FOIA News: New FOIA Podcast, "Disclosure," to Debut

Bloomberg and No Smiling Announce the Launch of New Podcast Series, Disclosure

Bloomberg Media (Oct. 23, 2025)

New York, NY – October 23, 2025 – Bloomberg, in partnership with No Smiling, today announced the launch of Disclosure, a new podcast series exploring the pursuit of government records – and the stories they tell. The show premieres October 28 across all major podcast platforms, with early access to episodes for Bloomberg subscribers. Listen to the trailer here.

Disclosure is hosted by Bloomberg News investigative reporter Jason Leopold and First Amendment attorney Matt Topic, leading experts on using public records laws to uncover government documents. Each week, they give listeners a behind-the-scenes look at how the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state public records laws can be used to inform the public about what their government is up to and how their taxpayer dollars are being spent.

From Russian pranksters who duped a top government official to reports of documents allegedly flushed down White House toilets and the government’s sale of a coveted Rap album, Disclosure will reveal the obstacles Leopold and Topic face and the unexpected stories that surface once those records are released.

The first episode of Disclosure will debut on all major podcast platforms on October 28, with new episodes released weekly on Tuesdays. Bloomberg subscribers get early access to all subsequent episodes.

Bloomberg produces more than 30 podcasts, delivering smart analysis, timely insights, and compelling storytelling across business, finance, economics, politics, technology, healthcare, sports, and more. Bloomberg podcasts are distributed by iHeartPodcasts and are available on the Bloomberg app, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts are heard.

Leopold also writes the Bloomberg newsletter FOIA Files, where he takes readers behind the scenes of his reporting to share interesting documents never seen before. Subscribe here.

About Bloomberg Media
Bloomberg Media is the world’s leading multi-platform media company for business and finance, which draws on the editorial resources of more than 3,000 journalists and analysts in more than 100 bureaus around the world. Bloomberg Media is the consumer-facing media organization of Bloomberg L.P.

Read the full press release here.

FOIA News: This and that

• Tips for filing FOIA requests during a government shutdown, by Lauren Harper, Freedom of the Press Foundation.

• What Does a Government Shutdown Mean for FOIA?, by Rachel Santarsiero, Nat’l Sec. Archive.

• Professor Dru Stevenson at the South Texas College of Law has produced a series of FOIA videos on YouTube as part of his Administrative Law course. Here are videos for Exemption 1; Exemption 2; Exemption 3; Exemption 4; Exemption 5; Exemption 6; Exemption 7; Exemption 8; and Exemption 9; and Glomar responses.

• The Yale Journal on Regulation briefly discusses the D.C. Circuit’s recent reading-room decision, Campaign for Accountability v. DOJ.

FOIA News: EPA to rescind expedited processing regulation for “environmental justice”

EPA is planning to ax a public records provision that granted expedited processing for marginalized communities.

By Kevin Bogardus, E&E News, Oct. 16, 2025

EPA is preparing to jettison one of its last vestiges of the Biden administration, a rule that sped up Freedom of Information Act requests for marginalized communities burdened with pollution.

As part of President Donald Trump’s sweep of diversity programs across the federal government, the agency is planning to ax a provision added to FOIA regulations during the previous administration. That measure granted expedited processing for requests that showed an “environmental justice-related need” for records pertaining to areas suffering from adverse health and environmental impacts.

The movement to provide relief to polluted places, often occupied by people of color and low income, has become verboten during the Trump administration. The president signed an executive order on his first day back in office to rid agencies of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs, including any “environmental justice” offices and services.

Matthew Tejada, former EPA deputy assistant administrator for environmental justice, said ending the FOIA provision would cut off another avenue for ordinary people to access their government.

“Making information requests harder to achieve both further pulls down a veil of secrecy obscuring what this administration is actually up to inside of our nation’s government while simultaneously ensuring that everyone but the most privileged in our country have few to zero means of engaging our government in a meaningful way,” said Tejada, now senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Rescinding the rule fits in with a larger pattern at EPA during the Trump administration. This year, the agency canceled grants classified as DEI and closed its environmental justice office, where staff received reduction-in-force or layoff notices.

“Since day one, the Trump EPA has been crystal clear that the Biden-Harris administration shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ preferencing on the EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” said agency spokesperson Carolyn Holran in a statement.

EPA is already behind some deadlines on the repeal.

The agency was supposed to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking in July and a “Final Action” this month, according to the administration’s latest regulatory agenda. As of Thursday, visitors to EPA’s FOIA public access link can still ask to expedite their requests based on environmental justice.

EPA’s statement didn’t say when the regulation would be finalized and whether it would have a public comment period, as happened with its proposed rule more than two years ago.

“The government-wide Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions represents a snapshot in time, and completions dates are always subject to change,” Holran said.

EPA doesn’t often grant expedited processing under FOIA. In fiscal 2024, the agency sped up 15 requests that sought faster treatment while it denied 293 others, according to its annual report.

Allan Blutstein, a FOIA lawyer for pro-Republican research firms since 2015, opposed the environmental justice provision when it was first issued and now backs its rescission. He urged repeal of the measure in a direct message sent in February to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency team at EPA.

Blutstein said the regulation “effectively tilts the playing field in favor of certain individuals based on demographic factors, creating a form of identity politics within the FOIA process.”

He noted requests could still receive expedited processing in other ways under the public records law.

“Keep in mind that requests about pollution may still qualify for expedition under the ‘compelling need’ standard, and nothing — beyond considerations of fairness — prevents the EPA from interpreting that standard broadly in a different administration,” Blutstein said.

Read more here (with free 7-day trial).

FOIA News: Mini-conference with FOIA

On October 27, 2025, the Simmons Center for Information Literacy at Simmons University will host a three-hour, interactive mini-conference entitled “Information is Power: The First Amendment, Public Records, and the Press.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Beryl Lipton will lead a FOIA discussion in which participants learn “how to file a FOIA request like a pro.”

See more details here.

FOIA News: Shutdown slows down FOIA responses

Transparency takes a hit during shutdown

Public records responses and open government websites are anticipated to stall, if not outright stop, during the lapse in funding.

By Kevin Bogardus, Greenwire, Oct. 10, 2025

Federal agencies’ regular online disclosure and routine management of the Freedom of the Information Act are expected to fade as the government shutdown lingers on.

Reviewing and redacting documents takes staff, many of whom are the first to be furloughed during a funding lapse. And as more federal employees get sent home, government websites grow glitchy and public records requests gather dust, creating an increasing pile of work that civil servants will have to slog through when they’re back on the job.

Read more here.

FOIA News: More on NARA's 2024 records management report

Agencies Increasingly Applying AI in Processing FOIA Requests, Says Report

FEDweek, Oct. 6, 2025

Almost a fifth of federal entities that process FOIA requests are using AI and machine learning, and those “early adopters are demonstrating the ability of AI to identify sensitive information and normalizing the concept of AI in FOIA processing,” says a report.

That is a “notable” number as agencies are looking to apply AI improve efficiency in searching for and retrieving records that may be responsive to FOIA requests, said the report based on responses from some 280 federal entities to a survey earlier this year on their FOIA compliance activities.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Status of National Archives facilities

Good news for requesters seeking official military or civilian personnel files: NARA’s National Personnel Records Center remains open for business.

FOIA News: This and that

• The FBI has posted a half-dozen batches of documents concerning its headquarters consolidation project.

• Democratic candidate for NJ Governor blames Republicans for NARA’s FOIA blunder.

• The Government Attic recently posted a 1950 CIA report on Israel.

FOIA News: FOIA buzz at the SEC

A Grassroots FOIA Campaign Swarms the SEC

FOIAengine: How Obscure MMTLP Became a Cause Célèbre 

By John A. Jenkins, Law St. Media, Oct. 1, 2025

At the Securities and Exchange Commission, the inbox has been filling up with hundreds of near-identical Freedom of Information Act requests about a little-known company called Meta Materials, Inc., whose stock once traded under the ticker symbol MMTLP.  

Most of those FOIA requests aren’t signed by big law firms or Wall Street players, but rather by aggrieved retail investors and citizen activists who buy into a conspiracy theory:  that actions taken by the SEC and its self-regulatory arm, FINRA, in the interest of protecting investors actually constituted regulatory missteps that wiped out their investments.  

There have been lawsuits, bankruptcies, death threats, and calls for Congress or the Trump Administration to take action.  In one anonymous message to a market veteran reported by the Wall Street Journal, the sender alluded to mass shootings and vowed to come “piss on your casket.”

Big financial players – notably Citadel, and the online market maker Virtu – have been targeted and are fighting subpoenas.  FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that writes and enforces rules for registered brokers and broker-dealer firms in the U.S., also has been pulled into litigation.   The hashtag #FinraFraud went viral.     

Read more here.

FOIA News: OGIS publishes compliance assessment of VA FOIA office

On September 26th, the Office of Government Information Services (“OGIS”) published its Compliance Assessment Report for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs FOIA Office. The full report can be found here, although OGIS has also published a summary with its top-line findings and recommendations here.

OGIS’s fifteen findings were as follows:

1. VA acknowledged requests in an average of two weeks after receipt in fiscal year (FY) 2024, but veterans seeking their own records from the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) waited an average of five months to receive records. (Recommendation 1)​

2. VA’s handling of first-party requests, particularly with regard to the intersection between FOIA and the Privacy Act, is complex and confusing. (Recommendation 2)

3. VA’s confusing communication to veterans seeking their own benefits records prevents them from knowing whether they can expect administrative rights under FOIA. (Recommendations 3-5)

4. VA is not consistently complying with the FOIA statutory requirement to provide requesters with estimated dates of completion (EDCs) upon request. (Recommendation 6)

5. Letters from VA’s FOIA program to requesters are not written in plain language. (Recommendation 7)

6. VA’s reporting on the administration of FOIA appears to be inconsistent, complicating review of the FOIA program’s performance. (Recommendations 8-10)

7. VA’s decentralized system for obtaining records relies on collateral duty staff to locate records and process requests for records which slows the process. (Recommendation 11)

8. The technology and systems that VA uses to maintain records and process FOIA requests are siloed and not always efficient. Multiple programs are used to process FOIA requests and the platforms are unable to communicate with each other. (Recommendation 12)

9. Communication about VA’s FOIA program on the agency’s website is not always clear and consistent, and there is no FOIA handbook as required by the FOIA statute. (Recommendations 13 and 14)

10. VA’s FOIA program contact information and FOIA Public Liaison information on FOIA.gov, the government’s central website for FOIA, is often not correct. (Recommendation 15)