But Ruemmler said the investigators’ request for all internal White House communications about Solyndra — dating back to the first day of the Obama administration — “implicates long-standing and significant institutional Executive Branch confidentiality interests.”
“Encroaching upon these important interests is not necessary, however, because the agency documents the Committee has requested, which include communications with the White House, should satisfy the Committee’s stated objective — to ‘understand the involvement of the White House in the review of the Solyndra loan guarantee and the Administration’s support of this guarantee,'” Ruemmler added.
. . . .
That should more than satisfy the likes of Cliff Stearns and Darrell Issa. After all, they were untroubled when Bush administration staffers used RNC accounts to skirt Freedom of Information Act and Presidential Records Act requirements. When millions of Bush White House emails (including those during the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame) mysteriously went missing, Congressman Issa turned IT expert and declared they were accidentally destroyed as a result of a software problem. And when House Democrats pushed a resolution in September 2004 “seeking the names of individuals who worked behind closed doors with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force to craft the Bush administration’s national energy policy,” it was blocked by all 30 Republican members of the House Energy and Committee. Among the obstructionists were Reps. Issa and Stearns.
