John Kerry’s office redacted every staffer name in FOIAed correspondence
- August 18, 2022
Houston Keene and Thomas Catenacci; Fox News
The office of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry redacted each of the names and emails of their staffers in emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Fox News Digital obtained the documents from government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), which revealed the correspondence between Kerry’s office and several recipients, including nearly 20 climate change groups.
PPT was only able to obtain the documents after suing Kerry’s office over unfulfilled FOIA requests. However, the emails have every staffer’s name and email redacted.
“It hardly seems in the public interest, in fact it appears the antithesis of serving the public interest, to hide the names of government officials who are communicating with controversial outside activist organizations that are attempting to influence government policy,” PPT director Michael Chamberlain told Fox News Digital.
“The State Department’s attempts to keep from the public the names of every one of their employees involved in these communications stands in stark contrast to the attorney general’s declaration that ‘transparency in government operations is a priority of this administration,'” Chamberlain continued.
“State’s attempts to conceal the identities of the officials participating in these conversations was so excessive they first attempted to conceal the name of the person whose documents we requested in the first place,” he added.