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State Dept. Rejects FOIA Request on TransCanada Lobbyist

Hey, Republican friends, help me out here. Friends of the Earth (I know, I know; tree-huggin', Birk-wearin' hippies, but hang with me) filed a Freedom of Information Act request last month seeking information about communications between the State Department and Paul Elliott, TransCanada's lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Elliott was a presidential campaign staffer for now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups are concerned that this lobbyist may be using his connections to the Secretary to unduly influence the State Department to favor the special interest he represents. The State Department just rejected the request on the basis of the request's failure to specify a timeframe for the records and the requesters' failure to submit the necessary FOIA fee (the request asked for a fee exemption, saying the information is in the public interest and would not be used for any commercial purpose.)

Tell me if I'm wrong, but this FOIA tussle sounds like a perfect story to fire up the conservative blogs. We have a lobbyist getting special access to government. We have Barack Obama's State Department not following through on the President's touted transparency. We have Hillary Clinton—Hillary Clinton! Remember her, conservatives? The lobbyist, the Secretary... it's all Democrats, being sneaky, for a foreign corporation!

If I were a conservative blogger, I'd eat stories like this for breakfast and enjoy reheating the leftovers all weekend long.

Sure, the lobbyist is working for TransCanada, which is urging Secretary Clinton to approve the permit it needs to build the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. But dear conservative friends, your disgust with lobbyists is a general principle, not just a campaign ploy, right?