Perhaps the most frequent talking point that came from Republicans during the 2016 race for the White House revolved around Hillary Clinton’s use private email server. What was she trying to hide? they asked. Why would anyone be opposed to letting the American public see what they had done while working for the government?
And now, in perhaps the most egregious case of both hypocrisy mixed with irony, we have Vice President-elect Mike Pence attempting to keep some emails from his time as Governor of Indiana private.
The emails in question pertain to Indiana’s participation, at the request of Pence, in a lawsuit to block President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Pence even went so far as to bring in an outside law firm to be a part of the legal wrangling, which was led by Texas Governor Greg Abbot.
Pence did release the email which relates to the case in question, “but those documents included substantial redaction,” according to legal filings in the case, which was brought against Pence by Indianapolis attorney William Groth. A Marion Superior Court judge ruled in April that the emails are attorney work product protected by Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act. That decision has been appealed to the Indiana Court of Appeals. Oral arguments on the case begin on November 21.
For his part, Groth said his reason for wanting to see the emails is simple:
“I think governmental transparency is an important concern of anyone who lives in a democracy – the governor cannot put himself above the law.”
Above the law. Hmm. Seems we often heard Mike Pence making that accusation about Hillary Clinton: That she felt she was above the law and should be held to a different standard. Which leaves only one other question for Pence to answer: Hypocrite much, Mike?
Featured Image Via Gage Skidmore for Flickr available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License
