Cause of Action Inst. v. Export-Import Bank (D.D.C.) — following in camera review, (1) affirming an agency’s use of the deliberative-process privilege to withhold certain internal records, such as property risk-management reports and communications with the Executive Office of the President about political nominees; (2) rejecting the use of the deliberative-process privilege to withhold portions of senior staff reports and materials provided to GAO; (3) rejecting the use of the deliberative-process and attorney-client communication privileges to withhold an internal email concerning the requester’s blog activity; (4) affirming the use of Exemption 6 to withhold White House email addresses; (5) remanding the majority of records to the agency for renewed motion on summary judgment, including portions of an email chain withheld as “non-agency records,” other records provided to GAO, and cybersecurity recommendations; (6) postponing consideration of the agency’s Exemption 4 claims; and (7) warning agency that in camera review called into question “whether the Bank has adequately complied with FOIA’s segregability mandate,” and otherwise highlighting multiple times the agency’s failure to account for records in its Vaughn index and its inaccurate description of records in its submissions.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.