As High Court Prepares to Hear Oral Arguments in Obamacare Litigation, Judicial Watch Seeks Kagan’s Solicitor General Calendars, Agenda and Phone Logs
Judicial Watch
2/22/2012
As High Court Prepares to Hear Oral Arguments in Obamacare Litigation, Judicial Watch Seeks Kagan’s Solicitor General Calendars, Agenda and Phone Logs
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it filed a lawsuit against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking access to records related to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s role in Obamacare discussions while she served as President Obama’s Solicitor General (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:12 –cv-00277)).
Previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch have raised concerns about whether Justice Kagan should recuse herself from considering the Obamacare litigation when it goes before the High Court in March 2012.
Pursuant to its original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted to the DOJ’s Office of Information Policy and the Office of Solicitor General on December 7, 2011, Judicial Watch seeks access to the following information to help to determine if Justice Kagan and her top deputies participated in Obamacare meetings and phone calls:
All calendars, schedules, phone logs and agenda for each of the following individuals: (1) Elena Kagan; (2) Neal Katyal; (3) Edwin Kneedler; (4) Malcolm Stewart; and (5) Michael Dreeben.
Neal Katyal, Edwin Kneedler, Malcolm Stewart and Michael Dreeben all served as Deputy Solicitors General under Kagan. The time frame for this request is September 1, 2009, through August 31, 2010.
The Obama administration was required by law to respond to the FOIA request by January 25, 2012. However, to date, the Obama administration has neither released any records, nor provided an explanation as to why records should be withheld, nor given a date when a response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request will be forthcoming…
The article continues at Judicial Watch.
Read also, Kagan Must Recuse Herself from Obamacare Case by Sen. Jeff Sessions
…Previously undisclosed e-mails that the Justice Department has released pursuant to court order demonstrate Kagan’s direct involvement in the administration’s defense of the president’s health law from the very beginning. In January 2010, she assigned her chief and only political deputy, Neal Katyal, to the matter — the legal equivalent of a firm’s senior partner delegating work to a junior associate. That same month Katyal wrote in an e-mail to the associate attorney general’s office that “Elena would definitely like OSG [Office of Solicitor General] to be involved in this set of issues.” These actions alone constitute personal participation in the preparation of the case, and that is all §455(b)(3) requires to trigger mandatory recusal.
Kagan herself has admitted that she attended “at least one meeting” in which the case now before the Court was mentioned, but the e-mails show that she also was privy to discussions of the administration’s litigation strategy at least up until the announcement of her nomination on May 10, 2010…
Update: SCOTUS punts on Medicaid changes lawsuits and Obamacare decision will reshuffle political deck
