FOIA News: FOIA personnel slashed at multiple HHS offices

The FDA, CDC, and the NIH have sacked all of their FOIA employees, according to a report by Bloomberg News. The accuracy of this report has not been confirmed. The Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, also reported widespread layoffs at HHS, though none specifically mentioned the fate of FOIA staff.

FOIA News: Heritage's oversight project to become independent entity

The Heritage Foundation announced yesterday that it s oversight project led by Mike Howell is becoming an independent 501(c)(4) organization. Since its launch in 2022, the project has reportedly filed over 100,000 FOIA requests; it also has filed more than 100 lawsuits.

FOIA News: This and that

• The FBI’s “Vault” has posted material on comedian Richard Pryor, U.S. Senator John Glenn, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

• Bloomberg reported that the FBI agents and FOIA staff are working overtime to review Jeffrey Epstein files.

• See the following article for tips on making FOIA requests to improve nonprofit grant applications.

• DOJ/OIP has collected and posted agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports for 2025 here.

• The Office of Government Information Services has posted a profile of federal FOIA Advisory Committee member Margaret Kwoka.

FOIA News: DOGE releases records retention policy in ongoing FOIA battle

As it stands, FOIA Advisor has identified four pending lawsuits that involve a fight over whether the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” is an “agency,” as defined at 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(1). In one of those lawsuits—American Oversight v. U.S. DOGE—the requester has moved for a preservation order. The government filed its opposition to that motion on Thursday evening. DOGE’s argument focuses on its claimed status as a non-agency component of the Executive Office of the President, which would make it subject to the Presidential Records Act. It also highlighted existing efforts to preserve records pursuant to an official records retention policy and a litigation hold. Notably, DOGE filed a copy of its records retention policy, which appears to have gone into force at the beginning of the week—March 25, 2025.

FOIA News: Roughly 58,000 documents at issue in CREW's DOGE FOIA suit

According to a notice filed on Thursday evening, the government estimates that “approximately 58,000 documents” maintained by the U.S. DOGE Service are responsive to a FOIA request being litigated by Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington. DOGE explained it “has not yet been able to conduct a review for responsiveness, and deduplication.” The parties continue to contest whether DOGE is an “agency” for purposes of the FOIA, but the presiding judge has already denied the government’s recent motion for reconsideration on that very question, thus leaving in place a preliminary injunction compelling DOGE to process CREW’s request for the time being. FOIA Advisor has previously covered developments in this case. Just over a week ago, DOGE filed its motion for summary judgment, which should be decided on an expedited basis.

FOIA News: ASAP's Sunshine Week Webinar on "FOIA Court Cases"

The American Society of Access Professionals has published a video recording of its recent Sunshine Week webinar on developments in FOIA caselaw. The presenters were FOIA Advisor’s own Ryan Mulvey (who also serves as ASAP President), and Michael Heise of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A complete list of the cases covered in the webinar, with summaries and citations, can be found here.

Court opinions issued Mar. 24-26, 2025

Mar. 24, 2025

Cohodes v. Dep’t of Justice (N.D. Cal.) — after awarding $180,808.50 in attorney’s fees, and following supplemental briefing precipitated by plaintiff having “estimated [certain] fees in the initial fees motion and document[ing] them only in the reply,” granting plaintiff an additional $73,948.95 “in fees for [its] fees motion” because “the hourly rates and hours spent are reasonable”; rejecting the government’s request to apply an across-the-board reduction; in total, awarding the requester $254,757.45.

Basey v. Dep’t of Justice (D. Alaska) — holding the agency conducted a reasonable search given the “context of [the requester’s] broad request”; describing the execution of searches in the components “most likely to have responsive records,” as well as the FBI’s separate search as recipient of a referral from EOUSA; noting the requester’s “allegations of bad faith rest on innuendo” and rest on “purely speculative claims about the existence and discoverability of other documents”; holding also that the government properly applied: (1) Exemption 3, in conjunction with the Child Victims’ & Child Witnesses’ Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3509(d), to withhold “‘interviews of a minor victim and explicit media involving’ child sexual abuse,” (2) Exemption 5 and the deliberative-process privilege, together with Exemptions 6 and 7(C), to withhold records pertaining to interviews of victims abused by the requester, and (3) Exemption 7(E) to withhold records concerning the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team and Cyber Division’s Innocent Images National Initiative Program.

March 25, 2025

Heritage Found. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case where the parties contested the proper meaning of the term “request,” denying the government’s motion for summary judgment and adopting the plaintiff’s proposed interpretation; holding that the FBI improperly split-up the plaintiff’s three-item FOIA request into three separate “requests”; explaining that, despite the agency having issued timely adverse determinations on two of the three parts, the requester was not required to exhaust administrative remedies as to those denials (and the separate denial of a fee waiver) before filing suit on the entirety of its submission after the agency failed to provide a timely response to the third item; suggesting that common usage, relevant caselaw, and statutory context all point to “request” best “refer[ring] to an overall FOIA submission,” rather than individual parts of a multi-item “submission”; noting that, while FOIA provides explicit authority to aggregate or consolidate distinct requests, there is no mention of splitting-up a request; expressing skepticism towards the agency’s contention that ruling for the plaintiff would “allow requesters to strategically circumvent the administrative appeal process.”

Evans v. Cent. Intelligence Agency (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment and holding that (1) the CIA’s search for records was adequate, (2) it properly issued a Glomar response pursuant to Exemption 1 as to a portion of the request, and (3) the plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies with respect to the CIA’s use of Glomar with Exemption 3; explaining the plaintiff offered only “mere speculation” about “uncovered documents,” and the agency was not required to “list each system it searched, as opposed to the categories or types of systems”; rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments on the Glomar front, which focused on the level of detail in the agency’s supporting declaration; noting the requester failed to raise any objection in his appeal about the use of Exemption 3 with Glomar.

March 26, 2025

Energy Pol’y Advocates v. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n (D.D.C.) — granting, in part, the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding the agency properly used Exemption 5, in conjunction with the deliberative-process privilege, to withhold calendar entries of a former SEC Chairman; yet concluding that, because many entries in the agency’s Vaughn index lacked adequate specificity and failed to “identify the subject of policy under consideration and instead refer[red] only to policymaking in general,” the agency had not met its burden to justify the withholding of certain e-mail communications between the White House, former SEC Chairman, and senior agency officials; ordering in camera review of the e-mail records; deferring consideration of the agency’s satisfaction of the foreseeable-harm standard for the e-mails, but holding the agency’s argument vis-à-vis the calendar entries was adequate.

Bader Family Found. v. Equal Emp’t Opportunity Comm’n (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion for summary judgment and holding various parts of plaintiff’s request were “reasonably described”; explaining two of the request items in dispute “are not vague and have only one reasonable interpretation,” the agency “has not put forward a sufficiently detailed declaration explaining why . . . [responsive] records are difficult to locate,” and “the agency’s declarations do not sufficiently explain how the post-search efforts . . . would be overly burdensome”; similarly, with respect to the third item in dispute, concluding the agency “can reasonably construe [it] without” further clarification or defined terms, it “cannot definitively say [based on the record] . . . that searching for . . . text messages would be unreasonably burdensome,” and it “has not provided sufficient evidence” about “overly burdensome post-search efforts.”

Judicial Watch v. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion to dismiss and holding that plaintiff’s request did not “‘reasonably describe’ the records sought” because it “uses vague words and descriptions,” including the phrase “all records related to”; emphasizing, at the same time, that “[t]here is no bright-line rule barring FOIA requesters from using the phrase “related to,” and a court’s analysis must focus on “whether the request is otherwise so ‘unusually specific’ that it still manages to satisfy FOIA’s reasonable-description requirement”; noting the plaintiff’s request “lacks any custodial limitation and does not specify the type of records sought”; querying “what . . . [the] other ‘related’ records [are] that the agency must look for if the categories of records identified in the latter part of the request are not sufficient.”

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

FOIA News: Recent trends with FOIA requests

News Media and Non-Profits Probe New Trump Initiatives

FOIAengine: Leading Topics Include DOGE, Executive Orders and Confidential Data

By Randy Miller, Law St. Media, Mar. 26, 2025

As President Donald Trump moves quickly to implement his ambitious agenda, media organizations and non-profits are accelerating and sharpening their use of Freedom of Information Act requests in an attempt to find out more.  FOIA requests from both groups have become increasingly specific and more expansive in terms of the records sought, according to a new PoliScio Analytics analysis of newly released February requests.

The groups’ most recent FOIA requests to federal agencies seek such things as various agencies’ plans for implementing Trump’s executive orders; the extent to which the Department of Government Efficiency has access to (and use of) confidential data; agencies’ interactions and contractual agreements with DOGE; and internal communications about the firing and hiring of government employees.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Another DOGE FOIA lawsuit enters the mix

DOGE Keeps Trying to Dodge the Freedom of Information Act. So We’re Suing.

Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept, Mar. 24, 2025

The Intercept filed a lawsuit on Monday to force the Trump administration to comply with federal transparency law when it comes to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court under the Freedom of Information Act, concerns multiple FOIA requests for DOGE records. At first, DOGE simply ignored these requests while Elon Musk’s crew ransacked federal agencies and accessed sensitive data systems.

Then last Tuesday, DOGE sent a brief email to The Intercept claiming it was not subject to FOIA at all because of the way President Donald Trump established DOGE by executive order in January. “We therefore decline your request,” reads the unsigned email.

So we’re suing.

The Intercept’s lawsuit covers five different FOIA requests sent to DOGE since early March.

Read the rest here.

[RPM Comment: The Intercept’s complaint can be found here. Notably, while all the prominent litigation related to DOGE and FOIA to date has been brought in the District of the District of Columbia, this new lawsuit has been filed in the Southern District of New York. Keep an eye out for possible divergent rulings when these cases make their way up to the D.C. and Second Circuits!]

Court opinions issued Mar. 19-21, 2025

Mar. 19, 2025

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. DOGE Serv. (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion for reconsideration of a prior preliminary-injunction ruling that held U.S. DOGE Service was likely an “agency” for FOIA purposes, in large part, because the government’s “arguments could all have been raised during the last round of briefing” and “none of them provides a basis for reconsideration”; acknowledging, nonetheless, that “it would be preferable . . . to review the question of whether [DOGE] is subject to the FOIA on the merits based on a more complete record,” and therefore inviting the requester to file a motion for limited discovery under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d); expressing doubt that the irreparable-harm analysis underlying the Court’s preliminary injunction ruling was erroneous; continuing to point to public statements by President Trump and Elon Musk, as well as press reports, that cast doubt on the government’s various factual claims. [RPM: FOIA Advisor previously reported on this decision when it first issued.]

U.S. Right to Know v. Dep’t of Def. (N.D. Cal.) — granting in party and denying in part the plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees; noting the government did “not contest that Plaintiff is eligible to receive an award of fees and costs”; on the question of entitlement, concluding that: (1) the public interest favors the award, as the records, which pertain to COVID-19, could help reveal “‘possible politicization of agency decisionmaking’”; (2) the plaintiff, as a non-profit organization, had no commercial interest in the responsive records; and (3) the agency acted unreasonably by failing to comply with statutory deadlines, or to communicate with the plaintiff “for over two years until after suit was commenced,” and by significantly over-redacting the responsive records in the first instance without any “colorable basis under the law”; ultimately awarding “$74,312.88 in attorneys fees and $688.96 in costs,” or roughly $10,000 less than what plaintiff asked for, after rejecting recovery for: (1) certain administrative tasks, like fixing access problems to USAfx or other “purely clerical tasks,” (2) internal attorney communications that were vaguely described in the ’ fee motion and supporting declarations, (3) pro hac vice fees, and (4) costs related to “expert declarations.”

Mar. 20, 2025

Simmons v. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) — denying an aggrieved, former State Department employee’s motion for attorney fees in light of her failure to demonstrate under the “catalyst theory” how she “substantially prevailed,” and was therefore eligible for fee recovery; specifically, noting the requester failed to show “this litigation caused [the agency] to comply with her FOIA and Privacy Act requests”; noting also the agency had “immediately started processing records and made several pre-litigation productions”; relatedly concluding the requester “fail[ed] to rebuff evidence that [any] delayed ‘disclosure result[ed] not from the suit but from delayed administrative processing.’”

Leopold v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — on remand from the D.C. Circuit for a “third round of summary judgment,” denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment regarding withholding under Exemption 8 of a redacted version of an independent monitor’s report detailing HSBC’s compliance with a deferred prosecution agreement, specifically with respect to the justification for continued non-disclosure under the foreseeable-harm standard; ruling that, while “Exemption 8’s broader protections . . . related to financial institutions apply,” in camera review of the monitor report is needed to resolve the case; noting, inter alia, that another judge “found not harm in disclosing a redacted version,” and that DOJ’s own filings suggest “portions of the . . . [r]eport might be . . . released with minimal risk of harm.”

Crandell v. Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. (4th Cir.) (unpublished) — affirming dismissal of FOIA lawsuit, where the requester failed to exhaust administrative remedies and failed also to demonstrate that the records he had requested “still existed”; modifying the district court’s ruling, however, by ordering the dismissal to be without prejudice.

Mar. 21, 2025

Wiggins v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding that the agency conducted an adequate search where it explained the custodial locations searched and the search terms utilized; noting that plaintiff proffered no “evidence” to support its “assertion of missing records”; holding also that the agency failed to offer adequate explanation for its use of Exemption 5 to withhold “undated and unsigned proposed amended jury instructions,” as well as other “unsigned” and either “undated” or “partially dated” litigation documents, including e-mail records between DOJ personnel “regarding the prosecution of plaintiff and the co-defendant’s criminal cases”; explaining that “EOUSA’s cryptic description” for the various “document[s] or categor[ies] of documents” does not establish their deliberative nature; noting also the agency’s “generic assertions of harm to internal discussions . . . parroted throughout the Vaugh index”; with respect to Exemption 7(C), holding that the agency properly redacted “the names and other identifying information of third-party individuals, including Eastern District employees, third-party witnesses, and co-defendants”; finally, concluding that “EOUSA has not properly justified withholding fifty-one sealed pages,” as it “offered no evidence”; directing the government to “supplement the record” and, if appropriate after re-processing, to “move again for dispositive relief.”

Ctr. for Medical Progress v. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs. (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment and denying the plaintiff’s cross-motion; holding, firstly, that the agency “properly determined the scope of the plaintiff’s FOIA request,” which sought a “specific set of documents” about “grant applications,” especially in light of the plaintiff’s oral and written clarifications upon request from the agency, as well as its agreement to narrow its request post-submission; holding further that the agency conducted an adequate search; noting that “[b]eyond the contract records” that were properly beyond the scope of the request, “the plaintiff provide[d] no further basis to challenge the good faith basis” afforded to the agency’s supporting declarations.

Am. Property Locators, Inc. v. Customs & Border Prot. (D.D.C.) — in a case involving a commercial-use FOIA request for records about stale checks from CPB, granting the agency’s motion to dismiss and approving its inclusion in a fee estimate of expenses related to carrying out the “business submitter process”; explaining that CBP maintains a special process for notifying “submitters” of “commercial information” so that they can object to disclosure of their information under the FOIA, and that the agency has treated “Limited Payability (stale dated check) records” as triggering this “process”; declining to adopt the government’s recommendation to either apply arbitrary-and-capricious review or Auer deference in lieu of the FOIA’s default de novo review standard; holding that CPB provided a “‘reasonable, non-obstructionist explanation’ . . . for applying the business submitter process” based on its published regulations, and that it appropriately assumed responsive records would “encompass emails between CBP and business submitters regarding the original commercial transaction, the status of payee checks, the occurrence of novel financial transactions, and/or bank account information”; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that any possible exceptions to the business-submitter process applied; noting the “process itself is reasonable” as it “‘give[s] effect to Exemption 4,” among other things; finding no basis in the record to doubt the actual fee estimate of $738; finally, concluding that the requester failed to exhaust by “pay[ing] the required fees before suing the challenge the substance of [its] FOIA request.”

Rhodes v. Internal Revenue Serv. (N.D. Ala.) — granting the agency’s motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies; rejecting the requester’s apparent argument, based on the language of his complaint, that “there were no administrative remedies to be exhausted”; rejecting also the requester’s suggestion that the IRS’s determination letter was “insufficient to trigger a duty to exhaust his claims” because it “did not communicate the scope of the documents it withheld” by including a “privilege log.”

Jackson v. Internal Revenue Serv. (N.D. Ala.) — in an almost word-for-word, identical opinion to that published above in Rhodes, granting the agency’s motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

Cahill v. Dep’t of Commerce (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion to dismiss for mootness where a pro se requester admitted the agency “finally complied” with his request prior to filing suit; denying also the requester’s motion for costs because the “Department turned over the video [at issue] without a court order, written agreement, or consent decree,” the record was “outside the scope of [the requester’s] FOIA request,” and “the Department would have been able to meritoriously defend its denial of . . . [the] request by arguing that [the requester] had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.”

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case seeking access to records related to the “now-closed criminal investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz,” in which the requester also pleaded policy-and-practice claims related to the use of Glomar responses and categorical withholdings under Exemptions 6 and 7(C), granting in party and denying in part the government’s motion to dismiss; with respect to allegations about an unlawful Glomar-response policy, holding that CREW can appropriately “aggregate” evidence about the behavior of multiple “components within a larger agency” to sustain its claim; noting, in that respect, how “CREW has identified six instances of potentially violative conduct across four DOJ components,” that this “is numerically sufficient to show a pattern for purposes of a motion to dismiss,” that there is sufficient relation between the examples to suggest a “consistent policy,” and that CREW has otherwise “plead sufficient facts to suggest” the ostensible policy is unlawful; holding also, by contrast, that CREW’s policy-or-practice claim about Exemption 6/7(C) responses must be dismissed because DOJ’s “responses to CREW’s three requests were not uniform,” and therefore undercut any theory that they did not reflect “case-by-case analysis.”

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