Tag: lawfare

by Tim Pearce   A district court spiked an environmental lawsuit Monday seeking to force the Trump administration to turn over documents related to cutting back national monuments. U.S. District Judge David Nye told the environmental group Advocates for the West (AW) that a dozen documents the organization argued should be made public are protected as presidential communications, The Associated Press reported. The documents “contain legal advice to the president and his advisers and should remain protected,” Bye wrote, according to the AP. “While public disclosure is an important and necessary part of any free society, so too is candor and privacy when those at the highest levels of government strive to determine the best course of action.” The documents reveal past administrations’ reasons for establishing and expanding national monuments under the Antiquities Act between 2006 and 2016, according to AW. “This decision shows how difficult it is to force sunlight on a government that flourishes in secrecy,” AW attorney Todd Tucci told the AP. “President [Donald] Trump’s abrupt change in interpretation of the Antiquities Act should be subject to the light of day.” Trump signed executive orders on Dec. 4 rolling back the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in…