Judicial offices don’t have to turn over records to Trump-aligned group, judge rules
Tierney Sneed, CNN, Dec. 18, 2025
A federal judge ruled Thursday that two entities that implement policy and conduct administrative tasks for the judicial branch are not required under a transparency law to turn over their communications to a private legal group aligned with President Donald Trump.
The opinion by Judge Trevor McFadden came in a longshot case brought by America First Legal, which argued the judicial offices were the type of executive branch agencies that are covered under the Freedom of Information Act — the federal public records law.
The entities — which are known as the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office, and are led by judges — had refused to produce correspondences with Democratic lawmakers, prompting the FOIA lawsuit.
America First argued that the Judicial Conference is actually an executive agency that should be “overseen by the president, not the courts,” thus putting it under FOIA, which does not cover the judicial branch. The organization also contended during oral arguments last month that FOIA’s exemptions for the courts applied to judges and the law clerks that work in their chambers, but not the clerks and other officials who manage a courthouse’s administrative functions.
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