Blumenthal, Menendez, Booker & Gillibrand Demand Transparency From Department of Justice on Use of State Secrets Privilege
Lack of accountability and reporting “frustrates meaningful and effective congressional oversight,” the senators wrote
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to increase transparency and accountability surrounding the use of the government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege. While the state secrets privilege is meant to prevent disclosure of government information when national security interests are at stake, a 2009 memo by then-Attorney General Eric Holder stated that DOJ would provide periodic reports to Congress on all cases in which the Department invokes the privilege. However, DOJ has not provided the Senate Judiciary Committee with a report since 2015, and has only provided two reports since the 2009 memorandum was issued.
“While ‘periodic’ is not defined in the 2009 memorandum, it should be plainly obvious that intervals—now more than six years since the last report on file was submitted—by which DOJ has provided these reports to Congress frustrates meaningful and effective congressional oversight,” the senators wrote in the letter. “That DOJ does not appear to have submitted periodic reports is further inconsistent with DOJ’s commitment to ensuring greater accountability and reliability in the invocation of the privilege and to strengthening public confidence.”
The senators called for the Department to provide consistent reports to Congress when invoking the privilege, and demanded DOJ begin adhering to the commitments made in the 2009 memorandum.
“The periodic reports that DOJ has committed to providing Congress…are critical to congressional oversight and understanding of whether it was properly and appropriately invoked….Accordingly, we write to request information about the Department’s periodic reports and referrals to the Inspector General, and to request that the Department promptly begin adhering to the commitments it made in the 2009 policy.”
The full text of the letter can be found here .
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