FOIA News: DOJ to release more info from Mueller Report

'Circumstances have changed': DOJ ready for more Mueller report declassifications

By Jerry Dunleavy, Wash. Exam’r, July 21, 2020

More than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released, the Justice Department has determined more of the redacted report can be declassified.

Civil division attorneys, including trial attorney Courtney Enlow, filed a four-page submission to a Washington, D.C., federal court on Tuesday, providing sealed responses to the judge’s questions about the redactions in Mueller's 448-page report and noting willingness to reveal more after a judge's ruling.

The response came after Judge Reggie Walton, a district court appointee of President George W. Bush who previously questioned Attorney General William Barr's "credibility" in the Freedom of Information Act case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and BuzzFeed, provided the Justice Department a spreadsheet with questions about the redactions.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA-related book gets thumbs down

Exhausting Effect Of FOIA Requests Evident In 'Baseless'

By Tin Mak, NPR, July 22, 20209:29 AM ET

Governmental secrecy not only permits evil, but also breeds it.

It's this concept that forms the backbone of Nicholson Baker's foray into the U.S. development of biological weapons in the 1950s. His book, Baseless: My Search For Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act has a promising concept, which is to use the topic as a way to examine the shortcomings of America's public records law.

The book does not deliver on that promise.

Read more here.

FOIA News: Can SBA withhold identities of PPP loan recipients?

Can the SBA Justify Its Decision to Release Only a Partial List of PPP Loan Recipients?

While the effort to foster transparency is laudable, the decision to limit disclosure to borrowers receiving loans over $150,000 leaves a large amount of information undisclosed. The public will remain in the dark as to three-quarters of the entities who received PPP loans.

By Matthew Collette, Nat’l Law Journal, July 20, 2020

Since the inception of the Payroll Protection Program to provide struggling businesses with loans under the CARES Act, the public and the media have been clamoring for information on who has received the loans. Controversies over a few acknowledged recipients, including Shake Shack and the Los Angeles Lakers, highlighted the lack of information about others. And in May, five prominent media outlets sued the Small Business Administration under the Freedom of Information Act for access to information about PPP loan recipients.

Read more here (accessible with free membership).

FOIA News: Monthly report on litigation trends

Sixty-two FOIA lawsuits were filed in June 2020 according to a report released by The FOIA Project on July 16. The report further indicates that 808 lawsuits have been filed over the past twelve months, which averages out to be 67 lawsuits per month.

FOIA News: Court denies request for additional discovery in Clinton email case

Judge Blocks Further Inquiries in FOIA Case Questioning Hillary Clinton's Email Practices

"I find it hard from a practical perspective to believe that somehow [State Department officials] have not done their duty in trying to find records that relate to Secretary Clinton," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said at a recent hearing in the public records case.

By Mike Scarcella, Nat’l Law Journal, July 17, 2020

A federal judge in Washington on Friday refused to further prolong a public-records case that has raised questions about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her service as U.S. secretary of state during the Obama administration.

Read more here (accessible with free subscription).

FOIA News: OIP Director to deliver keynote at ASAP conference

The Director of DOJ’s Office of Information Policy, Bobak Talebian, will deliver the keynote address at the American Society of Access Professional’s annual training conference on July 28, 2020. More details about the conference are available here.

FOIA News: Local FOIA Fanatic Finally Receives FOIA License Plate

FOIA Advisor’s own Allan Blutstein recently received his FOIA license plate in DC after originally being denied. Background on that denial here.

pic.twitter.com/31h9MnWX9P

— FOIA Advisor (@AllanBlutstein) July 14, 2020

FOIA News: DOJ granted delay on Mueller Report

Judge Orders DOJ to Explain Its Secret Portions of the Mueller Report by Next Week

By Aaron Keller, Law & Crime, July 13, 3020

A federal judge on Monday granted a Justice Department request to delay providing detailed answers to questions about former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full, unredacted Russia report.

The judge, Reggie B. Walton, previously read the entire Mueller report and ordered the DOJ to answer a spreadsheet full of questions about the report’s publicly hidden contents. Responses are now due next Tuesday, July 21, one week after the previous deadline.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FOIA Advisory Committee Final Report Posted

The #FOIA Advisory Committee final report is now online.

Read it here: https://t.co/XC7E7pVJUL#opengov @FOIA_Ombuds pic.twitter.com/iEDUkaPnuw

— US National Archives (@USNatArchives) July 13, 2020

FOIA News: More federal FOIA jobs

• Dep’t of the Treasury/HQ, Supervisory Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS-14, D.C., closes July 15, 2020

• Dep’t of Def./DLA, FOIPA Specialist, GS-9, Multiple locations, closes July 19, 2020

• Dep’t of Homeland Sec./OIG, Supervisory Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS-14, D.C., closes July 20, 2020

• Dep’t of Justice/DEA, Supervisory Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS-14, Virginia, closes July 20, 2020

• Dep’t of Justice/EOUSA, Supervisory Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS-14, D.C., closes July 21, 2020

• Dep’t of Def./Air Force, Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS-9, Michigan, closes July 22, 2020

• Dep’t of Labor/WHD, Gov’t Info. Specialist, GS-13, D.C., closes July 23, 2020