FOIA Advisor

FOIA News: Academic Commentary on Campaign Legal Center v. DOJ (Part II of III)

FOIA News (2015-2023)Ryan MulveyComment

Campaign Legal Center v. DOJ - FOIA Postscript to Department of Commerce v. New York (Part II)

Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., Notice & Comment Blog, Nov. 29, 2022

Can an agency properly invoke the deliberative process privilege to shield internal deliberations over a sham memo requesting that another agency take action, knowing that the recipient agency will use the request to hide the real reason for its contemplated action? Earlier this year, the D.C. Circuit answered in the affirmative. Campaign Legal Center v. DOJ, 34 F.4th 14 (D.C. Cir. 2022). This is the second in a series of three posts discussing Campaign Legal Center. The first post provided the factual background for Campaign Legal Center and described the D.C. Circuit’s resolution of the issue. This post lays out the history of the “government misconduct” exception to the deliberative process privilege.

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