Will Obama give up secrets on PPT and gold?

8:34a ET Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

New York Post business columnist John Crudele reports today (see below) that, in light of the pledge of greater openness made by President Obama, he has refiled his federal freedom-of-information request for access to the records of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, better known as the Plunge Protection Team. GATA's Washington lawyers are preparing similar repeats of the requests we made last year for access to the Federal Reserve's and Treasury Department's records involving the U.S. gold reserve.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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By John Crudele
New York Post
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02032009/business/us_oil_reserves_no_longer_...

Barack Obama claims his administration is going to be more transparent than the last guy's.

With that in mind I've refiled my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for details of meetings held the past few years by the President's Working Group on Financial Markets.

The group is also known -- affectionately, to some of us -- as the Plunge Protection Team and is made up of regulators as well as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and whoever heads the US Treasury.

Specifically, I am requesting meeting minutes of the Working Group, even when those chats were done by telephone.

Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has publicly said meetings took place frequently during the financial crisis.

Even more to the point, I'd like to know what was discussed by the Working Group at the time two years ago when the Fed was considering the first in what has become a long series of interest-rate cuts.

Paulson was proud of the fact that while heading Treasury he kept in touch with "market participants."

I'd like to know just what Paulson knew from these Working Group meetings and what he shared with his friends who worked on Wall Street.

My previous FOIA requests have been ignored. Let's see if President Obama really wants a government that has fewer secrets.

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