Cliff Kincaid
President, America’s Survival, Inc.

www.usasurvival.org
www.stopglobaltaxes.org

443-964-8208    Kincaid@comcast.net

December 11, 2008

Mr. John Podesta
Co-chair
Obama-Biden Transition Project
451 6th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Mr. Podesta:

We are hereby requesting information that has been promised to the public by the Obama-Biden Transition Project regarding the handling of United Nations issues.

On December 6, Don Kraus of Citizens for Global Solutions reported on his blog, under the title, “CGS Obama Transition Team Meetings that he had just participated in “2 back-to-back Obama transition team meetings with Eric Schwartz.” He said that, “Eric is in charge of the US/UN transition team and also handles multilateral issues for the National Security Policy team, which is why the transition asked him to meet with us.” Eric Schwartz is listed on the website of the Obama-Biden Transition Project as being involved with “USUN” – that is, United States/ United Nations issues.

Kraus reported, “The first meeting was with a delegation from the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP) and the next was with members of the Washington Working Group on the International Criminal Court. (WICC is a coordinating group of the Washington based organizations committed to ICC). Citizens for Global Solutions play a lead role in both of these coalitions.”

In a memo released on December 5, you announced a policy of transparency regarding official meetings with outside organizations.  This was called giving the public a “Seat at the Table.”

The www.change.gov website declared: “Co-chair Podesta's memo to the Transition staff is a bold move towards opening the doors and ensuring access to government processes.”

The Podesta memo says that information to be posted on your website will include “All policy documents and written policy recommendations from official meetings with outside organizations” and “the date and organizations represented at official meetings in the Transition headquarters or agency offices, with any documents presented as noted above.”

But I can find nothing about the meetings described by Kraus on the “Seat at the Table” section of the change.gov website: http://change.gov/open_government/yourseatatthetable/P20/

Yet Kraus said that “the transition asked him [Schwartz] to meet with us.”  

I hereby request immediate release of information about the meetings described by Kraus and information about the participants, copies of any documents provided to the Obama-Biden Transition Project, and copies of notes that were taken.  

I also request information – documents, letters, notes, names of participants, etc. -- about any meetings participated in by the following individuals identified on the Obama-Biden Transition website as being involved in “USUN” issues:

USUN, Eric Schwartz
USUN, Samantha Power
USUN, Michael Pan
USUN, Jennifer Simon
USUN, Elizabeth Cousens
USUN, Grant Harris

I appreciate your immediate response to these requests.

Yours Truly,