A federal judge is ordered The Army plans to release records related to former President Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery in late August and a reported confrontation between Trump staff and cemetery officials.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman on Tuesday asked the Army and Defense Department to “make timely decisions” on previous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records requests sought by government ethics watchdog American Oversight. The preliminary injunction was granted. by a monitoring group connected to the reported crash, according to court documents.
“Defendants must submit corresponding non-exempt records by October 25, 2024,” Friedman said in Tuesday's filing.
Arlington National Cemetery is under jurisdiction of the army.
American Oversight said in a filing earlier this month that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in late August. [Arlington National Cemetery (ANC)] They are searching for records that could shed light on what happened on the day of President Trump's visit to Arlington.
“Specifically, American Oversight requested any reports, including incident reports, regarding the alleged incident,” American Oversight said in an earlier filing. “This request will collect records, to the extent that they exist, regarding the ANC's efforts to enforce and investigate potentially inappropriate political activity where it is prohibited by law.”
The watchdog group said that although they “promptly submitted FOIA requests and subsequent requests for expedited processing,” the Army and Defense Department “did not respond to requests for expedited processing and received no response from the ANC regarding the reported clashes.” We have not received any records.” .
In response to American Oversight's request, government lawyers said in subsequent filings that proceeding with the watchdog group's request would “effectively pre-empt other FOIA requests” being worked on by the Army and State Department. It will be possible to go.” defense.
“Rather, the plain language of the FOIA's expedited processing provisions requires agencies to process FOIA expedited processing requests 'as soon as practicable' and does not place a limit on processing time,” the attorneys wrote. said.
Hill reached out to the Army, Department of Justice, Arlington National Cemetery, American Oversight and the Trump campaign for comment.
