The State Department is about to get inundated once more with FOIA requests. Anyone anticipating an “FOIA surge” this time around? You may download the documents here, the first set in a court-ordered document production via American Oversight.
The November 1 court order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the State Department must search for and produce by November 22, 2019 records from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl containing any readouts or summaries of President Trump’s July call with the President of Ukraine.
We’ve looked through a hundred pages of these newly released documents, and while the most notable are the telephone calls between Mr. Giuliani and the secretary of state (two calls referred to in the Hale deposition), there does not appear to be any documents specific to readouts and summaries of the July 25 call.
So, how soon do you think before we’ll see those documents?
But the department’s obstruction efforts could be crumbling. Friday is the deadline for the agency to release several categories of documents included in our lawsuit for records related to Ukraine, Giuliani, and the recall of Amb. Marie Yovanovitch: https://t.co/SypBioCSqH
— American Oversight (@weareoversight) November 20, 2019
The State Department released documents to us late Friday night showing that Secretary Pompeo was in touch with Rudy Giuliani before Ambassador Yovanovitch’s recall — and that at one point Trump’s personal secretary helped put them in touch. https://t.co/CjJflQYQqp
— American Oversight (@weareoversight) November 24, 2019
Before removing Yovanovitch, Pompeo looked into the accusations Giuliani & others were pushing. He called Hannity of Fox & asked for details, then concluded “there was no evidence,” said David Hale, a top State Dept. official. Yet Pompeo complied w/ Trump to oust his ambassador.
— Edward Wong (@ewong) November 24, 2019
NEW: Emails, letters & interviews with Giuliani show how @SecPompeo helped oust the respected US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Pompeo’s central role in Trump’s Ukraine scheme becomes clearer. w/ @kenvogel. https://t.co/SBGR9vMdoi
— Edward Wong (@ewong) November 24, 2019
The NYT story on the Rudy-State docs makes a significant error. It claims that Madeleine Westerhout helped set up the FIRST call between Rudy and Pompeo. That's wrong. Westerhout was in the loop on the SECOND call, not the first one. https://t.co/MlNQ3uRtQx pic.twitter.com/UYu0sriLNX
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) November 24, 2019