Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), a government watchdog group, filed a lawsuit against the State Department over a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on John Kerry’s office. The State Department said it can’t possibly get around to fulfilling a FOIA request until Nov. 18, 2024, conveniently after the next presidential election.

PPT filed a transparency lawsuit in response to the State Department’s refusal to hand over external and internal communications, as well as legal counsel communications from Special Envoy for Climate Change (SECC) senior advisor Jesse Young. State is slow walking the FOIA request filed on Oct. 20, 2021.

According to the suit exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, PPT initially filed the FOIA request with the State Department on Oct. 20, 2021, for meeting requests, external and internal communications, and legal counsel communications from Special Envoy for Climate Change (SECC) senior advisor Jesse Young.

The request also asks for Young’s “official calendar, schedule, travel logs and itineraries, government purchase card transactions, and government cell phone log.”

Young was previously an adviser to Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and was on the State Department team that engaged in negotiations for the 2015 Paris climate accord.

John Kerry was named as Biden’s climate change envoy and Biden made the job a cabinet-level position. Biden promised to make the environmental extremists’ agenda a top priority for his administration. It is reasonable, therefore, that American taxpayers know what all Kerry is up to, right? We already know he isn’t to be trusted in dealing on behalf of the United States because of the hideous Iran nuclear deal he rammed through at the end of the Obama administration. Remember the pallets of cash we learned about after the fact that were flown to Iran as its pay-off? Kerry was also a driving force in the Paris Climate Accord that Team Obama signed on to. Biden has since signed back on to that agreement via executive order on his first day in office after the previous administration removed the U.S. from it. The Biden administration is the third term of Obama on steroids.

PPT sent out a press release about the lawsuit. It includes a quote from a memo by Attorney General Merrick Garland on the importance of government transparency.

The American public is suffering from intense pain at the pump, rising inflation, and the specter of armed conflict in Europe. Yet the State Department is claiming the need to withhold records that could shed light on an office that is run by former presidential candidate and Secretary of State John Kerry until after the next Presidential election. Mr. Kerry is charged with leading one of the administration’s top priorities and is performing work that could have immense impacts on Americans’ pocketbooks, record inflation, and international crises.

State’s replies to the original request and PPT’s follow-up inquiries are wholly inconsistent with both the spirit and the letter of Attorney General (AG) Merrick Garland’s memo last week to heads of departments and agencies regarding FOIA. FOIA, the AG intoned, is “a vital tool for ensuring transparency, accessibility, and accountability in government” whose “‘basic purpose . . . is to ensure an informed citizenry,’ which is ‘vital to the functioning of a democratic society [and] needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.’” But not until after the next election, apparently.

PPT asserts in the lawsuit, “As the Garland Memo makes clear, ‘Timely disclosure of records is also essential to the core purpose of FOIA.’…An agency purporting to give itself more than three years to complete a FOIA request is anything but timely. Particularly where, as here, the Department’s proposed completion date conveniently allows it to hide information about high level political appointees working on one of the Administration’s highest priorities until just after the next Presidential election. This can hardly be said to promote ‘transparency’ or ‘accountability.’”

“Looking at the State Department’s schedule for providing records, it would be hard to convince the American public that political considerations were not factored into their reaction to this request,” stated Michael Chamberlain, Director of Protect the Public’s Trust. “Delaying the release of records about one of the most high-profile, high-priority offices, run by one of the most prominent political figures, until after a relevant election is an affront to not only the AG’s guidance but to basic principles of public service. If anyone were wondering why trust in the government is so low, this case is Exhibit A.”

Joe Biden promised the most transparent administration ever when he entered the White House. Like most other of Biden’s promises, it was just a lie. Biden is the ultimate Swamp Creature who has no intention of being open about how his administration is operating if he can get away without doing so. John Kerry is also a life-long politician and operates the same as Biden. Is it a surprise that they intend to keep as much under wraps as possible until after the 2024 presidential election?

Biden needs to be held accountable, as does John Kerry. Who knows the deals Kerry is working on to screw the American taxpayers as a part of this administration? It’s bad enough he already helped bring back two really bad deals for America after the previous administration killed them off – the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal.