MFIA Fights for Trump’s Visitor Records and the Future of FOIA

By Yale Law School, Dec. 22, 2022

The Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic (MFIA) is asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision the clinic says dramatically restricts the scope of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals allows the Secret Service to withhold records identifying visitors to former President Donald Trump before he took office simply because the Trump campaign requested confidentiality. 

“The Second Circuit’s decision that records used by a federal agency are exempt from disclosure under FOIA if they were obtained from a party that wanted them to remain confidential stands FOIA’s disclosure mandate on its head,” said Floyd Abrams Lecturer in Law and MFIA Director David Schulz ’78. “The ruling sets dangerous precedent that threatens to undermine government accountability.”

From November 2015 until he entered office in January 2017, Trump received Secret Service protection as a presidential candidate and President-elect. During this time, news reporting often addressed Trump’s meetings with lobbyists for major corporations and special interest groups. In September 2017, investigative journalist Richard Behar filed FOIA requests seeking records of visitors to Trump and his associates while Trump was under agency protection.

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