Democracy Forward Found. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- granting Office of Information Policy’s request for a stay until January 13, 2019 to process records from the Office of Legal Policy concerning appellate court nominees. In arriving at its decision, the court considered that OIP has seen a significant spike in requests over the past two years and that it has been sufficiently diligent in processing requests.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Judge orders Justice, State departments to reopen narrow inquiry into handling of Clinton email records lawsuit
By Spencer S. Hsu, Wash. Post, Dec. 6, 2018
A U.S. judge ordered the Justice and State departments Thursday to reopen an inquiry into whether Hillary Clinton used a private email server while secretary of state to deliberately evade public records laws and to answer whether the agencies acted in bad faith by not telling a court for months that they had asked in mid-2014 for missing emails to be returned.
Read more here.
Copy of decision appears in “Court opinions”
Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- in a blistering opinion against the government, ordering the parties “to meet and confer to plan discovery into whether [Hillary] Clinton used a private email to stymie FOIA, whether State’s attempts to settle [this] case in late 2014 and 2015 amounted to bad faith, and whether State’s subsequent searches have been adequate.”
Sorin v. DOJ (2nd Cir.) (summary order) -- affirming district court’s decision that government properly withheld records pertaining to plaintiff’s criminal prosecution pursuant to Exemption 3, in conjunction with Federal Rule of Criminal of Criminal Procedure 6(e); Exemption 5 (attorney work-product privilege); and Exemption 7(C).
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal, Dec. 6, 2018
A Freedom of Information Act project to measure the number of FOIA lawsuits filed against federal agencies has added the Department of Education to the top-10 list for the first time. The FOIA Project maintains information on federally related FOIA requests, decisions, appeals and lawsuits.
Read more here.
Am. Ctr. for Law & Justice v. U.S. Dep't of State (D.D.C.) -- ruling that agency properly relied on Exemption 1 to withhold parts of five-page report concerning activities of the “United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.”
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
DC Circ. Asks Why Gov't Legal Opinions Are FOIA-Exempt
By Christopher Cole, Law 360, Dec. 4, 2018
The U.S. Justice Department faced pointed questions from D.C. Circuit judges Tuesday about its rationale for keeping legal advice to federal agencies from public view.
Read more here (free trial subscription available).
By Miranda Green, The Hill, Dec. 4, 2018
Two environmental groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for records of any meetings that new Administrator Andrew Wheeler may have held with his former employer and several other energy groups.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Friends of the Earth brought the lawsuit on Tuesday, arguing the EPA should release records of any meetings that Wheeler may have had with the communications and lobbying firm Faegre Baker Daniels.
Read more here.
Planned Parenthood v. Azar (W.D. Wash.) -- in “reverse-FOIA” case, ruling that plaintiff was entitled to preliminary injunction protecting its grant application because agency’s decision to release it appeared to be arbitrary and capricious and disclosure would likely cause irreparable harm.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Facing Subpoena Threat, Suit, EPA Limits Political Officials' FOIA Reviews
InsideEPA.com, Nov. 27, 2018
EPA has quietly issued a new policy that sets a schedule for political officials to review Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) releases and also requires prompt disclosures of the review, a policy that the agency is citing to head off a pending lawsuit challenging the practice as well as a possible subpoena from House Democrats in the next Congress. At issue is a controversial EPA practice known as “awareness reviews” in which political officials review agency responses to FOIA requests.
Read more here (subscription required).
A former @EPA official who worked on #FOIA told me the memo was an improvement on the old process.
— Kevin Bogardus (@KevinBogardus) November 28, 2018
"Before, there were no specific timelines, so the responses could be delayed because we would not have the green light."
🔒https://t.co/c7znuPZuLL