FOIA News: FOIA suit for judicial records ill-conceived, opines Fix the Court

Parts of the Judiciary Should Be Subject to FOIA. But This Lawsuit Isn't the Way to Do It

By Gabe Roth, Fix the Court, Nov. 19, 2025

Under seemingly everyone’s understanding of federal open records laws — namely FOIA — the judiciary is exempt from them.

That is, everyone but America First Legal, which is suing the judiciary over an unanswered FOIA that concerns correspondence the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference purportedly had with Democratic members of Congress over recent SCOTUS ethics scandals.

The irony of this request is that, in the end, the AO and Judicial Conference ran interference for primary offender, deciding to drop the complaint against Justice Thomas for not reporting decades worth of gifts, free vacations and other perks on his financial disclosures. (Fix the Court is on record supporting a fine for Thomas’ omissions under the Ethics in Government Act and creating an enforceable ethics regime down the line but opposing harsher penalties like criminal liability or impeachment.)

AFL’s argument in the suit — D.D.C. Judge Trevor McFadden held a hearing today on the AO/JCUS motion to dismiss — boils down to its belief that when Congress, in 5 U.S.C. §551(1)(B), exempted “the courts of the United States” from FOIA, it was not exempting the ancillary bodies within the judicial branch that perform administrative functions, like the AO and JCUS.

Read more here.

FOIA News: New leadership at DOJ-OIP

According to informed sources, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy has a new Director: Sean Glendening, who most recently served as chief counsel to Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York. Mr. Glendening, 37, is a graduate of Lehigh University (2009) and Albany Law School (2014). His public service experience includes serving as a part-time Judge Advocate in the U.S. Army and completing a two-year fellowship in the New York State Executive Chamber. Before joining Congressman Lawler’s staff, Mr. Glendening was the General Counsel of 360Fuel and a part-time litigation associate for a law firm in Suffern, New York. The OIP Director post had been vacant since March, following the departure of Bobak Talebian.

FOIA News: OIP Training for Annual FOIA Reports

DOJ’s FOIA Annual Report Training for Federal Agencies

Dep’t of Justice, Office of Info. Pol’y (Nov. 19, 2025)

Agencies are required to submit their Fiscal Year 2025 Annual FOIA Reports using the FOIA.gov Annual Report Tool.  OIP has also updated the Department of Justice Annual FOIA Report Handbook, a key resource that agencies should consult when compiling their Annual FOIA Reports.  Agency personnel responsible for completing their agency's report are encouraged to attend OIP's Annual FOIA Report Refresher Training on Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 10 am EST [NEW DATE]. If you have attended this training in previous years and feel confident to begin your submissions without attending this year’s session, we encourage you to begin the reporting process as soon as possible.

Agencies should take note of the following deadlines, which are also summarized in Agency Reporting Obligations At-A-Glance, to ensure that they can satisfy all FOIA reporting obligations in the upcoming year. 

Please contact DOJ.OIP.FOIA@usdoj.gov with any further questions or concerns. 

Read the original blog post here.

FOIA News: OGIS report exposes VA’s struggles with FOIA

On November 18, 2025, the Office of Government Information Services re-posted a September 26th compliance report evaluating the Department of Veterans Affairs’ FOIA program. The OGIS assessment, which was mandated by Congress, contains 10 findings and 15 recommendations, highlighting significant delays, confusing first-party request procedures, inconsistent reporting, and outdated technology.

See the OGIS blog post here.

P.S. Former VA FOIA director, Michael Sarich, commented on the report back in September.

[Updated 11/19/25]

FOIA News: Calculating response times, by DOJ

Calculating FOIA Response Times after the Government Shutdown

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Nov. 18, 2025

As federal employees return to work following the recent lapse in appropriations, OIP is aware that there are questions regarding whether the lapse in appropriations affects how agencies should count the number of days needed to respond to FOIA requests and administrative appeals. OIP has issued guidance to federal agencies in calculating FOIA response times for requests received during the government shutdown.

Agencies should use the automatically generated received date as the “date received” for electronic communication.  For physical mail, the date on which the mail was physically received by the FOIA office should control.  For most agencies, this means that the “date received” for physical mail will be the date that the government reopened, November 13, 2025. You can read the full guidance piece here.

OIP’s FOIA Counselor Service and Annual FOIA Report Team are available to answer any questions on this guidance or any other topic regarding FOIA administration by calling (202) 514-FOIA (3642).

FOIA News: OPM sued for Schedule F records

NTEU sues OPM for Schedule F records

The federal employee union said the government’s dedicated HR agency ignored an August Freedom of Information Act request pertaining to which positions agencies plan to convert to the controversial new job classification.

By Erich Wagner, Gov’t Exec., Nov. 17, 2025

The National Treasury Employees Union on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management, alleging that the federal government’s dedicated HR agency unlawfully ignored a public information request related to the looming implementation of Schedule F.

First devised during Trump’s first term, Schedule F is a new job classification within the government’s excepted service for “policy-related” positions. Since renamed Schedule Policy/Career, the initiative would convert potentially tens of thousands of career federal employees into the new category, effectively making them at-will employees.

Though the first iteration of Schedule F failed to get off the ground before Trump left office in 2021, he quickly signed an executive order reinstating the measure when he returned to the White House last January. OPM issued proposed regulations to implement the new job category in April; the publication of a final rule is expected later this year.

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ updates reporting deadlines

Announcing Upcoming FY25 FOIA Reporting Deadlines (Updated)

By DOJ/OIP, FOIA Post, Nov. 14, 2025

With the new fiscal year underway, OIP’s Compliance Team is quickly preparing to jump into the FY25 reporting season.  Back on September 30, OIP announced the anticipated deadlines for agency report submissions for Fiscal Year 2025. Today, we are updating those deadlines for the 2025 Annual FOIA Reports and 2026 Chief FOIA Officer Reports.

Agencies are required to submit their Fiscal Year 2025 Annual FOIA Reports using the FOIA.gov Annual Report Tool.  OIP has also updated the Department of Justice Annual FOIA Report Handbook, a key resource that agencies should consult when compiling their Annual FOIA Reports.  Agency personnel responsible for completing their agency's report are encouraged to attend OIP's Annual FOIA Report Refresher Training on Thursday, November 20, 2025 [NEW DATE]. An updated Webex link will be emailed and made available on our blog mid-next week. If you have attended this training in previous years and feel confident to begin your submissions without attending this year’s session, we encourage you to begin the reporting process as soon as possible.

Read more here.

Court opinion issued Nov. 12, 2025

Marin v. Driscoll (D.D.C.) -- concluding that the U.S. Army properly relied on Exemption 6 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of disciplinary records concerning a named individual, as well as investigatory records of a unit that plaintiff tied with four named individuals; noting that plaintiff primarily sought records for use in his court-martial appeal and failed to show that disclosure would reveal significant government misconduct or involved senior officials; further, rejecting plaintiff’s argument that his receipt of certain documents during discovery undermined the agency’s Glomar response.

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

FOIA News: Government shutdown ends; FOIA processing resumes

Welcome back, feds. Some FOIA offices may have a lot of catching up to do after a 43-day partial government shutdown. Take heart, requesters. In fiscal year 2019, agencies still managed to process slightly more requests than they received despite a 35-day shutdown. See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Info. Policy, Summary of Annual FOIA Reports for Fiscal Year 2019 (reporting 858,952 requests received; 877,964 processed).

Court opinion issued Nov. 10. 2025

Alford v. Collins (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) Department of Veterans Affairs performed an adequate search related to pro se plaintiff’s own benefits, vocational rehabilitation, and the agency’s handling of his prior requests for relief; (2) the VA properly withheld draft advisory opinions and internal deliberations under Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege, but it failed to justify other Exemption 5 withholdings and did not meet its segregability obligation for documents withheld in full; and (3) the VA properly relied on Exemption 6 to redact the names of low-level employees.

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