Case Detail
| Case Title | PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE, INC. et al v. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2017cv01677 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2017-08-17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2019-08-19 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Rudolph Contreras | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | RYAN NOAH SHAPIRO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Property of the People and researcher Ryan Shapiro submitted FOIA requests to OMB and the Council on Environmental Quality for records concerning visitors' logs, phone logs, and the directors' appointment calendars. The agencies acknowledged receipt of the requests, but after hearing nothing further from the agencies, Property of the People and Shapiro filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY TERMINATED: 10/20/2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Opinion/Order [20] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Rudolph Contreras has ruled that OMB has not shown that Exemption 5 (privileges) applies to calendar entries requested by Property of the People and researcher Ryan Shapiro. Property of the People and Shapiro requested visitor, phone logs, and calendar entries for OMB Director Mick Mulvaney. OMB told Property of the People and Shapiro that it did not maintain visitor or phone logs but would respond to his request for calendar entries. OMB withheld some entries, citing both the presidential communications privilege and the deliberative process privilege. Property of the People did not challenge OMB's application of the deliberative process privilege to withhold the subject matter of meetings, but argued that the names of attendees, the location of meetings, and the inviter were not privileged. OMB agreed to disclose the information in some instances but continued to withhold it for other meetings. Under the presidential communications privilege, OMB withheld calendar entries that related to meetings involving the President, Vice President or senior advisors. Contreras found that details about who attended meetings did not qualify under the deliberative process privilege. He noted that "though Plaintiffs might infer the general topic of a meeting from a list of meeting participants �" the most potentially revelatory information in dispute �" release of this information would expose no suggestions, no recommendations, no proposals, and no other aspect of the agency communications, and it is not apparent how disclosure of this information might in any way discourage candid discussion within the agency." He added that "with respect to the locations of the meeting and the name of the 'inviter' who scheduled the meetings, the Court struggles to imagine anything one could possibly glean about the agency's deliberations from this information." Contreras then found that OMB had applied the presidential communications privilege far too broadly. He pointed out that OMB "may have asserted the privilege with respect to meetings between individuals who are decidedly not immediate White House advisers under Circuit precedent," observing that "OMB appears to misapprehend the reach of the privilege, as the heads of agencies that are subject to FOIA are not immediate White House advisers for purposes of the application of the privilege." He rejected OMB's claim that preparation for meetings was privileged. Instead, he noted that "OMB cannot rely on the notion that preparatory meetings served some Executive Branch function to claim that a privilege specially related to the unique role of the President applies." Contreras observed that "OMB is not solely an advisor to the president. And the mere fact of communications between the OMB Director and White House staff or agency staff on matters of policy is insufficient to show that calendar entries concern matters of presidential decisionmaking."
Opinion/Order [36]Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Predecisional, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Rudolph Contreras has ruled that OMB properly withheld eight Outlook calendar entries for National Security Council meetings pertaining to foreign relations, transportation, or infrastructure policy under Exemption 5 (privileges) under the presidential communications privilege. The OMB records had been requested by researcher Ryan Shapiro and his organization Property of the People. In an earlier opinion in the case, Contreras had found that OMB's generalized description of the records was too vague to carry its burden of proof and told the agency to provide a supplemental explanation. The agency did so and this time around Contreras found the agency's explanations sufficient. Although OMB acknowledged that the President had not attended any of the meetings, it argued that the presidential communications privilege applied because the NSC's primary role was to advise the President. Shapiro and Property of the People argued that since the NSC was primarily made up of Cabinet officials or other agency heads, whose primary responsibilities were to run their respective agencies, OMB had not shown that the meeting qualified under the presidential communications privilege. Contreras rejected that claim, noting that "the meetings at issue in this case, are generally chaired by the National Security Advisor, who may delegate the role to the Homeland Security Advisor. Each of these positions easily qualifies as an immediate White House advisor for purposes of the privilege â€" a premise that even Plaintiffs do not appear to dispute." Shapiro and Property of the People also argued that the presidential communications privilege did not cover agency heads in their capacity of leading their agencies rather than advising the President. But Contreras observed that "Plaintiffs' misplaced focus on the mere presence of dual hat advisers at the meetings changes nothing. What matters for purposes of the privilege is who solicits the communication, and whether that person also ultimately receives it. In the context of NSC meetings, it is the President, or the National Security Advisor, or the Homeland Security Advisor who does the soliciting, as it is those individuals who set the agenda and, confer the invitations." Contreras noted that since the D.C. Circuit had previously ruled that the NSC was not an agency for FOIA purposes, Shapiro and Property of the People could not obtain the records directly from the NSC. He pointed out that "Plaintiffs could not obtain NSC meeting calendars from the NSC itself because those calendars are not 'agency records' for purposes of FOIA. Yet Plaintiffs essentially want to indirectly 'reconstruct' those calendars through requests to an entity, OMB, whose records are subject to the Act. From a practical standpoint, such a regime makes little sense [since] it would raise separation-of-powers concerns because it would threaten the ability of the President and his closest advisors to hold meetings and seek advice in confidence."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges, Agency - Federal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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