Governor Brown Releases 2,918 Pages of Kitzhaber Emails
The Office of the Governor today released the final installment of emails from email accounts used by former Governor Kitzhaber, governor.kitzhaber@gmail.com and jk.hundredthmeridian@gmail.com. In total, today's release consists of 2,918 pages. This is in addition to the more than 50,000 pages of emails released since September 2015.
The Office of the Governor has produced public records from former Governor Kitzhaber's email accounts on a rolling basis. With this production, the Office of the Governor has now produced all non-exempt public records from former Governor Kitzhaber's email accounts that are in its possession (subject to the court order mentioned below).
Although the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has possession of emails from the account jk.hundredthmeridian@gmail.com, on November 20, 2015 Marion County Judge Courtland Geyer held that the emails in the State's possession were archived by mistake, that reviewing these emails would violate a state statute (ORS 165.540), and, accordingly, that the State must refrain from doing so. Some emails from former Governor Kitzhaber's other account — governor.kitzhaber@gmail.com — were not archived by DAS. Therefore, most of the emails produced today were identified as public records and voluntarily provided to the Office of the Governor by former Governor Kitzhaber.
A number of documents released today are labeled “Attorney-Client Privilege” and/or include counsel to the Office of the Governor among the documents' authors, senders or recipients. These documents are being released because it is the opinion of the Office of the Governor that these records – notwithstanding any labeling – are not, in fact, covered by the attorney-client privilege. The release of these documents is therefore not intended as, and does not constitute a waiver of the Office of the Governor's attorney-client privilege with respect to those documents that are indeed properly covered by the privilege. The Office of the Governor is withholding a small number of documents from this production that it believes are covered by the attorney-client privilege.
Some emails subject to this public records review were withheld or produced with redactions due to statutory exemptions that exist in Oregon's public records laws. Some reviewed documents were withheld or redacted pursuant to one or more of the following statutory exemptions: ORS 192.496(1) (info about an individual's physical health); ORS 192.501(1) (pertaining to ongoing or anticipated litigation); ORS 192.501(22) (info used to log into conference calls); ORS 192.501(23) (info related to the governor's security); ORS 192.502(1) (internal advisory communications); ORS 192.502(2) (info of a personal nature); ORS 285A.075(1)(b) (confidential Business Oregon negotiations); ORS 192.502(9) (incorporating the attorney-client and work-product privileges); ORS 192.410(4) (does not meet the definition of a public record).
DOWNLOAD:
Emails from the governor.kitzhaber@gmail.com account
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzMvBq_LbaUUN01NSHA0VmlvZHM/view
Emails from the jk.hundredthmeridian@gmail.com account
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzMvBq_LbaUUOUxlNWpkNjRyRlk/view
Additional emails from both accounts
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzMvBq_LbaUUdUNybklobC0xTjg/view
