Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office has shared documents from a November meeting with President Donald Trump to the American Civil Liberties Union, but the legal wrangling over the papers is likely to continue after Kobach’s office marked the papers as confidential. Kobach met with Trump in November and was photographed carrying a strategic plan for the Department of Homeland Security. The photograph revealed that the documents contained a reference to voting rolls, and the ACLU has sought access to them as part of an ongoing voting rights case.
A federal judge ordered Kobach to hand over the documents by Friday. Kobach’s spokeswoman, Samantha Poetter, said in an email around 5:30 p.m. Friday that the secretary of state’s office had sent the documents to the ACLU.
Dale Ho, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, confirmed that the organization had received the documents that evening, but said Kobach’s office “erroneously stamped them as confidential documents that cannot be disclosed beyond the parties.”
Ho said the documents are not confidential under the court’s order, and that the ACLU will be seeking to have the confidential designation removed. The designation affects the ACLU’s ability to disclose the contents to news organizations and the broader public.
Full Article: Kobach’s office hands over documents from Trump meeting | The Wichita Eagle.