Watchdog Group Sues Obama White House Over Secrecy

Agence France Presse

A watchdog group seeking greater transparency in government on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Barack Obama administration for failing to disclose a list of high-power business executives who visited the White House.

In filing its suit, the nonprofit group "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington" (CREW) accused the Obama White House of adopting the same lack of transparency of which the George W. Bush administration was frequently accused.

At issue is a list of executives from the coal industry who have been to the White House and to the official residence of Vice President Joseph Biden since Obama's January 20 inauguration.

The filing was made "because President Obama has been a proponent of clean coal, and we wanted to know to what extent these people had an influence on the formulation of the administration energy policy," said Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel.

Weismann said that the administration's refusal to produce the names is very similar to actions by the Bush White House, which refused to divulge the names of participants at an energy task force, which included powerful oil executives, held at the White House.

Weismann compared Obama administration policy to that of the Bush White House, which critics said was too secretive.

But unlike Bush, she said, Obama had campaigned on a pledge of greater openness during his administration.

"I don't see how you can say, I'm committed to transparency but I'm not going to let the public know who comes to my house doing official business with me," she said.

Meanwhile, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs on Tuesday refuted charges of secretiveness, but said the White House is reviewing previous administration's handling of similar requests.

"Visitor logs have been involved in some litigation dating back to sometime in 2006," Gibbs said.

"The White House is reviewing that policy based on some of that litigation.

Gibbs added: "The president underscored his commitment to transparency on his first full day in office.

"This is not a contest between this administration or that administration or any administration. It's to uphold the principle of open government," he said.

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