Pub. Emps. for Envtl. Responsibility v.EPA (D.D.C.) -- deciding that EPA properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold in full a working draft version of a formaldehyde assessment.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Jobe v. NTSB (5th Cir.) -- reversing and remanding district court’s decision and holding that “outside parties solicited by the NTSB qualify as ‘consultants’ under Exemption 5’s corollary; rejecting district court’s view that technical personnel employed by aircraft manufacturers and operators have too much “self-interest” in outcome of NTSB investigations to be regarded as consultants.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Split 5th Circ. Annuls Atty's FOIA Helicopter Crash Docs Win
By Dave Simpson, Law360, June 17, 2021
A split Fifth Circuit panel ruled that the National Transportation Safety Board does not have to turn over documents about a helicopter crash…
Read more here (subscription).
Feds Seek To Ax Trump-Era Suit Over 'Public Charge' Docs
Law360, June 16, 2021
The U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services urged a Massachusetts federal judge Wednesday to toss a lawsuit accusing it of stonewalling a request for records about a leaked draft of a Trump administration-era "public charge rule" that scared immigrants away from using welfare benefits to which the law entitles them. Lawyers for Civil Rights made a Freedom of Information Act request in January 2019 seeking USCIS records relating to the leak of the proposed rule, which would have blocked immigrants from obtaining legal status if they used any local, state or federal social services. But the Trump administration never responded to the. . .
Read more here (accessible with free trial subscription)
Kovalevich v. Bureau of Indian Affairs (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) agency performed reasonable search for records pertaining to plaintiff’s arrest and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 7(C), issues that plaintiff conceded; (2) court lacked jurisdiction to consider plaintiff’s claims about agency’s fee practices, because agency released all records free of charge; (3) pro se plaintiff was not eligible for attorney’s fees and he failed to argue why he was eligible and entitled to recover his litigation costs.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Odor v. USCIS (E.D. Mich.) -- concluding that agency performed reasonable search for plaintiff’s A-file, that agency’s Vaughn index was sufficient, and that in camera review of withheld records was unnecessary.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
'No Amount of Apologizing': Judge Scolds DOJ, but Pauses Release of Trump Prosecution Memo
“The department chose not to tell the court the purpose of the memorandum or subject it addressed at all, and no amount of apologizing for ‘imprecision’ in the language it did use can cure the impact of that fundamental omission,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote.
By Jacqueline Thomsen, Nat’l Law J., June 14, 2021
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., said Monday that she will pause the release of a legal memo about the Mueller report, but continued to take issue with some of the arguments the Justice Department has made in the case.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia last month ordered that an Office of Legal Counsel memo on a potential prosecution of then-President Donald Trump based on Special Counsel Robert Mueller III’s findings be made public, citing discrepancies between DOJ officials’ descriptions of the memo and the memo itself, which she reviewed in private.
The Justice Department said it will appeal part of the ruling and asked Jackson to stay her order while it takes the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. On Monday, Jackson granted that motion, finding “the public interest in disclosure now does not outweigh DOJ’s interest in preserving a privilege that would be lost if the Court were to order disclosure.”
Read more here (accessible with free registration).
Pentagon renews effort to withhold more unclassified records
Biden administration continues what has become a seven-year annual tradition
By John M. Donnelly, Roll Call, June 10, 2021
Pentagon leaders are asking Congress to expand the kinds of unclassified information about military operations that the department can withhold from the public, continuing what has been an annual tradition for seven years and spanning three administrations.
Officials with the Pentagon general counsel’s office are requesting that the Armed Services committees, in writing the fiscal 2022 defense authorization bill, prescribe changes to the Freedom of Information Act that would limit public access to certain data.
Read more here.
The United States Agency for International Development has issued a proposed rule that updates its FOIA regulations. The deadline to submit comments is August 9, 2021.
Casillas-Prieto v. USMS (D.D.C.) -- ruling that legal visitation records concerning plaintiff’s confinement at agency contract facility were not agency records, and that USMS properly segregated non-responsive records that it voluntarily released.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.