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New York, Dec. 18, 2024 — Congressional leaders in the House released a year-end spending bill yesterday that includes plenty of meaningless pet projects but not the most important press freedom bill in modern history, the PRESS Act.

But it isn’t over yet for the PRESS Act. Sen. Chuck Schumer could still include it in the Senate version of the spending bill, negotiate for the act’s passage before the holidays, or bring the measure to the floor by keeping the Senate in session past its anticipated end on Dec. 20.

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):

“Congressional leaders found space in the end-of-year spending bill to give a football stadium to Washington, D.C. and rename buildings after former members of Congress. But they didn’t include the PRESS Act.

After campaigning and fundraising for months, warning of existential threats to our democracy, including the death of freedom of the press, Sen. Schumer and the other Senate Democrats must take advantage of the entire time they have left in power to pass the PRESS Act, even if that means senators have to work through the holidays just like most regular Americans.

The PRESS Act is bipartisan, it’s already passed the House, and it would provide essential protections for independent journalists no matter their politics. The Senate must not let this opportunity to pass the PRESS Act get away. If the rights of journalists are further curtailed in the next administration after years of inaction from those in power, Senate leadership will share a lot of the blame.”

The PRESS Act is a federal reporter-source shield bill that would protect journalists across the political spectrum from being spied on by the government and threatened with jail time to force them to testify against their sources.

White House national security adviser John Kirby recently downplayed growing interest in the mysterious drones spotted across the East Coast.

Kirby dismissed concerns despite reports the drones have been making unauthorized flights over defense facilities, and even though the House Intelligence Committee thought the drones were important enough for a classified hearing.

The Biden administration’s insistence there’s nothing to worry about, combined with its refusal to declassify any evidence supporting that claim, is drawing frustration from a wide variety of lawmakers.

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called Kirby’s statements “misleading at best” and demanded more information. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin similarly lambasted the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI, and other agencies for their reticence over the sightings.

The secrecy breeds mistrust at a time when trust in government is in a two-decade decline, particularly when it concerns a subject the government has admitted to lying about in the past.

It also feeds internet theories — some more out of left field than others — about what’s behind the lights in the night sky. The speculation from content creators on TikTok, X, and other platforms spreads most easily when the government doesn’t counter it with real information.

These are all self-inflicted wounds the government could heal by being more transparent.

Both the Biden administration and Congress should start today. The administration should tell the CIA, FBI, and Defense and Homeland Security departments to declassify any material they prepared for the recent House hearing on the drones. And Congress should follow suit and declassify the hearing transcript.

This joint effort would be a good first step to help the public and lawmakers understand if the drones are being piloted by someone benign, like an amateur or tech business, by some earth-based adversary, or by something else entirely.

Source

ABC has settled a defamation lawsuit with President-elect Donald Trump, agreeing to pay $15 million for the establishment of Trump’s “presidential foundation and museum.”

Many report the money will go towards Trump’s presidential library, where the public will ostensibly be able to study his administration.

This would be a silver lining of Trump’s attacks on the press — especially if a portion of the settlement pays for Scotch tape so government librarians can patch up the records Trump is so fond of shredding.

But it’s not technically true.

The ABC settlement doesn’t mention a library. All it says is a Trump presidential foundation will establish something similar to what previous presidents have built.

That would be massive campuses with private office spaces, museums that have been criticized for misrepresenting history, and sometimes (although not always) government-run libraries that struggle to provide access to presidential records.

And they’ve been built with money that can come from anonymous donors, including from sources that might be eager to avoid normal campaign disclosure requirements.

The problems are so bad that presidential library experts have called the foundation-library system a scam and warned it is at a breaking point.

Why is the presidential foundation-library relationship so murky?

Congress appropriates very little money to the National Archives and Records Administration to build presidential libraries for the public to conduct research and access presidential records. As a result, NARA is dependent on the fundraising efforts of private presidential foundations to build them.

NARA takes control of the libraries once they are built, but they are often part of larger facilities, making it hard to know where the government’s work starts and private foundation work begins.

For example, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is just a part of a 250,000-square-foot complex that also houses the Boeing 707 that served as Air Force One, a banquet hall that can seat 1,600, and a reassembled Irish pub that Reagan had visited in the 1980s.

But presidential foundations don’t have to build government-run libraries on their campuses at all, even if it’s been a tradition.

President Barack Obama’s $700 million center doesn’t have a NARA presence, which may make it harder for historians to study the Obama administration. And Trump could follow suit.

Where does the foundation money come from?

Fundraising for presidential complexes is big business, but there are few rules or donation disclosure requirements for these facilities, whether they include government-run libraries or not.

This raises concerns about conflicts of interest from donors who want to win favor with current or former presidents, their family members who may still be in politics, or other elements of the government.

It’s not an abstract concern.

GOP lobbyist Stephen Payne promised foreign entities access to the George W. Bush administration in exchange for six-figure donations to its presidential center.

President Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a commodities trader who had been indicted on racketeering and other charges, around the same time that Rich’s ex-wife promised to donate nearly a half-million dollars to the 17-acre Clinton facility.

Other governments are also frequent donors. The Saudi royal family has reportedly donated nearly $10 million to both the Clinton and George H.W. Bush complexes.

Are the museums any good?

They can be. But the extent to which they accurately depict history largely depends on the integrity of the presidential foundation that builds it.

The Nixon museum, for instance, had a Watergate exhibit that baselessly accused Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of “‘offering bribes’ to further their famous coverage.” The inaccurate exhibit was on display for 17 years.

The George W. Bush Library faced criticism for not accurately addressing the administration’s use of torture.

The Clinton museum barely mentions the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

How about the libraries?

The NARA-run libraries that do get built struggle to provide public access to historical records.

Experts at the nonprofit National Security Archive (where I used to work) have repeatedly testified that the presidential libraries themselves are underfunded, understaffed, and on the verge of collapse.

Case in point: It is currently suing the George W. Bush Library for a 12-year wait on a single declassification request. And NARA’s own estimates state it will take over 100 years to make all of the Reagan White House documents publicly available.

Congress should help

Clearly, the current relationship between presidential foundations and libraries doesn’t work.

It is confusing, rife with corruption and bias, and doesn’t help the public access the most important records in government — those from the Oval Office.

Congress should keep working to pass legislation that reforms donations to presidential foundations. And it should seriously consider alternatives to the current foundation-library system to ensure presidents, including Trump, don’t pass private foundation work off as a public service.