Months Later, VP Mike Pence Ready To Turn Over Private Emails, Explain What An AOL Account Is

Email

from the as-transparent-as-he's-forced-to-be dept

Months after he left office to become Trump’s running mate, former Indiana governor Mike Pence is finally releasing emails from his personal AOL accounts. This sort of thing would normally be reserved for only the wonkiest of public records wonks, but the Trump campaign spent a great deal of time deriding Hillary Clinton for using a personal email account to handle official State Department email.

It’s slightly more of a big deal, thanks to Pence’s efforts to keep these emails from becoming public. He went to court late last year to protect the content of certain emails from being released. Pence’s lawyer actually argued the court had no business telling the governor’s office what can and can’t be redacted. So much for the idea of checks and balances.

As the result of multiple requests and multiple lawsuits, Pence is now releasing most of what [his lawyer says] is contained in his AOL accounts.

Pence attorney Karoline Jackson said in a recent email to the state’s legal counsel that “a complete electronic production of state records” from Pence’s time as governor had been delivered to the state as of June 23.

The office of Pence’s successor, Gov. Eric Holcomb, said the records consist of state-related emails from two AOL accounts Pence used as governor.

“Our office is now in the process of reviewing the records, and we anticipate being in a position to provide copies of records that are responsive to pending (public record) requests soon,” Holcomb spokeswoman Stephanie Wilson said.

So, according to his own spokespeople, Pence will finally be complying with the state’s public records law. Not that he didn’t try to be a dick about it.

Previously, Pence had only provided some of his AOL emails to the state, and those he did provide were in paper form, making them difficult to search.

Fortunately for those requesting the emails, the new, full batch will come in electronic form, which will greatly assist them in finding the contents they’re interested in. According to the WHAS11 report, there are more than 50 open records requests targeting Pence’s AOL emails.

While this doc dump will result in far more transparency than Pence is used to, there are still some concerns about what’s being withheld. Rather than have his former office review the emails before turning them over to requesters, Pence had his private lawyer take a look at them instead. That’s not really the way things are supposed to work for public officials. This will make redactions and withheld documents more difficult to challenge, as there’s another layer — a non-government layer — of vetting separating requesters from their requested documents.

There’s also a good chance whatever’s being looked at is incomplete. Public officials who use private email for official business are supposed to forward all work-related emails to government servers for storage. At this point, there appears to be no indication Pence has done that. Instead, a privately-employed lawyer has been picking through what’s left in two private AOL accounts and everyone involved is claiming, without supporting evidence, they’re living up to the letter and spirit of Indiana’s open records laws.

Filed Under: emails, foia, mike pence, public records, transparency