Am. Wild Horse Campaign v. U.S Bureau pf Land Mgmt. (D.D.C.) -- concluding that BLM’s search for records relating to the Rock Springs Grazing Association was adequate “in interpreting plaintiff’s FOIA requests, the locations to be searched, search terms and methods used (with one exception), and the selection of custodians (with one exception).”
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Top Democrats Urge DOJ To Defend GAO's Legislative Status
By Courtney Bublé, Law360, Apr. 17, 2025
Three top House Democrats are looking for assurances from the U.S. Department of Justice that it will "zealously defend" a government watchdog in upcoming litigation by a conservative legal organization that challenges its status in the government.
The America First Legal Foundation, which was founded by Stephen Miller, a current and former top Trump official, last month sued the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that works for Congress. While the lawsuit is based on a Freedom of Information Act request, there is a larger goal regarding the president's ability to remove executive officials. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan of the District of Columbia ordered the GAO to respond to the complaint by May 16.
Despite the GAO being in the legislative branch, the DOJ represents it in litigation, so the lawmakers asked for written confirmation by April 23 that the DOJ is committed to "vigorously" representing it.
Read more here (free access with business email registration).
See case material here.
President Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday that extends the three-month federal hiring freeze, which began on Inauguration Day and was set to expire this Sunday, through July t5, 2025.
See a related article from FedSmith here.
Behind the Story: Investigating the Faults in the IRS’s FOIA System
By David D. Stewart & Amanda Athanasiou, Tax Notes, Apr. 17, 2025
Tax Notes chief correspondent Amanda Athanasiou discusses her recent investigation into the IRS's handling of Freedom of Information Act requests and trends from two decades of agency data.
Listen to the talk here.
Judge Christopher Cooper has granted in part a motion for discovery in Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington v. U.S. DOGE Service, No. 25-0511 (D.D.C.), perhaps the most prominent case to challenge DOGE’s status of an “agency” under the FOIA. The limited discovery order is intended to allow CREW to gather information about “USD’S influence and operations for purposes of determining whether it is exercising the requisite authority” to qualify as a “agency.”
Although limited jurisdictional discovery is permitted in FOIA cases, it is quite rare. Discovery into DOGE’s organization and operations, however, has been granted in several other ongoing cases involving other laws, such as the Privacy Act. Here, Judge Cooper noted that, contrary to the government’s arguments, the DOGE-related Executive Orders, “far from resolving the question against CREW,” instead suggest “that USDS is exercising substantial independent authority,” and news reports further suggest how that authority is being exercised “across vast areas of the federal government.”
At the same time, the court noted that several topics—such as aspects of DOGE’s record-keeping policies—are not germane to the legal issues at hand in the FOIA litigation. The court will disallow an interrogatory seeking a list of the DOGE Administrators from the start of the current Administration, and will not require disclosure of DOGE visitor logs, but it will require the entity to identify all classified or sensitive information systems its has sought to access. Of note, the court expressed how it was “somewhat baffled” by DOGE’s claim that it does “not own[]” the “@DOGE X account.”
FOIA Advisor will continue to report on this case as it develops.
Outside Legal Counsel PLC v. Transp. Sec. Admin. (E.D. Mich.) - - denying pro se plaintiff-attorney’s request for $402 in litigation costs because TSA showed that it meaningfully responded to plaintiff’s request once received and plaintiff’s lawsuit did not change the agency’s position or cause the release of records; declining to opine on whether the Sixth Circuit correctly decided that pro se FOIA plaintiffs who are attorneys are barred from collecting attorney’s fees.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Democracy Forward Found. v. OMB (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction that sought expedited processing of reduction-in-force and reorganization plans maintained by OMB and OPM, as well as production of “approved” plans by a date certain; reasoning that plaintiff failed to show it was entitled to the “extraordinarily rare” remedy because, among other things, there was no “imminent event” indicating that the requested records would become stale if released though the normal FOIA process.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Yesterday, Judge Christopher Cooper entered a minute order instructing the U.S. DOGE Service to start processing records responsive to a FOIA request filed by Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington. That request is the subject of ongoing, high-profile litigation in Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington v. U.S. DOGE Service, No. 25-0511 (D.D.C.). The complete order can be found on the docket, available here.
Judge Cooper has ordered DOGE (and OMB) to process CREW’s requests “at a rate of 1000 pages per month,” which is above the now-standard 500 pages. Despite ongoing briefing concerning DOGE’s status as an “agency” under the FOIA, the district court reasoned that processing could proceed given its previous ruling that DOGE “is likely subject to FOIA,” and any other result would result in further “processing delays” down the road. Importantly, Judge Cooper noted the government need not “produce any documents,” but only process them. The Court justified accelerated processing based on its finding that the records at issue are “important” and “of the highest national concern,” especially for “ongoing public and congressional debates.” CREW also successfully argued for expedited processing in its initial motion for preliminary relief.
Interestingly, in response to the government’s arguments about the lack of any FOIA apparatus at DOGE, the court explained there is “no reason why the existing FOIA office at OMB, or those [offices] elsewhere within the Executive Office of the President, could not assist with processing[.]”
Finally, the court indicated it “might entertain a request for a higher processing rate should it be satisfied that CREW” has worked to narrow its request further, and if “production”—or, perhaps, as the Court likely intended to say, processing updates from the government—are “yielding meaningful results.”
FOIA Advisor has previously reported on updates in this case, and it will continue to do so.
Greenspan v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- in case seeking investigative records about named individuals who operated a heroin ring in Chicago in the 1990s, ruling that: (1) DEA was precluded from using Glomar response regarding one named individual because DOJ publicly filed an IRS affidavit in a forfeiture matter that expressly acknowledged DEA’s investigation of same individual; (2) both the DEA and FBI were precluded from using Glomar responses with respect to a second named individual (currently Nigeria’s president), because the above-referenced IRS affidavit acknowledged that that individual was criminally investigated by those agencies, among others; and (3) CIA’s Glomar response concerning the Nigerian president was not waived by the presence of documents in the agency’s FOIA Reading Room that generally addresses Nigeria’s involvement with heroin narcotrafficking during the mid-1980s.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.