Saturday, December 01, 2007

Secrecy Invoked on Abramoff Lawsuits

Associated Press

The Bush administration is laying out a new secrecy defense in an effort to end a court battle about the White House visits of now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The administration agreed last year to produce all responsive records about the visits "without redactions or claims of exemption," according to a court order.

But in a court filing Friday night, administration lawyers said that sometime in the past year the Secret Service identified a category of highly sensitive documents that might contain information sought in a lawsuit about Abramoff's trips to the White House.

The Justice Department declared that the contents of the "Sensitive Security Records" cannot be publicly revealed even though they could show whether Abramoff made more visits to the White House than those already acknowledged.

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