A U.S. District Court judge on Monday condemned the Environmental Protection Agency’s destruction of emails sought by the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation in a 2012 Freedom Of Immigration Request.
Though Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied the request for sanctions against the EPA by Landmark, which is run by conservative talk show host and former Reagan staffer Mark Levin, he lambasted the agency over its actions in response to Landmark’s 2012 FOIA request.
“Either EPA intentionally sought to evade Landmark’s lawful FOIA request so the agency could destroy responsive documents,” Lamberth wrote in his decision. “Or EPA demonstrated apathy and carelessness toward Landmark’s request.”
“Either way,” Lamberth added, it “reflects poorly upon EPA and surely serves to diminish the public’s trust in the agency.”
Landmark sought emails, text messages and other material from high-ranking EPA officials, including former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, related to the the release dates of key environmental regulations. Landmark was seeking to determine if EPA officials purposely delayed the implementation of the regulations until after the November 6, 2012, presidential election in order to shield President Obama from political damage.
The EPA was required by law to preserve the emails after Landmark made the pubic information request, but Lamberth determined that 30 months after the request, it was unclear whether EPA officials conducted a comprehensive search of personal or official emails belonging to senior administration officials. The judge declined to suggest a motive for the agency’s behavior.
“It’s obvious to the court that the EPA has, once again, fumbled its way through its legally unambiguous FOIA obligations,” Lamberth wrote.
Landmark in July went to court seeking sanctions against the EPA for not preserving the emails.
“The EPA has to learn that you can’t save the planet by destroying the rule of law,” Levin said at the time. “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.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misrepresented the gender of Judge Royce C. Lamberth. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
