Federal judge was right to reject Obama's 'secret law' claim

By WASHINGTON EXAMINER | DECEMBER 18, 2013

President Obama has become something not even his harshest critics would have predicted before the 2008 election – the most secretive chief executive in memory. No prior occupant of the Oval Office ever went before a federal judge and claimed an executive privilege to issue a presidential directive as a “secret law” governing every American citizen but that is available to be read only by his closest advisors. The president who promised at the outset of his White House tenure that his would be “the most transparent administration in history” has now been unmasked as the very opposite of what he vowed.

 

Incredibly enough, issuing secret laws is exactly what Obama claimed the right to do, according to U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle, who ruled against the president in Center for Effective Government v U.S. Department of State, et. al. Huvelle - who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Bill Clinton - observed in her ruling that “the government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the president should be permitted to convey orders throughout the executive branch without public oversight - to engage in what is in effect governance by secret law.” Thus, Huvelle said, “the court rejects the government's unwarranted expansion of the presidential communication privilege at the expense of the public's interest in disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act …”…..To Read More…..