Judicial Watch today released a 17-page draft Vaughn Index document obtained from the U.S. Department of State on May 1, revealing that the Obama administration is still refusing to provide the full details of how top officials arrived at the now-discredited talking points released to the public following the deadly assault on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. The new documents, containing more than 50 paragraphs of justifications to withhold information, were obtained in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Action (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch, Inc., v. U.S. Department of State, (Civil Action No. 13-cv-00951 (EGS)) filed on June 21, 2013. A Vaughn Index is a document prepared by a federal agency to justify and detail the withholding of material from public disclosure. The State Department sent the Benghazi draft Vaughn Index to Judicial Watch on May 1, 2014, in accordance with a court order of October 1, 2013. The new document seeks to justify withholding internal exchanges within the Obama administration about the Benghazi attack dating back to a September 11, 2013, interagency email exchange containing redactions of an opinion offered on how to respond Benghazi attack updates. Though the State Department document repeatedly describes the material as Unclassified or Sensitive But Unclassified, it nonetheless justifies scores of extensive redactions and exemptions. The majority of material in the draft Vaughn Index document pertains to various drafts, and comments related to the drafts, of a proposed letter from United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN) Ambassador Susan Rice in response to various Congressional inquiries regarding the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. The internal debate about the Rice response apparently continued until October 30, 2012. The material obtained by Judicial Watch included the following descriptions related to redacted or exempted material:................
Posted on: Thu, 08 May 2014 19:28:26 +0000
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