With the IRS e-mail saga still unfolding, another government agency is being criticized for allegedly destroying important e-mails.
On Thursday, radio host Mark Levin asked a federal judge to sanction the EPA for destroying and for failing to preserve documents which may have shed light on a suspected agency effort to manipulate the 2012 elections.
Before the 2012 elections, the Obama administration held off from enacting a sequence of potentially contentious environmental laws. The administration said that the delay was coincidental, but others alleged that the laws were deliberately stalled so as not to deter voters.
In August of 2012, Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request to procure EPA documents pertaining to the delay. It then filed a lawsuit against the EPA, alleging that the agency “was not conducting good faith searches for responsive materials.”
The foundation is currently asking that the EPA be fined and that an “independent monitor” be appointed to ensure that the sought-after documents are properly searched for and preserved. It also asks that the EPA inform the parties of other lawsuits about its failure to preserve the documents.
In 2003, the foundation sued the EPA for destroying e-mail back-up tapes regarding the “midnight” passing of several laws during the final days of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The agency was fined $300,000.
“The EPA has to learn that you can’t save the planet by destroying the rule of law,” Levin said in a statement. “It also must understand that some of our most precious resources are the principles of limited government and official accountability enumerated in the Constitution. If we don’t protect those, saving the snail darter or the spotted owl won’t mean a thing.”
(H/t Free Beacon)
