Am. Oversight v. DOJ (D.D.C.) — denying plaintiff’s request expedited processing in a case concerning access to volume two of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago; holding that the motion for preliminary injunctive relief did not establish how the relief sought (specifically, disclosure of the report before any Senate confirmation vote on Kash Patel) would alleviate any ostensibly irreparable harm, in large part because another court has already enjoined DOJ from releasing the report “no matter what exemption decisions it makes”; questioning also whether the requester’s motion even seeks the type of injunctive relief permitted in the FOIA context.
The Brady Ctr. to Prevent Gun Violence v. FBI (D.D.C.) — determining that the FBI failed to show that disclosure of an agency’s standard operating procedures for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System would enable individuals to circumvent the law for purposes of Exemption 7(E); reserving judgment on the FBI’s segregability analysis until after the agency renewed its summary judgment motion or altered its withholdings; granting summary judgment to the FBI on non-contested information withheld under Exemption 5 and Exemption 7(E).
Magassa v. TSA (D.D.C.) — ruling that: (1) TSA properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with 49 U.S.C. § 114(r) to withhold records concerning the plaintiff, a former employee of Delta Airlines whose security credentials were revoked; (2) TSA properly invoked Exemption 3 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records indicating whether plaintiff is on a federal watch list; and (3) TSA substantiated its Exemption 5’s attorney-client and attorney work-product privilege redactions for records generated during the course of administrative proceedings concerning the plaintiff’s revoked security credentials.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.