Case Detail
| Case Title | BUZZFEED, INC. et al v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv02567 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-11-07 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2020-05-07 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | BUZZFEED, INC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | JASON LEOPOLD | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | BuzzFeed reporter Jason Leopold submitted a FOIA request to the FBI for records concerning the final report and investigation of allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Leopold also requested expedited processing. The agency acknowledged receipt of the request and granted Leopold's request for expedited processing. The agency told Leopold that his request qualified for unusual circumstances and would take more time to process. After hearing nothing further from the agency, Leopold filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Attorney's fees, Adequacy - Search | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Opinion/Order [31] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that the FBI's limited supplemental background investigation of Brett Kavanaugh while his nomination to the Supreme Court was temporarily stalled after allegations that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford at a party when they were both in high school, as well as other allegations that he had mistreated several women when he was at Yale University, is protected by the presidential communications privilege, regardless of whether it was ever shared with members of Congress. To assuage doubts expressed by then Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated that he would not vote to approve Kavanaugh's nomination unless Blasey Ford's accusations were further investigated, the FBI was tasked with doing a supplemental background investigation (SBI) limited to Blasey Ford's allegations only. That investigation yielded a 527-page file. In response to requests from BuzzFeed reporter Jason Leopold, who couched his requests in terms of documents shared with the Senate Judiciary Committee, the agency withheld the entire file under Exemption 5 (privileges), claiming the presidential communications privilege., arguing that "this privilege 'squarely' applies because the SBI â€" and therefore the SBI File â€" was solicited by the White House Counsel's Office in the service of a core, nondelegable function, namely, the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice, and, further, the privilege remains intact, without the need for personal invocation by the President and despite the furnishing of the file to the Senate Judiciary Committee." Leopold argued that the presidential communications privilege was not applicable since the SBI was done for the benefit of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was not intended to be part of presidential decision-making, that the FBI had not established that the file was received by the White House Counsel's Office, that the privilege was waived when the SBI was shared with the Senate Judiciary Committee, which published a summary, and that the presidential communications privilege could only be invoked by the President. Howell first addressed whether such records qualified under the inter- or intra-agency threshold of Exemption 5. She noted that "to be sure, FOIA applies only to federal agencies and 'Congress did not intend the word "agency' to include the President, his 'immediate personal staff, or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the President.'" But she pointed out that "the D.C. Circuit has explained, 'the Supreme Court [has] deemed it 'beyond question' that documents prepared by agency officials to advise the President were within the coverage of Exemption 5 because they were 'intra-agency' or 'inter-agency' memoranda or letters that were used in the decision-making processes of the Executive Branch.' For this reason, the D.C. Circuit has consistently viewed Exemption 5 as covering the presidential communications privilege, among other privileges." Noting that case law approved of the application of privileges recognized under Exemption 5 to such records, Howell questioned Leopold's claim that because the recent Supreme Court decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Media Leader, 139 S. Ct. 2356 (2019), in which the Supreme Court found that the substantial harm test under Exemption 4 (confidential business information) was not supported by the plain language of the exemption, articulated the elements for promises of confidentiality by the government, "the transmittal of the SBI File to the White House Counsel's Office, a non-agency government entity, stripped these records of protection under Exemption 5." She pointed out that "to the extent plaintiffs believe that Argus Leader requires new attention to the text of Exemption 5's first condition of an inter- or intra-agency communication, binding precedent in this circuit again dictates the result." She explained that in Dept of Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Association, 532 U.S. 1 (2001), the Supreme Court recognized that deliberations between agencies and outside entities could be privileged if the outside entity's interests were not adversarial. She observed that "the D.C. Circuit has continued, post-Klamath, to apply its functional approach to find that communications between agencies and outside, or non-agency, entities may indeed meet the statutory condition of Exemption 5." Howell then rejected Leopold's claim that the presidential communications privilege did not apply because the SBI was not used for presidential decision-making. Instead, she noted that "even if the activity on the Senate Judiciary Committee prompted the SBI, the White House Counsel's Office, not the Committee, actually 'solicited' the SBI in connection with the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice. . .and, thus, this request was made in the service of a nondelegable presidential duty." Leopold argued that pressure from Congress resulted in the SBI and that Howell should take that into consideration. But Howell observed that "even if the court were equipped to test the motivations for a specific presidential action in a dynamic political context, doing so would turn the whole point of the presidential communications privilege on its head by undermining the President's ability to 'make decisions confidentially.' This Court declines to proceed down this proverbial rabbit hole." She then rejected Leopold's waiver argument as well. She pointed out that "disclosure by Congress alone cannot result in a waiver of privilege because 'we do not deem "official" a disclosure made by someone other than the agency from which the information is being sought.' Thus, the D.C. Circuit has repeatedly confirmed that disclosure by Congress does not prevent the Executive Branch from asserting privilege to withhold records under FOIA." Leopold also contended that notes used by FBI agents in preparing their FD-302s were not protected. But Howell pointed out that "the privilege applies to the SBI File in full and covers those pages of hand-written interview notes and administrative notes containing information presented elsewhere in the File, even if the FBI is unable to establish that those notes were transmitted to the White House Counsel's Office."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Waiver of privilege | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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