Case Detail
| Case Title | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2016cv00885 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2016-05-10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2018-10-02 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Royce C. Lamberth | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Judicial Watch submitted two FOIA requests to the Department of State for records concerning talking points that were allegedly emailed to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by staff member Jacob Sullivan in which Sullivan was instructed to turn the talking points into "non-paper" form and send them by non-secure email. The second request was for records concerning statements made by State Department spokesman John Kirby indicating that the agency had investigated the allegations and found that no such email had been sent to Clinton. The agency acknowledged receipt of the requests, but after hearing nothing further from the agency, Judicial Watch filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Adequacy - Search, Litigation - Vaughn index, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Opinion/Order [30] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled while nine of the Exemption 5 (privileges) claims made by the Department of State pertaining to a handful of Hillary Clinton's emails are appropriate, ten are not. As a result of litigation brought by journalist Jason Leopold, the State Department disclosed an email Clinton sent to chief of staff Jake Sullivan apparently directing Sullivan to strip headings from a classified document and send it over an unsecured fax machine. Following up on the email, Judicial Watch filed a request for more records which eventually led to litigation. The State Department argued that Judge James Boasberg's ruling in American Center for Law & Justice v. Dept of Justice, 2018 WL 4283561, in which Boasberg found that talking points prepared for former Attorney General Loretta Lynch to use in responding to inquiries about her meeting with Bill Clinton were deliberative because it was up to Lynch to decide the extent to which she would use the talking points, was dispositive in this instance. Noting that Lynch's position as head of the Justice Department made those circumstances more unique than the run-of-the-mill use of talking points, Lamberth found the claim went too far, pointing out that "government officials give hundreds of speeches each day, all of which are important, though many elude recording or transcription. So stretching the deliberative process privilege would put many important public statements outside FOIA's grasp, even after the statements were made." Judicial Watch argued that the government misconduct exception applied, meaning that the deliberative process privilege was waived. Lamberth found that some of the email exchanges were not protected by the deliberative process privilege. He indicated that State had properly claimed the privilege for five documents that circulated and critiqued a draft letter responding to Congressional inquiries about the Clinton-Sullivan exchange, pointing out that "soliciting revisions and feedback on a draft is plainly predecisional and deliberative." However, he rejected the claim for two emails characterized as talking points used during a press conference. Here, he noted that "the emails mechanically reproduce â€" without any analysis â€" finalized talking points that were already used. If State had copied-and-pasted a transcript of the press conference into the email, their claim for deliberative process privilege would plainly fail. And here, State has done the functional equivalent, effectively copying-and-pasting their side of the script from the press conference." Finding that the government misconduct exception did not apply to any of the disputed emails, Lamberth observed that "at bottom, these documents show State Department officials suffering the slings and arrows of abiding by [the judge's] order to release thousands of pages of nonexempt work-related emails sent by Hillary Clinton from her private server while Secretary. Simply put, these documents shed light on government compliance â€" not misconduct. It would be very odd to characterize as misconduct documents created downstream from compliance with a judicial order, regardless of whether that order itself remedied prior misconduct."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Predecisional | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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