Case Detail
| Case Title | DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION v. U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv01037 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-05-02 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | Open | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Amit P. Mehta | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Democracy Forward Foundation submitted a FOIA request to the General Services Administration for records concerning emails to or from the domain name "ptt.gov" to a number of individuals in and outside the Trump administration. DFF also requested a fee waiver. The agency acknowledged receipt of the request. The agency told DFF that it found no responsive records. DFF filed an administrative appeal. In response to DFF's appeal, GSA admitted that it had "ptt.gov" records but claimed that presidential transit records were not agency records subject to FOIA. DFF then filed suit. Complaint issues: Litigation - Vaughn index, Adequacy - Search, Agency Record - Control, Litigation - Attorney's fees | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Complaint attachment 7 Opinion/Order [20] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that emails of the Trump transition team held by the General Services Administration and scheduled to be destroyed by statute, did not become agency records once they were retained and copied for use by the FBI during the investigation of Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election. After GSA retained the emails because portions were relevant to the Mueller investigation, Democracy Forward Foundation submitted a FOIA request for those transition team records that were made available to the investigation. GSA told DFF that the records were not agency records and, thus, were not subject to FOIA. After GSA denied DFF's administrative appeal, DFF filed suit, arguing that the records became agency records when they were preserved for use by the Special Counsel. DFF also argued that the four-factor test from Burka v. Dept of Health and Human Services, 87 F.3d 508 (D.C. Cir. 1996) â€" the extent to which the agency intended to retain or relinquish control of the records, the ability of the agency to use or dispose of the records, the extent to which agency personnel read or relied on the records, and the degree to which the records were integrated into the agency's records system â€" applied. Mehta pointed out that the circumstances here were quite similar to those in Cause of Action v. NARA, 753 F. 3d 210 (D.C. Cir. 2014), in which the D.C. Circuit found that a non-FOIA congressional report on the financial crisis did not become subject to FOIA solely because it had been deposited with the National Archives and Records Administration. He observed that "indeed, like the National Archives, GSA here functioned mainly as a 'warehouse' for the transition team's electronic communications. It supplied a network to host and store records, but never intended to use and did use the records in any way." Mehta instead looked to first principles and after reviewing the creation and maintenance of the disputed records, noted that "there is nothing about the documents' content that would shed any light about GSA's operations or decision-making." Mehta cited Wolfe v. Dept of Health and Human Services, 711 F.2d 1077 (D.C. Cir. 1983), the only D.C. Circuit decision involving transition records â€" a report by the Reagan transition team about HHS which, after being disseminated, was never used further â€" as support for his conclusion here. He noted that "like the report, the emails were never integrated into GSA's records systems. Nor did GSA personnel read or rely on the records, except perhaps incidentally to carry out its network security function. Thus, GSA did not sufficiently 'control' the emails to qualify as 'agency records.'" Having satisfied himself that the records were not agency records, Mehta reviewed the applicability of the Burka factors anyway. DFF argued that GSA's decision to retain the records during the investigation showed an intent to control them. But Mehta observed that "it is a dubious proposition that the transition team had any right or ability to 'tale control of the records' once it became known that there was a law enforcement interest in them." DFF argued that GSA's decision to voluntarily retain the records implied an ability to use or dispose of them. Mehta disagreed, noting that "it cannot be that the decision to comply with a request by law enforcement to preserve records converts a record not otherwise subject to FOIA into one that is."
Issues: Agency Record - Control | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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