FOIA Advisor

Court opinion added for Mar. 19, 2021

Court Opinions (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

Mullane v. DOJ (D. Mass.) -- deciding that: (1) Executive Office for United States Attorneys and the Securities and Exchange Commission performed adequate searches for records pertaining to plaintiff, whose legal internships were terminated and rescinded by EOUSA and SEC, respectively, due to an incident with a federal judge; (2) EOUSA properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5’s attorney-client and attorney work-product privileges, and it properly withheld unsigned draft records pursuant to the deliberative process privilege; the agency improperly withheld email with University of Miami, however, and failed to adequately explain other deliberative process privilege claims; (3) both agencies properly redacted records pursuant to Exemption 6, which plaintiff did not dispute.

[ALB comment: The genesis of this FOIA action, which is not discussed in the opinion, is worth reading. See “incident” link above]