Groups Call on Open Government Partnership to Put the U.S. Government Under Review
The Honorable Aidan Eyakuze
Chief Executive Officer
Open Government Partnership
1100 13th Street NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20005
Via Email
Dear Chief Executive Officer Eyakuze, members of the Open Government Partnership Secretariat, and members of the OGP Steering Committee:
Today, the undersigned organizations and individuals who work on government transparency and accountability in the United States respectfully request the Open Government Partnership (OGP) immediately place the United States government under review for actions contrary to the principles and policies of the partnership.
In its first fifty days in office, the Trump administration rolled back existing flagship commitments to the Open Government Partnership, from a national police misconduct database1 to enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act2 or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.3 These are signature reforms widely recognized by OGP and participating nations as crucial to fighting systemic corruption in every nation.
The White House stopped disclosing visitors to the White House, tax returns for senior officers, and ethics waivers. It directed the purge of public data from government websites, censored data regarding minority groups, and shuttered some websites entirely. It is attacking the free press by blocking journalistic access on the basis of their reporting, ordering inquiries into public media, and chilling investigative journalism. A free press is an essential ingredient to make governments transparent and accountable to the publics they serve.
Moreover, the Trump administration now has fired 18 inspectors general, the directors of the Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics, the Archivist and Deputy Archivist of the United States, the director of the Office of Information Policy at the Department of Justice, along with an unknown number of Freedom of Information Act officers.
Removing public records officials, ethics watchdogs, and whistleblower guardians strikes at the heart of the United States government’s capacity to fight fraud, waste, and corruption and subverts each American’s capacity to know public business and access public information.
Specific to the Open Government Partnership, the Trump administration ended the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee, which provided expert advice to the United States government as it worked to co-create with civil society the sixth national action plan for open government.
The Trump administration has stopped enforcing anticorruption laws or prosecution of officials indicted for corruption, including a cessation of efforts to build the beneficial ownership registry that is a shared priority across OGP members — despite the express intent of Congress. It has illegally cut USAID grants that support open government and democracy globally. And it is working to undermine its accountability to the U.S. Congress.
These are the actions of an administration opposed to open government at home and abroad. The Open Government Partnership should place the United States government under review now.4 The Partnership must suspend the United States at the end of 2025 should the federal government once again fail to co-create a meaningful plan with the American people.
The Open Government Partnership must not take years to respond to the authoritarian takeover of a democratic government. Such a timeline is too slow to be meaningful to civil society organizations on the ground. Moreover, authoritarian regimes are weakest while they consolidate power. Action now is more meaningful than years down the line. In any partnership, commitments to shared principles should entail solidarity when those principles are threatened.
It is the time for OGP to speak out as an organization and as a collective group of dozens of participating nations. We ask you to collectively call upon the United States to recommit to the Open Government Declaration that all founding members sign.
Ask our government “of the people” to recommit to co-creating a more open government with the American people. Ask them to make meaningful commitments on government transparency and accountability. Ask them to work with us to build upon a decade of recommendations and civil society priorities, like those presented in the Blueprint for Accountability developed by a diverse and broad coalition.5
During Sunshine Week, the time when the United States traditionally has celebrated efforts to make the government more transparent, accountable, and participatory, we urge the OGP Steering Committee to take immediate actions to repudiate the anti-transparency actions of the United States government.
No government, not even a co-founder of the OGP, should be above censure nor removal should it renege on its transparency commitments. The world is watching whether the Open Government Partnership will hold the United States to its stated transparency principles.
Please contact Daniel Schuman (daniel@americalabs.org) and Alexander B. Howard (alex@governing.digital) with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely yours,
American Governance Institute
American Oversight
Center for Media and Democracy
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Civic Texts
Free Government Information (FGI)
Government Information Watch
GovTrack.us
Project On Government Oversight
Public Citizen
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
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- “Justice Department deletes database tracking federal police misconduct,” Washington Post (Feb. 21, 2025), https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/20/trump-justice-nlead-database-deleted/
- “Treasury Department won’t enforce beneficial ownership rule under the Corporate Transparency Act,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (Mar. 5, 2025), https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2025/03/treasury-department-wont-enforce-beneficial-ownership-rule-under-the-corporate-transparency-act/
- “Takeaways from the Pause on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement,” Kyle Clark, Brendan F. Quigley, and Bridget Moore (Feb. 24, 2025) https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/02/24/takeaways-from-the-pause-on-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-enforcement/
- It is plausible that U.S. cities or states could stay in OGP, even if the national government left or was suspended. But there are real questions about whether OGP is effective at the local level that need to be addressed to justify local communities engaging through it.
- https://blueprintforaccountability.us/recommendations/