Latest in Secrecy: FOIA
The FBI punishes employees who criticize Donald Trump on its devices, but not those who praise him or criticize other presidential candidates.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled recently that the commission must hold open meetings and make material available to the public.
Much of the information about the loss of the USS Thresher and the Navy’s subsequent investigation has remained outside of public view. That may change this year.
Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to reflect corrected climate survey responses we received from the FBI earlier today.
Here’s a dog-bites-man story: Amidst near constant presidential attacks on FBI officials, accusations of treason, congressional investigation, and suggestions of “deep state” malfeasance, morale is up at the FBI.
On Tuesday, the Chief Judge Beryll Howell of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia issued an order to unseal and for the government to publish warrants for searches against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen obtained in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The five warrants can be read below.
Warrant, July 18, 2017
It’s springtime here in Washington, D.C. And that leads the mind to just one place: the FBI’s annual internal climate survey.
Last year, one of us filed a “meta-FOIA” request with Benjamin Wittes seeking information on how former CIA officer and then-congressional candidate (now congresswoman) Abigail Spanberger’s unredacted SF-86 form was released in response to a right-wing advocacy group’s FOIA request. We petitioned both the National Archives and Records Administrations (NARA) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), each of which had played a role in the release.
Since its enactment in 1966, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has served as a significant source of transparency in government, allowing anyone to access official records that would otherwise be unavailable to the public. Legal academics have analyzed the statute in numerous law review articles, most of which seem to embrace FOIA’s underlying goals. Yet the actual use of FOIA and its state-law equivalents in legal academia has been quite limited.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Yesterday evening, we received a response to one of our FOIA requests asking whether anyone has sought or received internal ethics guidance on Whitaker’s involvement in the Mueller investigation.