Freeman: AG’s FOIL rejection argument is ‘a stretch’
Casey Seiler, Capitol bureau chief
Bob Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, said the decision by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office to reject a FOIL request seeking communications between AG personnel — including Schneiderman — and powerful political consultant Jennifer Cunningham is “a stretch that would do damage to the Freedom of Information Law.”
As reported Monday, the AG’s office rejected the FOIL request by Chris Bragg of Crain’s New York Business by making the argument that any communications with SKD Knickerbocker’s Cunningham — also Schneiderman’s ex-wife and a political adviser to his 2010 and 2014 campaigns — were “intra-agency records” because she served as an informal and unpaid consultant to the AG’s office. Schneiderman’s Republican opponent John Cahill lambasted the Democrat on the issue in a Monday press conference outside the Abrams Building in Albany.
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/220109/freeman-ags-foil-rejection-argument-is-a-stretch/
