By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office, seeking the same documents – communications between his office and the Mayors Against Illegal Guns – that the Second Amendment Foundation has sought since June, TGM has learned.
According to Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch public affairs director, this lawsuit is not connected to earlier requests by the Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and Tom Gresham, host of the nationally-syndicated “Gun Talk,” for the same records under a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request made in late June.
SAF’s request came after the New York Post and Politico reported that Bloomberg had sent a special counselor to Nevada, and that in an apparent attempt to conceal who he worked for, that staffer reportedly removed his City Hall e-mail address from the state of Nevada lobbying-registration Web site. Also, CBS News reported at about the same the time that the MAIG website was being hosted on a city-owned server and administered by city employees.
“It was bad enough to learn via CBS News that the MAIG website was being hosted on a city-owned server, and administered by city employees,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb at the time, “but it also appears that a special counselor in the mayor’s office was sent to lobby in Nevada on behalf of MAIG’s gun control agenda.”
The Judicial Watch lawsuit also seeks communications between Bloomberg’s office and MAIG, and Vice President Joe Biden, the Free Beacon report said. Further, Judicial Watch wants records of a Jan. 9 meeting between Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder and MAIG representatives.
In late July, the public advocate for the City of New York told SAF that additional time was needed to comply with the FOIL request, which had an original due date of July 26. The information was to have been provided by Aug. 9.
Interestingly, while billionaire Bloomberg has spent hundreds of thousands of his own dollars to influence politics in various states, Gottlieb has said privately how bizarre it is for Bloomberg and the city to be apparently sticking Big Apple taxpayers with the expense of running MAIG’s website. He has already spent considerable money unsuccessfully to influence the recall election in Colorado, and MAIG has spent small fortunes on advertising in various political races, including Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Bloomberg’s independent Super PAC spent a reported $1.5 million in ads blasting former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson (D-IL) for her pro-gun-rights votes.
Bloomberg will leave office at the end of his current term, which any in the gun rights community fear will leave him with much more time to devote to his gun control agenda.
