The State Department has taken more than two years to turn over documents WND sought through a Freedom of Information Act request regarding mysterious transactions at an expensive European luxury hotel funded by U.S. taxpayers.
Despite President Obama's continued proclamations and executive orders heralding a new era of open government, the State Department only partly satisfied this FOIA request. WND received mostly redacted, unreadable and even German-language documents.
What State did disclose – whether inadvertently or intentionally – was a partial list of consular officials and department staff, mostly from U.S. embassies in Africa, who enjoyed lavish champagne breakfasts and other comforts at the super-luxurious Hotel Hessischer Hof in Frankfurt, Germany.
State Department officials blacked out most, but not all, of the names of attendees as well as their check-in and check-out dates at the Foreign Service Institute "Small-Post Leadership Conference Workshop."
State justified the redaction of officials' names by citing the FOIA (b)(6) exemption that release "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."
It remains unclear, however, why State disclosed some names while blacking out others.
State also argued for the redaction of participants' check-in/check-out dates, citing the FOIA (b)(4) exemption from releasing "privileged/confidential trade secrets, commercial or financial information from a person."
But out of 32 rooms reserved for conferees, the alphabetically ordered, unclassified reservation-confirmation documents neglected to black out officials with last names beginning with the letters L-Z.
Red flag raised
WND first took notice of State's arrangement with the five-star Hotel Hessischer Hof during a previous analysis of executive branch travel, particularly the Obama family's multi-million-dollar global trips, both business and personal.
The State Department, which is responsible for arranging international hotel and transportation logistics for presidential, vice-presidential and other high-level government official trips, initially published few details about the German hotel contract.
Indeed, the award notice uploaded to the FedBizOpps vendor database on Nov. 17, 2011, was unaccompanied by supporting documents and merely listed the contract's estimated cost – $52,000 – along with the hotel location.
The mysteriousness of the procurement increased upon discovery that there had been no corresponding media or governmental reports of official state visits to Frankfurt.
The closest thing to such a visit was the arrival in Frankfurt – months prior to publication of the contract notice – of Vice President Joseph Biden's wife, Jill Biden, and Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to cheer for Team USA during the Women's World Cup.
In the absence of verifiable information, WND on April 4, 2012, therefore, formally asked the U.S. government to reveal details of who stayed – and why they stayed – at Hotel Hessischer Hof, which charges roughly $400 a night for basic rooms and up to $4,600 nightly for palatial suites.
Delay, delay
Delayed responses, possibly in violation of federal law, began from the outset of the inquiry.
Whereas federal entities must confirm receipt of such requests within 20 days, State took more than two months. Furthermore, it otherwise has remained silent on the matter since 2012.
The FOIA request, however, took place in the wake of Obama's Open Government Initiative, which promises to improve the federal government's responsiveness to citizens' federal informational needs.
Obama in 2009 said of the endeavor that his administration "is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government."
"We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government."
The State Department after 2012 vowed to improve its ability to process information requests. Indeed, following WND's FOIA request, State released a 393-page list of the thousands of requests filed with the department in 2012.
Those inquiries ranged from mundane passport-data requests to information about "All cable traffic from U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv regarding [Chicago Mayor and former Obama White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel between 1/1/1991 - 3/1/1991."
"The department's global structure and the sensitive nature of its record holdings, many of which contain multiple equities affecting other agencies or governments, combine to make the department's FOIA administrative process a complex one," according to the State Department Chief FOIA Officer Annual Report of March 2013.
"The Department makes every effort to respond to FOIA requests within the statute's twenty-day response time period."
Delays were exacerbated during fiscal-year 2012 as the department "faced particular challenges" in the processing of FOIA requests.
"First, the FOIA program transitioned to a new automated FOIA case processing system. As can occur when launching any new IT system, the department invested significant time and resources during this fiscal year in data reconciliation and validation, training, and adjusting business processes to improve the FOIA process from beginning to end."
The official, partial list
The U.S. Embassy consular officers who were listed as having stayed at Hotel Hessischer Hof were Aaron Luster (Slovenia); Kelly McCaleb (Burkina Faso); Erin Morin (Azerbaijan); Long Nguyen (Laos); Evan Stanley (India); Andy Utschig (Gambia); Anna Wang (Namibia) and Chad Wesen (Djibouti).
An additional room was reserved under the name Nadia Sbeith, which possibly is a misspelling of Nadia Sbeih, former U.S. Embassy consular officer in Equatorial Guinea.
Other State Department officials and support staff making it onto the hotel list include Andrew J. Zvirzdin, political and economic officer and vice-consul at the U.S. Embassy in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands; Morgan O'Brien, cultural affairs officer, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' Sports United Office; Delicia Spruell, refugee admissions program officer, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration; Sabrina Lintner, training technician/budget analyst; and Rick Welebir, State Department director of curriculum and staff development.
Rooms also were reserved for two conference "presenters." One was unidentified as Consulate General Ian Brownlee from the U.S. Embassy in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. An additional single room was designated for a "no name" occupant.
All other names were redacted, however, for remaining officials from the diplomatic posts of Nouakchott (Mauritania), Conakry (Republic of Guinea), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Bajumbura (Burundi), Luanda (Angola), Muscat (Oman), Ashgabat (Turkmenistan), Bandar Seri Begawan (Sultanate of Brunei), Port Louis (Mauritius), Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo), Bamako (Mali) and Libreville (Gabon).
The documentation: