Case Detail
| Case Title | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2011cv01021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2011-06-02 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2014-06-12 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge James E. Boasberg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Opinion/Order [17] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge James Boasberg has become the second district court judge in recent weeks to rule that the Justice Department improperly declined to identify and process records pertaining to the investigation of a congressional member. In January Judge Gladys Kessler ruled the agency could not decline to neither confirm nor deny the existence of records concerning its investigation of Rep. Don Young (R-AK) because the investigation was already a matter of public record and, more importantly, issues of legislative integrity were clearly a matter of public interest. Now Boasberg has reached the same conclusion concerning an investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) on charges of corruption. Boasberg first noted that "although his is not the only privacy interest allegedly implicated here, the existence and extent of Rep. Lewis's interest in these documents remaining undisclosed is the primary focus of both parties. Before addressing his privacy interest in the materials at issue, it is worth noting that Lewis's status as a public official operates to reduce his cognizable interest in privacy as a general matter." CREW argued that the fact that Lewis himself had publicly acknowledged the investigation's existence diminished his privacy interest. Boasberg agreed, noting that "when the fact of an investigation 'is already a matter of public record,' the target's privacy interest in that information has 'far less force.'" But he pointed out "while CREW may well be correct that by virtue of its public disclosure Lewis does not retain a significant privacy interest in the fact of an investigation, he nevertheless retains a privacy interest in the substance of that investigation. Despite the fact that it is a matter of public record that an investigation took place, the details of that investigation have not been publicly disclosed." Boasberg found that any third parties mentioned in the investigatory files retained a significant privacy interest in non-disclosure. Turning to the public interest in disclosure, Boasberg noted that the fact records pertained to an individual's activities did not necessarily suggest that there was no public interest in disclosure. He indicated that "CREW maintains that disclosure of the files in question 'would shed light on the conduct of DOJ and the FBI in conducting the investigation or Rep. Lewis, and DOJ's decision to close the investigation without bringing charges against him." Boasberg pointed out that "against the backdrop of broader public concerns about the agency's handling of allegations of corruption leveled against high-ranking public officials, the public has a clear interest in documents concerning DOJ's handling of Lewis's investigation." DOJ argued there was no evidence of agency misconduct. But Boasberg observed that "because CREW has not attempted to justify its request on the ground of agency misconduct (indeed, the decision not to prosecute is a discretionary one), it need not produce the compelling evidence of illegal activity that would be required if it had done so." Balancing the interests, Boasberg noted that "in light of the strong public interest at stake in the requested records, the Court is not persuaded that the balance will favor privacy with respect to each document that concerns the Lewis investigation." He added that "the weights of those interests, furthermore, may vary with respect to each document within the responsive file. Determining whether withholding is justified, therefore, requires a more nuanced analysis than can be undertaken without an account of the records in the Government's possession." Boasberg pointed out CREW's limited success. "The Court does not decide whether the Government need turn over anything at all in response to CREW's request. It may well turn out that it need not. . .[However], the court at this juncture simply finds that it cannot resolve this dispute at the altitude DOJ desires."
Opinion/Order [39]Issues: Determination - Glomar response FOIA Project Annotation: Readily acknowledging how expensive it will be to process CREW's request for records concerning the Justice Department's closed investigation into allegations of bribery and conflict of interest involving former Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), including its decision not to prosecute him, Judge James Boasberg has concluded that EOUSA and the Criminal Division have both failed to adequately explain their exemption claims for more than 25,000 pages. Boasberg observed that "as the D.C. Circuit has noted, FOIA's evidentiary burden is likely to create significant costs for government agencies as they respond to requests, but 'the costs must be borne. . .if the congressional policy embodied in FOIA is to be well served.'" But the sheer volume of documents gave him pause. "The Court must follow this Circuit's law on FOIA, although this is the type of case that Congress might wish to bear in mind when debating whether to further extend that statute. Here, the government has spent nearly 2,000 personnel hours�"and will spend another significant amount of time responding to this opinion�"because one public-advocacy group was interested in a closed criminal investigation. At a time of sequestration and further budget cuts, it may be worth considering how much of the government's time should be spent in chasing down thousands of documents and then formulating detailed justifications about their withholding. The Court is loath to pile additional responsibility on DOJ, but finds its hands are tied: despite the Department's extensive and laudable efforts, it has yet to comply with FOIA's statutory requirements." Noting that the Vaughn index�"an explanation of the documents withheld and the reasons for withholding them providing sufficient detail so that the plaintiff can understand the agency's decisions and challenge them in court�"was the touchstone of the agency's ability to carry its burden of proof, Boasberg indicated that "the Vaughn Index requirement, however, is not as rigid as it might seem at first blush." He pointed out that there was some flexibility in the presentation of a Vaughn Index, noting that "this flexibility, however, is layered on a background presumption going back several decades that document-by-document explanations of withheld information are required." But he explained that "this Circuit's cases seem to hint at the idea of a sliding scale inversely correlating the number of withheld documents and the level of detail required to justify their withholding. That said, they also make clear that an agency is only permitted to provide an alternative to the document-by-document Vaughn Index where doing so would provide the Court and the requester with an equally strong basis for evaluating the agency's exemption claims in detail." He indicated that a short Vaughn Index could contain abbreviated descriptions, but noted that "while the government need not furnish repetitive descriptions of the same type of document and may describe commonalities among its withholdings, it must avoid resorting to explanation in generalities." He observed that a representative sampling of documents was another way to control the volume of documents required to be described. Turning to the Vaughn indices at hand, he pointed out that "whatever the form, however, the substance of the government's submission must meet a consistent standard." He observed that "the Vaughn Index and declaration submitted by EOUSA falls well short of this standard, often because of the vast quantities of documents for which Defendant offers only one short paragraph of justification." Indeed, he noted, "the Vaughn Index filed by EOUSA does not offer a useable point of reference to negotiate these thousands of pages of withholdings. . ." Many of the records had been withheld on the basis of Exemption 5 (privileges) and Boasberg readily agreed that many of the records pertaining to the decision whether or not to prosecute were quite likely to qualify as privileged. But he observed that "this Court, however, is not at liberty to draw such conclusions based on mere inferences and guesswork." For records claimed under the deliberative process privilege, he noted that "the declaration makes no reference whatsoever to required elements of the deliberative-process privilege, including the dates the documents were created, the relative positions in the chain of command of the author and recipient, the deliberative process involved, the role played by the documents in that process, and the nature of the author's decisionmaking authority. Without at least some of this information, the Court is simply unable to pass on EOUSA's deliberative-process claims at this juncture." The same problems were present with claims made under the attorney work-product privilege. He noted that "EOUSA seeks to withhold nearly 4,000 documents under this privilege, but fails to provide any information regarding the dates of creation or the authors or recipients of any of the documents." Although Boasberg had previously ruled that the agency could not categorically withhold personal information, he explained that its current argument that the inherent privacy interests in withholding clearly outweighed the minimal public interst in disclosure was "an almost identical position to that which it argued earlier in this case." While CREW argued that the agency should be bound by Boasberg's earlier decision concerning the scope of the privacy exemptions, Boasberg dismissed the government's current argument by noting that while "the documents and portions of documents withheld under Exemptions 6 and 7(C) may well be exempt from disclosure, . . .the government has yet to provide Plaintiff and this Court with sufficient information to come to such a conclusion." He added that "as Plaintiff does not challenge the government's withholding of the names and identifying information of law-enforcement officials and other government attorneys, or third parties other than Rep. Lewis, Defendant need only provide such supporting documentation where it seeks to withhold information concerning Rep. Lewis himself." The agency also withheld nearly 4,000 documents under Exemption 3 (other statutes), citing Rule 6(e) on grand jury secrecy. Boasberg observed that "while, once again, it is entirely possible that all the documents at issue here can be withheld under Exemption 3, the Court is unable to make such a determination on the record currently before it. . .Because the Court in unable to resolve this issue at the altitude Defendant seems to desire, it will again deny Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment and grant Plaintiff's Cross-Motion with respect to the Exemption 3 withholdings."
Opinion/Order [56]Issues: Litigation - Vaughn index FOIA Project Annotation: Judge James Boasberg has ruled that the Justice Department has finally satisfied its disclosure obligations in a case brought by CREW for records concerning the investigation of former Rep. Jerry Lewis and the agency's decision not to prosecute him. The agency initially claimed that any information was protected by Exemption 7(C) (invasion of privacy concerning law enforcement records) and refused to either confirm or deny the existence of records. After Boasberg rejected the agency's use of a Glomar response, the agency was ordered to produce a representative sampling of documents for purposes of assessing the application of exemptions. In a previous opinion, Boasberg had found the agency's claims were still insufficiently supported, but this time around the remaining claims focused on documents the agency claimed were protected by Exemption 5 (privileges) and documents pertaining to Lewis that were withheld under Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy) and Exemption 7(C). CREW focused its challenges to privilege claims to records that were referred to by the agency as "administrative documents." But Boasberg noted that "those records, however, are also the type of material that could compromise Government attorneys' preparation for litigation. Releasing 'emails concerning the scheduling of phone calls and meetings,' for example, could allow the public to infer when and how attorneys reacted to events during the investigation. . .Internal emails 'concerning media reports or articles, inquiries or third-party commentary,' likewise could reveal the timing of and strategy behind case-related decisions, not to mention that they could provide a direct window onto how those attorneys perceived the public's reaction to the potential case, which could be a factor in pre-litigation strategy. In short, an attorney's mental impressions and strategies can be revealed even by documents that may, at first glance, be characterized as 'administrative' rather than 'substantive.'" He added that "CREW cites a litany of other documents whose contents are supposedly merely administrative, but a glance at the records themselves belies that notion." He observed that "where a FOIA request 'focuses specifically on documents and communications related to a particular course of litigation,' it is reasonable for the Court to infer that the work-product privilege will likely apply." Turning to the privacy exemptions, he pointed out that "while Defendant seeks to withhold information in more than three thousand documents under the personal-privacy exemptions, all but a few of those records are immune from disclosure under the attorney-work-product privilege. The remaining records, moreover, do not contain information regarding Rep. Lewis�"they instead address other officials and third parties�"and, as a result, CREW has conceded the propriety of those withholdings." Boasberg found there was no segregable material, noting that "factual material is itself privileged when it appears within documents that are attorney work product, so if a document is protected as work product, then a segregability analysis is not required. As a result, the entire contents of the large majority of the documents at issue in this case�"that is, the facts, law, opinions, and analysis that make up EOUSA's work product�"are completely exempt from disclosure under FOIA." CREW argued that because two documents had been found to be improperly withheld in the sample of 168 documents the agency should be required to re-review all withheld documents for similar errors. But Boasberg observed that "the D.C. Circuit has held repeatedly that even if an agency's withholdings 'do not survive inspection,' other documents must be released only if the 'error rate' is 'unacceptably high.' Two mistakes out of 168 documents, however�"an error rate of just over one percent�"does not come close to the kind of error rate that has prompted courts to require further disclosure."
Issues: Exemption 7(C) - Invasion of privacy concerning law enforcement records, Exemption 5 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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