Washington AG turns over records and clears the air

A Seattle community group achieved a multi-layer victory, the Seattle Times reports, by securing the disclosure of e-mail messages from the state attorney general’s office, collecting attorney’s fees and clearing up concerns that the attorney general might have been involved in a settlement between the Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 

The Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town filed suit earlier this year against the attorney general’s office seeking copies of agency e-mail records concerning a settled legal dispute between Seattle’s two daily newspapers.  The atttorney general agreed last week to turn over the e-mail records and pay $3,500 in attorney’s fees. 

According to the Times, the e-mail messages released give no indication of any involvement by Attorney General Rob McKenna in the papers’ settlement talks, "and contain no hint of any secret deal between the newspaper companies."