts letters, as well as, quote, other materials deemed relevant by the fda to the question of drug safety. implementing the blueprints recommendation

request documents from the trump administration, you might want to consider putting in a parallel foia request as that may be the only way you get a response. despite the administration's best efforts to stonewall the bob murray action plan, however, my office was able to obtain a copy from an independent source. this version is addressed to vice president pence. "the new york times" has now published the bob murray action plan and i ask unanimous consent to append the article that they wrote, "how a coal baron's wish list became president trump's to-do list," and the bob murray action plan that was the subject of that story at the conclusion of these remarks in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. the article details demands made by murray that have already been checked off by the president and the administration, including the repeal of the clean power plan, withdrawal from the paris climate agreement, the installation of mining industry operatives at the mine, healthy administration and even the appointment of a possible fue

about the server that could potentially be in the statute of limitations because when there was a foia request, she deleted certain emails and certain actions took place after she left as secretary of state. certainly if it is within the statute that is important, then it can be reopened and prosecuted and that's the other investigation that "the hill" reported was still looked at. it was the foundation as well as the clinton server issue again. cheryl: yeah, and the two are very connected unfortunately. that is where i think the wires are crossing here. david, great to have you on this. >> great to see you. cheryl: it is good bye "bomb cyclone" and hello arctic temperatures across much of the country today. the northeast is digging out and dealing with flooding after yesterday's powerful storm as millions of americans brace themselves for a weekend of extreme cold. we've got team coverage with all the details coming up next. cheryl: extreme weather right now, a snowstorm with hurricane-force wind called a "bomb cyclone" rocking new england during high tide causing unprecedented floodi

i think a lot of these people being assigned to what they called foia office, say they don't mind doinge work but they do mind sitting along interns or people who have just been at the state department for one year, where i have a law degree, i've been here 15 years, i should be doing something commensurate with my experience. so seems to be very ad hoc where these people are being placed. so give me something i can really do. don't make me waste away in what a lot of people are calling siberia, fred. >> all right, elise, thank you so much. >>> still more questions than answers surrounding this week's school shooting that left two dead and a kentucky community reeling. we're live on the ground after this. how do you win at business? stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com tens of millions of people have switched to unlimited on america's most awarded network. verizon? whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. vince, not yet. it's the network rated

i know of some reporters have have been trying to get freedom of -- foia requests in.ington and other places and they can't get them. >> donald has spent his entire life thumbing his nose at the law. >> you have a chapter called "go foia yourself. ". >> yes. donald trump has spent his whole life thumbing his nose at the law. in my previous book i pointed out how he spent years entangled with an international drug trafficker and there's no explanation for why he would do what he did although everything he did makes sense if he was in business with this drug trafficker. donald trump has had two sooifl civil trials for tax fraud. he's been found by a judge to have engaged in a conspiracy to cheat workers out of their pay. the man spent his entire life being a con artist and he runs the white house the same way and he doesn't know anything. the single most important thing is donald trump will tell you "i'm smart, i'm like a smart person." no, he's not. he wasn't smart when i met him in 1988 and he's appallingly ignorant. he doesn't know a sunni from a shi'a and why it matt

he has reassigned staff throughout the building to help as part of a foia surge.state department denies political retribution is involved. a spokeswoman says it is an all hands on deck effort. it is an important job. people are asked to serve there because there is a need. it is without regard to politics. and many of these employees are saying we're happy to help but they want to be given sub stannive work like handling classified information or dealing with foreign governments names in the documents. they want to know why they are being asked to do the most medial of tasks. how could they be advising the national security advisor, even the president on national security matters a few months ago and now being asked to do data entry alongside interns and civil servants ten grades below them. officials can see this may not be entirely about politics. it could also be simple mismanagement. but it contributes to a widespread moral department that lawmakers are demanding be looked at. >> thank you. one more mote, the crack down on corruption in saudi arabia, including

this was foiaed by judicial watch. >> laura: so your view is that there was deletion of emails, none at the department of state, when she was there, none of that was in any way problematic? i mean comey thought it was problematic. >> she has said it was dumb. >> laura: comey originally said it was -- >> -- i think prejudging it. i think you say he watered it down. >> laura: let's go to peter schweizer who wrote a book. you heard what philip said about this, if you want to do it, broaden the investigation into general email practices and then we will talk about the clinton foundation. >> yeah, no. i mean i think that's a good idea. i think there is a fundamental difference. there's a difference when collin paul as secretary of state was using an aol account occasionally for correspondence and setting up your own private server. why do you sit up a private server? if you have the aol account you can delete it on your laptop. it's on a server back at aol. the reason you set up a server, i believe the reason the clintons did is precisely because of what they did. they deleted 33,000 emai

but we have foia.e case of google which is the portal through which people understand reality increasingly, you don't know things if they're not on google. google has jittered its search results to eliminate concepts that it disagrees with, political concepts. this is not a fever dream of mine. this is a fact which is proven. if you don't believe it, play with google for half an hour. they have changed the search results to disappear ideas they don't like. so why is that not terrifying to the prospect of running a democracy that requires an informed citizenry. i don't understand why that's not scary. >> that's a fair question. let's make one thing very clear. no one is compelling you to use google. >> tucker: i understand that argument. >> it is disturbing. i don't like it when they do that. i have raised this with google executives time and time again. i have made inquiries as the chairman of the anti-trust subcommittee in the senate with regard to google. but as of right now, google, of course, is no

was at that point, they decide to change it from cia to the center for international affairs, see foia, they preferred. same idea. so the idea was though that would be hitting with the icbms into the interior, deep into the interior and are aces, but they would correlate that attack with short range of medium-range missiles, cruise missiles from submarines cost basis at our command and control. the submarines would be very close in a very short flight types. they can essentially no warning time. that phenomenon is still a factor in our analysis of both sides. so okay, it's going to be a coordinated attack, and the best time for such an attack would be in august for various weather conditions and so forth on a moonless night about midnight, coordinating this. i look out my window at rand which is right above muscle beach in santa monica, looking out at the ocean. it was a moonless night and it was about midnight. i looked at my watch and this brutal expression of hairs on the back of my head rising i remember it from the time that she'll actually, this could be the night basically, or a

finally releases the first few months of pruitt's calendars in response to a foia request, that's when we learned that he was meeting with scores of industry fat cats and almost no environmental groups. as for his travels, we only find out about them after the fact, which of course prevents the press from covering pruitt, saying when he jets off to morocco to lobby for american natural gas producers. one of my republican colleagues on e.p.w. might want to ask pruitt why he is jetting around the world, playing commerce secretary for the fossil fuel industry when he should be working here at home in america to protect people's health and their environment. what does governor kean have to say about pruitt's industry ties? quote, he has elevated cronyism to new heights, end quote. governor kean's words, not mine. in an interview with huff post just this past friday, mr. ruckelshaus echoed this concern that pruitt cares more about his political ties than protecting the environment. he is just like trump, he said. he has an ideological approach to it, an approach that affects the large contr

all children were meant to be transferred over by 2015, but an foia has found the majority of councils to try and hit it. when it happens, it is children who are paying the price. it is the biggest reform to special educational needs support in a generation and since 2014 the clock has been ticking. councils were given 43 months to transfer all children off the old system of statements, to receive new, improved educational health and care plans. so how is that shaking up?m educational health and care plans. so how is that shaking up? it is a mess, a complete mess. it is a com plete mess, a complete mess. it is a complete and utter disaster. racher complete and utter disaster. rachel‘s youngest daughter has autism, and has struggled out of school for three years. it was meant to ta ke school for three years. it was meant to take 20 weeks to assess her for a new support plan. today, they are in week 54, and still no plan or support in place. the medical assessment wasn‘t done, and the social care assessment wasn‘t done. you had to crowd fund to get the right assessment. we did, we did ha

my group filed a foia request for gsa for the travel reports on because all agencies are required to file them and gsa give the sleaziest response, they said, you have to request it from each of the agencies, even though we haven't all here, and denied the request. it was despicable. so i think that these people that they were going to operate in darkness, and then a couple of reporters from politico, they were sticking out in airport and caught secretary price, and suddenly these decisions are exposed to the public and now to agencies have said that the documentation is in adequate and these people just said, yes, i think it meets the standard, and they just -- in the standard without justifying it. so i think there is real danger for that. i even saw a distinction among the ethics officials where some stood their ground and tried to apply the same standards to these incoming appointees, who had gotten the message that ethics does not matter. and others just cave like what ever i cannot think of a good analogy, whatever caves. and i found myself having to give them pep talks or snar

was a colleague who david knew socially in washington, and he wrote part of the privacy act and the foiaedom of information act. so i, my brother and i are this intersection between secrecy and the intelligence community on the one hand and then freedom of information on the other hand. and now here we are in this christopher steele thing, and in this age of information, and so i would love to hear david talk about, you know, the balance between these two things. and just as an idea, i would love to see the pentagon and the cia create an office of creative history or some kind of place where writers like my brother and historians could go and present their information and get, i don't know, you know, like a seal of approval or something saying, yes, this is valid, this is not. something like that. i know you understand what i'm saying. and lastly, i just want david to talk about the new crop of journalists that are coming up out of this russiagate thing that he's on television with all the time and how great they're doing, these 30 and 40-year-old journalists and just talk about, you kno

how much of the fbi be getting through a foia in this process?d they be allowing text messages to be bad for you to the bottom of this? >> pete, this is an extraordinary situation. we are dealing with a president accused of colluding with russian and normally i would be like i always was in the fbi to say don't turn over a lot of things when you have these kinds of inquiries. in this situation, this is unique in our history and they have to turn over everything they have and react to getting the facts. the best reason to turn this over how this memo released in the house of representatives is to start getting some of the facts out there. i don't think we know everything going on and i certainly think americans want to know, do we have an ongoing problem and did we have a problem with our president? what is going to happen here as we are going to get this memo out and eventually this string of these two cases, whichever he collided with one another is going to explode on the scene and we will find that this is something that nobody predicted early