Pruitt must give up sought-after documents

An Oklahoma County judge Thursday ordered Attorney General Scott Pruitt to turn over thousands of documents sought for more than two years by a Wisconsinbased media watchdog group.

Pruitt is President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The Center for Media and Democracy sought documents related to Pruitt’s communication with energy companies.

“You just can’t sit on them for two years,” District Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons told Pruitt’s attorneys during a hearing Thursday.

Pruitt’s office must turn over the documents related to a January 2015 request by Tuesday. His office also has 10 days to abide by other open records requests made by the group in 2015 and 2016, the judge ruled.

A lawsuit filed Feb. 7 by the group contended Pruitt’s office was violating the Oklahoma Open Records Act by denying access to requested public records. The judge agreed Thursday that Pruitt’s office failed to promptly provide the records.

The group’s attorney, Robert D. Nelon, said, “There was no justification given for the delay.”

“They were nonresponsive and the judge found, as a matter of law, that was an abject failure to abide by the Open Records Act,” Nelon said after the hearing.

Nelon said 411 documents related to the January 2015 request were turned over Feb. 10. The judge, though, said roughly 3,000 documents have been identified in that initial request.