New Publications, Posts, and Cases
Recent UpdatesNew Publications, Posts & Cases
Possibly the media could see the story better if it was not sitting so close? The following is a refresher on the use of open records laws to see how officials at state universities use their positions. This practice, although expressly provided for under various state statutes, was pioneered in some respects by “climate” activists. Then…
GAO is trying to figure this one out:
GAO has uncovered certain facts which the Trump administration absolutely must consider and exploit as it pursues its announced regulatory corrections. This information sheds light on the previous administration’s process for adopting an unlawful “suite of regulations” imposing the “climate” agenda without any statutory authorization. Turns out, that plan was more unlawful than even we…
It has been a busy time on the taxpayer-funded, green-group grant front. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency filed an appeal in the D.C. Circuit of a district court order that it unfreeze some of the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to activists, financing the industry that was engaged with the Biden administration to advance an…
About Government Accountability & Oversight
At the beginning of 2018, after several successful years pursuing transparency among activist public servants, including office holders, academics and even law enforcement, experienced attorneys from the litigation, prosecutorial and classical liberal think tank worlds joined together to create the non-profit public interest group Government Accountability & Oversight.
GAO pursues and supports litigation that seeks to ensure that governmental entities at state, local, and federal levels comply with their sunshine and transparency obligations under open records acts. Institutions suffer from capture – including, increasingly, the public’s academic institutions, enlisted by donors and ideologues as weapons in legal, political and policy battles, almost universally on one side of the ideological divide. As New York University professor Jonathan Haidt argues, academia cannot be devoted to the search for truth if it also has a political agenda.
More broadly, all public institutions (including those under the control of political actors) must exercise public authority and conduct the public’s business objectively and according to the institution’s mission.
GAO works to lessen the burdens of government and defend human, civil and property rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and secured by law, through ensuring the public is aware of how government institutions operate, with whom, toward what ends.
State and federal laws require transparency in public institutions, to allow for an educated public to understand how their institutions are being used – whether in cultural and ideological battles, or simply in ways that the institutions. or certain individuals in those institutions, would prefer be kept from the taxpayer on whose incomes they depend and whom they serve.
GAO has research, litigation, investigative journalism and publication functions, all combining to seek and educate about public information showing how policymakers and activists in the tort bar and educational institutions use public resources to advance a shared agenda, and private interests, with an emphasis on environmental and energy policy. By broadly disseminating the public information it obtains under open records and freedom of information laws, other organizations and individuals can benefit from the knowledge GAO uncovers.
Please support GAO as it continues to shine light on these activities, what the revelations mean and how these play in the policy and legal world, as well as how the activities they detail impact your lives.
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Gregory Garrison
Board of Directors
Famed trial lawyer and former legal analyst for CBS News, as well as twenty-year radio host on Indianapolis’s WIBC (where he replaced longtime friend Mike Pence), Garrison is best known as the prosecutor who convicted boxer Mike Tyson. Garrison spent years as a special prosecutor in Indiana for major drug and other high-priority cases. He has authored several books, and practices as a partner in the Garrison Law Firm, LLC.
Matthew Hardin
Board of Directors
Matt Hardin spent over three years litigating what proved to be highly significant open records cases in the New York and Vermont state courts, eliciting damning privilege logs, admissions by defense counsel in court, and of course key public records now housed in GAO’s Climate Litigation Watch documentary trove. After two years serving as chief prosecutor for a rural Virginia County, Hardin returned to transparency litigation in January 2020. He now serves as Counsel for GAO, handling cases from coast to coast in both state and federal courts.
Joe Thomas
Board of Directors
Joe Thomas brings to Government Accountability & Oversight his background as a longtime good-government advocate and student of our Nation’s founding and history. A native New Yorker and broadcaster for over thirty-five years, Mr. Thomas is a popular weekday radio host in Virginia as well as host of a weekend statewide show, Freedom & Prosperity Radio. Mr. Thomas also created and hosted a weekly show dedicated to constitutional issues. On these and other platforms Thomas conveys his understanding of and passion for our system of governance, from its founding through its practice today. Mr. Thomas also has spent years addressing the importance of these issues through an active schedule of civic engagement.