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by logifail 418 days ago
> We should and do

The European Commission ended up in court trying to keep Ursula von der Leyen's messages secret 'claiming that the texts were “by [their] nature short-lived” and were not covered by the EU’s freedom of information law'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/10/i-aske...

https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-comm...

Outcome? A(nother) nothingburger.

1 comments

> European Commission ended up in court trying to keep Ursula von der Leyen's messages secret 'claiming that the texts were “by [their] nature short-lived” and were not covered by the EU’s freedom of information law'

Sure. They still wound up in court. Hegseth hasn't had to go to court to defend himself because he hasn't even been investigated. You really have to go back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to find these levels of exploitable ineptitude at the highest ranks of a major military structure.

> Sure. They still wound up in court.

That case was brought by the New York Times, not any oversight body or investigative function of the EU, which makes it even more cringe-worthy.

"The European Commission faced an embarrassing grilling for almost five hours on Friday as top EU judges cast doubt on the executive’s commitment to transparency on the Covid-19 vaccine negotiations. The EU institution defended itself in a packed EU court in Luxembourg in the so-called Pfizergate case, brought by the New York Times and its former Brussels bureau chief Matina Stevis-Gridneff."

The NYT is presumably welcome to try to take Hegseth to court?

> The NYT is presumably welcome to try to take Hegseth to court?

The Times sued to get Von der Leyen to share information. Hegseth already does that because he's an idiot. To my knowledge, SecDef isn't subject to FOIA in a meaningful way.

> The Times sued to get Von der Leyen to share information

...and failed

> To my knowledge, SecDef isn't subject to FOIA in a meaningful way

...and as it turned out, neither is VdL.

The case didn't succeed in producing the records. But the process uncovered a lot of shit.

But again, you're comparing non-disclosure to irresponsible disclosure. VdL didn't send highly sensitive scramble times to a rando.

(With apologies if this appears provocative)

Is there evidence that SECDEF 'acted with criminal intent'?

We've already clarified that '[being] extremely careless' is not enough for a court case.

[I have a mental picture of a Venn diagram with three circles: "Politicians", "Idiots" and "Criminals"...]