Few public records reveal as much about the work of government officials as their emails.

Consider the 1,941 emails Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) wrote and received over six months in 2001 while he was associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice. These were recently released to The Washington Post in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Cruz’s emails offer a real-time, unvarnished view into his professional life as his political star rose. The correspondence portrays Cruz as a jovial and well-liked colleague, helps explain how Justice Department policy sausage was made, and shows how Cruz helped — and was helped by — political connections.

Because of Cruz’s prominence as a U.S. senator and as a 2016 presidential candidate, I requested these emails in April 2022 after I noticed the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, noted on its website that his emails had been accessioned — or formally transferred — to the archives from the Justice Department.

Some of Cruz’s power as a networker stemmed from the clout of his former boss, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. At the Supreme Court, Cruz clerked for Rehnquist during the 1996 term and remained active in an email thread among his former clerk colleagues, who referred to Rehnquist as “El Jefe” in their exchanges.

“Always nice to see the CJ’s ex’s make good. … Look out for us little guys in the field. See you at the reunion in a few weeks,” former clerk Ronald Tenpas wrote Cruz, welcoming him back to D.C. from Texas, where Cruz had been working on the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush.

From his Justice Department email account, Cruz also promoted the Federalist Society, a Washington-based conservative legal organization. When a colleague asked about getting involved with the group, Cruz effused: “Call Leonard Leo … He’s the Director of the Lawyers’ Division, and a very good guy. He’s a friend; tell him I suggested you call.”

Leo is now the co-chairman and former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, often credited with helping establish a right-leaning majority on the Supreme Court.

In February 2001, Cruz invited Leo to meet for lunch — and apprised him of his efforts to get a potential applicant a job at the White House. “Apparently, there are no spots open at the White House, but there might be some possibilities at the agencies, with their respective faith-based offices. Do you have another … resume that I could forward on?”

The Post contacted Cruz to generally describe the emails and ask for comment. In response, a spokesman said, “Sen. Cruz has often advocated for records of various administration officials to be made public, because this is one of the key ways for the American people to understand what is happening in Washington and to hold bureaucrats accountable.”

Government emails can be difficult to obtain through FOIA. Generally, a requester needs to specify the desired emails in a way that enables an agency to search for them, often within a program like Microsoft Outlook. This means the requester usually needs to provide the name of the email account or inbox to be searched, the general dates of the emails, who sent the emails, and some keywords contained within the emails. Even when agencies locate responsive emails, they often claim a broad swath of exemptions that render the emails a Swiss cheese of redactions.

But Cruz’s emails had been transferred to the National Archives because of their historical significance arising out of his leadership position at the Justice Department. The National Archives has developed a “capstone approach” to preserve the emails of top government officials once they leave office. Timelines vary, but agencies are encouraged to eventually transfer all emails sent and received by senior officials to the archives after they have left government. In this case, all I had to do was cite FOIA and ask for all records within “National Archives Identifier 79444417.”

My request was granted expedited processing for demonstrating “an urgency to inform the public” about Cruz’s Justice Department tenure. This was fortunate, because the National Archives reports that the agency’s oldest pending FOIA request was filed in 2006. Still, my request took 19 months, longer than the average processing time of more than 10 months for requests in the agency’s “expedited” queue.

Beyond the 1,941 emails disclosed, the archives withheld 891 emails sent from Cruz’s “.gov” account, classifying them as “personal records.” I have appealed this decision, arguing that all emails preserved in .gov email are presumed to be related to federal government business and should be disclosed absent a strong justification for withholding, such as releasing a person’s social security number.

It’s hard to imagine why the Archives disclosed an email invitation to Cruz for a Gold Cup horse race party — noting “5 kegs, 30 handles, and barbecue” — that he forwarded to his future wife Heidi Nelson, but withheld 891 other emails.

The released emails, preserved as pdfs, provide insight into how Cruz shaped Justice Department policy.

One of the largest items in Cruz’s portfolio at the Justice Department was helping to negotiate an international treaty with the Council of Europe to help prevent internet crimes, called the “Convention on Cybercrime.” On the way to one related meeting in Rome, he noted that because he and his assistant did not speak Italian, he had a hard time securing a hotel room. “My flight is already booked; now I just need to avoid sleeping in the plaza,” he wrote.

Call Leonard Leo … He’s a friend; tell him I suggested you call.

— Email from Ted Cruz

Cruz also worked to expand “Project Exile,” a somewhat controversial federal law enforcement initiative that he described in a February 2021 email as “prosecuting those who commit crimes with guns, typically combined with a P.R. campaign to let prospective criminals know that, if they use a gun to commit a crime, they will face harsh penalties.” As a senator since 2013, Cruz has introduced several bills to broaden the project, which started in Richmond, in the late 1990s. The National Association for Gun Rights has criticized Cruz’s proposed expansion as “Project Gestapo,” saying the program leads to “law enforcement abuses of search and seizure and [for] punishment for mere possession of a gun that is excessive compared to the crime.”

His emails show that he also worked on efforts to block websites that falsely claimed to be the official White House one, helped draft an executive order to expand community-based programs for people with disabilities, and helped refine the administration’s position on medical marijuana and the psychedelic compound ayahuasca.

Beyond demonstrating how Cruz worked on policy items, the emails afford a glimpse of Cruz as a colleague. He was charming and quick to send self-deprecating quips: “[T]he work of Justice is never done… Nah, I just have too lame a social life to have anything better to do on a Friday night than review OMB [Office of Management and Budget] regs. :–)” he emailed one colleague at 7:57 p.m. on a Friday in May.

After Cruz, then 30, announced in June 2001 that he was leaving Justice to become the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, a colleague wrote: “It was our privilege to work with you – and we felt that way even before that we knew that you and your wife would become media figures due to your WH romance… we’ll constantly scan the [Washington Post] Style section for more articles about you.” The Post had just published an article about Cruz headlined “Cupid in Chief.”

Cruz kept colleagues apprised of his upcoming wedding to Nelson in California — “26 days to go!” But he wisely avoided providing the details of his bachelor party from his government email account: “BP was good fun. Was tired as hell, but had a good time,” he wrote.

The emails Cruz sent and received show how Washington careers are often made — through networking, lunches, after-work drinks and résumé-pushing.

In one, a former co-clerk asked Cruz for a favor.

“Teddy, I have to push a buddy of mine on you . . . Sound in all respects [including] on religion and school choice stuff. Will be great. He’s in the Ted Cruz-league of people I like,” Rick Garnett wrote.

Cruz obliged. He emailed Paul Clement, then the principal deputy solicitor general: “My co-clerk with the Chief, law prof at Notre Dame, and as good a human being as I know … shot me the following email, about a potential prospect for y’all.”

Obviously, anything you could say . . . to nudge my name forward would be extremely helpful.

— Email from Ted Cruz

Cruz appeared to place high value on in-person networking. He frequently ate lunch with conservative thinkers at the Caucus Room, a popular restaurant near the Justice Department, and usually sent an email thanking them, often including a link or quotation from an article they discussed.

Cruz had a good memory for whom he had met at past social outings. “You probably don’t recall,” Cruz wrote to an official who had recently received an appointment to the Department of State, “[but] we destroyed a few liver cells together” during the Bush presidential campaign.

And Cruz was not afraid to ask for favors.

“GWB made a terrific choice. When you come up for air, I’d love to buy you a beer in celebration,” he wrote in April to Kevin J. Martin, President Bush’s newly nominated Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member.

Tenpas, Garnett and representatives for Leo and Martin declined to comment. Clement did not respond to a request for comment.

A week later Cruz emailed Martin about a job he was potentially interested in at the FCC.

“Obviously, anything you could say . . . to nudge my name forward would be extremely helpful,” Cruz wrote.

Do you have a question, comment or FOIA idea? Leave a comment or email me at [email protected].

Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/06/18/these-1941-historic-ted-cruz-emails-show-how-washington-works/