Leahy accuses Bush of shortchanging new FOIA law

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) criticized the White House Monday for an item in the proposed FY09 budget that puts the new FOIA office, originally slated to be in the National Archives, in the Justice Department instead.

“Now the president has repealed part of the law he signed just over a month ago,” Leahy said in a statement Monday. “We will continue to work in Congress to make necessary reforms to the Freedom of Information Act.”

The purpose of putting the new office in the archives rather than the Justice Department, Leahy said, was to avoid the inherent conflict of interest that exists when the department mitigates records requests between the public and the government.