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Obama gun advisers already breaking rules
Attorney points out transparency requires notice before meetings
WND
Bob Unruh
1/7/2013
Excerpt:
Freedom Watch chief Larry Klayman, who founded Judicial Watch and made a name for himself suing Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and a slew of foreign dictators, is asking Barack Obama to play by the rules in his establishment of a team to advise him on gun control.
Klayman, whose cases against Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made headlines, became so well-known that a character in the TV series “West Wing,” Harry Klaypool, was based on his work.
Now he’s jumping all over the plan by Obama to have vice president Joe Biden head up a team to offer plans for gun control.
Obama has said a comprehensive approach is needed to reduce the nation’s gun violence – much more than just resurrecting a now-dead ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.
So he appointed Biden to a working group to look at proposals such as universal background checks for gun buyers, government tracking of the movement of weapons and stiffer penalties.
The reaction follows the massacre in Newtown, Conn., in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza is accused of killing his mother, then going to a nearby school and killing 20 children and another five adults.
Reports confirm White House aides have been collecting information and ideas from gun-control advocates such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The plan is for the Biden team to make recommendations to Obama this month.
Now Klayman has written to the White House, addressing his letter to “Barack Hussein Obama, President (Designate).”
“On Dec. 19, 2012, you announced the creation of the new Gun Control Task Force, to be headed by Vice President Joe Biden. On Dec. 20, 2012, Vice President Biden met with members of the law enforcement community and other private and/or non-governmental interests for the first meeting of this task force,” Klayman noted.
The task force, he charged, violates federal law.
“By designating this newly formed task force, which is a presidential advisory committee, de jure and/or de facto, you have made the meeting subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act … which applies to ‘any committee, board, commission, council, conference, panel, task force, or other similar group’ that dispenses ‘advice or recommendations’ to the president of the United States.
“Pursuant to FACA, a task force must publish within the Federal Registry notice of any meeting 15 days prior to that meeting, and the meetings must be made open to the public,” Klayman explained. “The first meeting of this task force was held a single day after its creation, without the required notice requirements having been met.”
Klayman said that under the law he is demanding “access to all subsequent task force meetings, as well as copies of all minutes and records, in paper, electronic, or any other format (including but not limited to emails), from the first and/or any subsequent meetings to date within twenty days of this letter.”
“If such a request is not met, Freedom Watch will be forced to file suit to enforce FACA’s provisions. I trust that the appropriate actions will be undertaken on behalf of our administration,” he wrote.
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View the complete article at:
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/obama-gun...reaking-rules/
Attorney points out transparency requires notice before meetings
WND
Bob Unruh
1/7/2013
Excerpt:
Freedom Watch chief Larry Klayman, who founded Judicial Watch and made a name for himself suing Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and a slew of foreign dictators, is asking Barack Obama to play by the rules in his establishment of a team to advise him on gun control.
Klayman, whose cases against Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made headlines, became so well-known that a character in the TV series “West Wing,” Harry Klaypool, was based on his work.
Now he’s jumping all over the plan by Obama to have vice president Joe Biden head up a team to offer plans for gun control.
Obama has said a comprehensive approach is needed to reduce the nation’s gun violence – much more than just resurrecting a now-dead ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.
So he appointed Biden to a working group to look at proposals such as universal background checks for gun buyers, government tracking of the movement of weapons and stiffer penalties.
The reaction follows the massacre in Newtown, Conn., in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza is accused of killing his mother, then going to a nearby school and killing 20 children and another five adults.
Reports confirm White House aides have been collecting information and ideas from gun-control advocates such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The plan is for the Biden team to make recommendations to Obama this month.
Now Klayman has written to the White House, addressing his letter to “Barack Hussein Obama, President (Designate).”
“On Dec. 19, 2012, you announced the creation of the new Gun Control Task Force, to be headed by Vice President Joe Biden. On Dec. 20, 2012, Vice President Biden met with members of the law enforcement community and other private and/or non-governmental interests for the first meeting of this task force,” Klayman noted.
The task force, he charged, violates federal law.
“By designating this newly formed task force, which is a presidential advisory committee, de jure and/or de facto, you have made the meeting subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act … which applies to ‘any committee, board, commission, council, conference, panel, task force, or other similar group’ that dispenses ‘advice or recommendations’ to the president of the United States.
“Pursuant to FACA, a task force must publish within the Federal Registry notice of any meeting 15 days prior to that meeting, and the meetings must be made open to the public,” Klayman explained. “The first meeting of this task force was held a single day after its creation, without the required notice requirements having been met.”
Klayman said that under the law he is demanding “access to all subsequent task force meetings, as well as copies of all minutes and records, in paper, electronic, or any other format (including but not limited to emails), from the first and/or any subsequent meetings to date within twenty days of this letter.”
“If such a request is not met, Freedom Watch will be forced to file suit to enforce FACA’s provisions. I trust that the appropriate actions will be undertaken on behalf of our administration,” he wrote.
...........................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/obama-gun...reaking-rules/