FOIA News: NARA posts 2025 annual report

The National Archives and Records Administration has issued its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2025. Here are a few of the highlights:

• 27,797 requests received, up from 22,590 requests received in FY 2024

• 27,511 requests processed, up from 23,893 in FY2024

• 5393 backlogged requests, up from 5107 from FY 2024.

• For all processed perfected requests, response time of 15 average days for simple requests and 1759 average days for complex requests.

• 8 requests for expedited process granted and 157 requests denied.

• 204 requests for fee waivers granted and 161 requests denied.

• Zero fees collected for processing requests.

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Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 12, Jackson, MS, closes 2/26/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 11-12, Richmond, VA, closes 2/26/26 (internal only)

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of the Navy, GS 9, Mechanicsburg, PA, closes 2/27/26 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, GS 9, Temple, TX, closes 2/27/26 (non-public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/BOP, GS 12, multiple locations, closes 3/16/26 (non-public).

FOIA News: Got Screwed Again?

The deadline for agencies to post their annual reports is less than one week away (3/1/26), and we’re eagerly awaiting the numbers from FOIAs heavy lifters, e.g., DHS, DOJ, DOD, HHS, and NARA. We hope they’ll do better than the General Services Administration with respect to their request backlogs. The key figures are as follows:

• Requests received: 2387, up from 1663 in FY 2024

• Requests processed: 1841, up from 1632 in FY 2024

• Backlogged requests: 945, up from 375 in FY 2024

• For all processed perfected requests, response time of 42 average days for simple requests and 192 average days for complex requests.

• 414 requests for expedited processing received; 64 granted; 350 denied

• 280 fee waiver requests received; 160 granted and 120 denied

• Personnel costs of $2,862,875 versus $43,900 fees collected for processing requests

See more here.

FOIA News: Second volume of Special Counsel Jack Smith report to remain confidential

[FOIA Advisor Note: As Allan and Ryan noted in their commentary on the “Top Cases of 2025,” Judge Canon’s preliminary injunction barring disclosure of volume two of Jack Smith’s special counsel report, which was set to expire tomorrow, has figured prominently in ongoing FOIA cases like American Oversight v. Department of Justice, 779 F. Supp. 3d 40 (D.D.C. 2005), and N.Y. Times v. Department of Justice, No. 25-0562, 2025 WL 2549435 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 4, 2025). Judge Canon’s decision now to enter a permanent injunction will presumably keep volume two secret in perpetuity, although it seems likely that advocates for the report’s release will continue to explore legal channels for compelling disclosure.]

Judge blocks release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump classified documents case

Alanna Durkin Richer & Eric Tucker, CNN (Feb. 23, 2026)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday permanently barred the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents that led to charges once seen as the most perilous of the four criminal cases the Republican faced.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, granted a request from the president to keep under wraps the report on an investigation alleging Trump stored sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House following his first term and obstructed government efforts to get them back.

Smith and his team produced a two-volume report on the classified documents investigation and a separate probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Joe Biden. Both investigations produced indictments that were abandoned by Smith’s team after Trump’s November 2024 election win in light of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.

Attorney General Pam Bondi had already determined that the report was “an internal deliberative communication that is privileged and confidential and should not be released” outside the Justice Department, according to court papers. The Trump administration has characterized Smith’s investigation as politically motivated and said in recent court papers that the report belongs in the “dustbin of history.”

Cannon’s order, however, blocking the release also applies to Bondi’s successors at the Justice Department. Cannon, who in 2024 dismissed the case after concluding that Smith was unlawfully appointed after multiple other favorable rulings for Trump, said the release of the report would present a “manifest injustice” to the president and his two co-defendants.

[. . .]

Read the rest here.

Court opinions issued Feb. 20, 2026

Aaronson v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case involving an investigative journalist’s inquiry into the FBI’s “alleged impersonation of the media,” granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; concluding the FBI properly denied one of the reporter’s requests as “unduly burdensome” because it would have required searching for email records covering “a four-and-a-half-year period” across “more than 70,000 email accounts”; rejecting, in this regard, the requester’s argument that the FBI could “perform bulk, backend searches of its classified and unclassified email systems through its existing IT and e-discovery capabilities”; ruling against the government vis-a-vis its failure to perform an adequate search “in one respect,” namely, looking for potentially responsive records maintained by the Undercover Review Committee; holding moreover that the FBI did not justify its categorical Glomar response based on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) as any records that mention “Brent Tyler”—a pseudonym for an FBI employee—would not implicate those exemptions’ underlying privacy concerns because no “person’s privacy is at stake”; finally, explaining that, after reviewing an in camera declaration from the FBI, if the agency had, in fact, invoked a statutory exclusion, that invocation “was and remains amply justified.”

Khan v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding, firstly, that plaintiffs did not exhaust administrative remedies for two of the requests at issue because they failed to file appeals, and rejecting the requesters’ argument that untimely determinations “alleviated the appeal requirement”; also holding that the government met its burden to show it performed adequate searches for potentially responsive records and noting, contrary to the requesters’ insistence, that there was no evidence of “bad faith”; finally, concluding the agencies properly invoked Exemptions 3, 5, 6, 7(C), and 7(F).

Bradley v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs (N.D. Fla.) — adopting in full a magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation and dismissing a pro se, in forma pauperis requester’s FOIA case for “failure to comply with court orders,” namely, directions to file an amended complaint that addressed several pleading deficiencies.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued Feb. 19, 2026

Powell v. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) — granting the IRS’s dispositive motions; noting, at the outset, that it is unclear whether the IRS or the Treasury is the proper named defendant, but “reserv[ing] that question for another day,” since it would make “no practical difference” here; concluding, firstly, that the requester’s non-FOIA claims under the APA, Section 6103, and the Mandamus Act should be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6); concluding further that the requester’s FOIA claims were not properly exhausted because he “did not perfect his FOIA requests” prior to filing suit by providing the IRS with the necessary proof of the “right to access the requested records,” which included “various tax documents associated with his family’s business entities”; rejecting the agency’s suggestion that an administrative appeal was required, given its regulations which suggest the closure of the requests was not, in fact, an adverse determination triggering the right to appeal.

Citizens For Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that plaintiff was likely to succeed on the merits of its claims for expedited processing of records about DOJ’s voter data requests; finding that CREW qualified as “primarily engaged in disseminating information” and that its requests involved matters of exceptional public and media interest affecting confidence in government integrity; declining, however, to order CREW’s requested production rate, reasoning that doing so could disrupt DOJ’s handling of other requests and risk mishandling sensitive material.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued Feb. 18, 2026

Rhodes v. IRS (N.D. Ala.) -- dismissing the lawyer’s lawsuit against the IRS for lack of Article III standing, finding that he lacked a concrete personal injury because the FOIA request was submitted on behalf of his client, not in his own name.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

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Gen. Att’y, Consumer Product Safety Comm’n, GS 14, Bethesda, MD, closes 3/2/26 (public).

Gov’t Info. Specialist, Dep’t of Justice/EOIR, GS 11-12, Falls Church, VA, closes 3/4/26 (non-public).

Court opinions issued Feb. 17, 2026

Lenz v. IRS (D.C. Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that IRS attorneys knowingly misrepresented the status of two boxes of responsive documents sought in a 2008 FOIA lawsuit involving the same parties; finding that plaintiff’s motion for relief under Rule 60(b)(3) was untimely filed and that the district court properly declined to set aside the judgment under its inherent authority due to lack of clear and convincing evidence of fraud.

Biggins v. USPS (D.N.J.) -- granting agency’s motion to dismiss pro se plaintiff’s amended Complain, which sought change-of-address information of a third party upon whom plaintiff wanted to serve legal process; finding that plaintiff failed to submit proper FOIA requests and had not exhausted administrative remedies.

Ezeah v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff's motion for reconsideration and granting summary judgment to the government after the agency clarified that the only records requested by plaintiff—communications related to his prosecution between the federal prosecutor and his defense attorney, and between the prosecutor and an FBI agent—had been permanently deleted under the agency’s retention policy.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued Feb. 12, 2026

Informed Consent Action Network v. Food & Drug Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting in part the agency’s motion for an Open America stay of proceedings; concluding that the agency adequately demonstrated “exceptional circumstances,” in large part due to “aggressive production rates” imposed by a “Texas court” that require the agency to disclose “up to 180,000 pages each month”; rejecting various arguments raised by the requester, which were unsuccessfully raised before other judges in the DDC in the recent past, including last week; noting, moreover, that the agency has “acted diligently” in processing the requests at issue, despite its limited resources and staffing.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.