[Hot Air] On Friday evening there was a story at Politico which didn’t seem to gain much traction, what with all of the Trump activity going on. Congressman Elija Cummings (D-Md) is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and he’s demanding that committee chair Trey Gowdy issue a subpoena to the EPA over their handling of both FOIA submissions and requests from Congress for documents, saying that Scott Pruitt’s administration was "screening" requests based on political sensitivity. These were all part of a skyrocketing number of such requests the EPA has received under the Trump administration, but we’ll have more on that below. So what was this new, secret program to allow the EPA to "screen" incoming requests?
Hot Air has received a copy of both Cummings’ letter to the EPA as well as the response sent to Cummings this weekend from Kevin Minoli, EPA’s Principal Deputy General Counsel and Designated Ethics Official. First, let’s have a look at the introductory portion of Cummings letter and what he’s clearly implying with his demand for a subpoena.