via:CT
Under the leadership of President Barack Obama, transparency in government reached an epic low in mid-2016, when the Office of Government Ethics suddenly decided to remove thousands of documents from its website concerning the behavior of top presidential appointees such as Secretary of State John Kerry, among others.
In an exclusive report for The Daily Caller, investigative journalist Luke Rosiak explained that the OGE used to publicly share detailed disclosures that watchdog journalists, political activists and interested voters alike used to vet Obama’s appointees and track their behavior.
According to Rosiak, these disclosures were gone and have been replaced with dead links on the OGE website. Moreover, accessing a disclosure required filling out a “cumbersome online form,” which Rosiak did.
“The records that you requested are not maintained in the Office of Government Ethics,” the OGE reportedly replied to him.
That was shocking, to say the least — so shocking, in fact, that even liberals were disturbed.
“This is a problem,” Daniel Schuman, a policy analyst at the liberal group Demand Progress, told The Daily Caller. “They should put it back. It’s very odd there’s no explanation.”
John Wonderlich, head of a transparency group that previously praised Obama for having the “most transparent (administration) in history,” added that this was a “big step backward.”
“The administration should be demonstrating how digital disclosure should strengthen our accountability systems, and creating barriers to access is the opposite of progress,” he told The Daily Caller.
Why though would the OGE do such a thing? To protect Obama’s appointees from being busted for their shady behavior, of course. For instance, previously listed disclosures showed that Kerry had invested millions in offshore tax havens.
By removing the disclosures, the OGE just made it that much more difficult for the American people to spot corruption. Is this coincidence or conspiracy? You tell me.
Please share this story on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think about Obama’s Office of Government Ethics deleting thousands of records from its website!\
No comments:
Post a Comment