Table of Contents
5 surviving requests met categorical confirmation-or-denial responses earlier than any record-specific accounting. Half Two traces these responses, the executive appeals, the three unexplained dismissals and the June 2024 FBI manufacturing that the majority printed accounts omit.
Doc-by-document accountability didn’t come first. The 5 surviving requests initially acquired categorical confirmation-or-denial responses, with the FBI and the DEA invoking privateness exemptions whereas the CIA relied on classified-information and statutory protections. None initially produced the requested investigative materials. These responses grew to become the inspiration of a lawsuit through which the federal government’s personal public court docket submitting defeated the blanket silence maintained by the FBI and the DEA. Documented
The FBI’s Equivalent Refusals
FBI responses got here rapidly and in similar phrases. Lower than per week after Request No. 1588244-000 arrived, the FBI acknowledged receipt, assigned a quantity, and said that it will neither verify nor deny the existence of such information, invoking Exemptions 6 and seven(C) at 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6) and (b)(7)(C). Documented
Reasoning given was categorical and never specific. Mere acknowledgment of the existence of FBI information on third social gathering people might moderately be anticipated to represent an unwarranted invasion of non-public privateness, and the letter added that this was the FBI’s customary response to such requests and shouldn’t be taken to imply that information do or don’t exist. Documented
Request No. 1593615-000 drew the identical reply roughly per week after it arrived, in the identical phrases and underneath the identical two exemptions. Uniformity is the purpose price recording, since a request for a complete file and a request for a named file sort inside an recognized case quantity drew one similar categorical response. Documented
The DEA’s Matching Template
DEA responses adopted the identical template. Request No. 22-00892-F acquired a reference quantity the day it arrived and, one month later, a solution that the DEA would neither verify nor deny the existence of such information underneath Exemptions 6 and seven(C), as a result of even to acknowledge the existence of regulation enforcement information on one other particular person might moderately be anticipated to represent an unwarranted invasion of non-public privateness. Documented
Request No. 24-00201-F regarding Agbele acquired the identical response about three weeks after submitting, once more underneath Exemptions 6 and seven(C) and once more with the recommendation that the reply shouldn’t be taken to imply that information do or don’t exist. Documented
The CIA’s Totally different Timeline
Company conduct differed in kind and in exemption. No response in any respect had arrived by the point go well with was filed some three months after the request, acknowledgment got here in July 2023, and the refusal to verify or deny issued in October 2023 underneath Exemptions 1 and three at § 552(b)(1) and (b)(3), which shield labeled materials and data exempted by different statutes. Documented
Sequence of that response is uncommon and Quantity II information it with out touch upon motive. Acknowledgment arrived one month after the case was filed and the refusal got here 4 months after submitting, two months after the CIA was added as a defendant, which locations your entire administrative response contained in the litigation. Documented
4 Appeals, One Left Undecided
Appeals went to the Workplace of Info Coverage in each FBI and DEA occasion and none succeeded. Attraction A-2023-01148 challenged the response to Request No. 1588244-000 and was affirmed. Attraction A-2023-01393 challenged the response to 1593615-000 and was affirmed. Attraction A-2022-01983 challenged the DEA’s response to 22-00892-F and was affirmed roughly three months later. Documented
Attraction A-2024-00525 adopted a distinct course. Filed on December 27, 2023, the identical date because the DEA’s letter, it had drawn no response by the point the second amended criticism was filed on March 24, 2024, which exceeded the twenty working day interval the statute permits for deciding an attraction at 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(ii). Documented
Defendants later said that the requester was knowledgeable on June 21, 2024, virtually six months after submitting, that the attraction file could be closed due to the lawsuit. Closure of an attraction on that floor is abnormal administrative observe as soon as litigation is underneath method, and it’s recorded right here as a truth about course of and never as a criticism. Documented
Three Companies That Left With out Rationalization
Three businesses left the case with none of this reaching a court docket. EOUSA, the Inside Income Service and the Division of State had been dismissed by stipulation of the events, recorded at ECF No. 40 and confirmed by minute order of August 13, 2024. Documented
Causes for these dismissals usually are not said in something examined and Quantity II doesn’t provide them. Departure by stipulation can comply with a accomplished search, a negotiated decision, a willpower that an company holds nothing responsive, or a call to slender litigation for causes of value, and nothing within the file examined identifies which utilized to any of the three. Inference
Departure of the IRS is vital as a result of an IRS particular agent provided the monetary affidavit included into the 1993 criticism. Dismissal ended adjudication of the claims in opposition to the IRS on this motion, and it doesn’t set up what information the IRS retains or whether or not associated materials stays within the custody of one other element. Documented
The Manufacturing Most Accounts Omit
Manufacturing has not been uniformly absent, and any account saying in any other case is incorrect. Decide Howell information that each events agree Agbele’s identify appeared in paperwork the FBI produced to the requester on June 10, 2024, which locations no less than some launch greater than ten months earlier than the April 2025 ruling. Documented
Weight of that manufacturing is restricted and the court docket stated so. Disclosure of an FBI file containing Agbele’s identify doesn’t acknowledge that the DEA investigated him or maintained a case file, as a result of a separate element with its personal regulation enforcement priorities is a separate custodian for these functions. Documented
Holding on that time lower in opposition to the requester and belongs on the web page for that purpose. He argued that the 2 businesses had labored collectively all through, and the court docket answered that logical deductions usually are not official acknowledgments and that the disclosed file didn’t even point out the DEA. Documented
The Declarations Behind the Positions
Declarations supporting the businesses’ positions are recognized within the opinion by declarant and docket quantity. Michael G. Seidel, Part Chief of the Document and Info Dissemination Part within the FBI’s Info Administration Division, filed at ECF No. 43-3. Angela C. Davis, Unit Chief of the DEA’s Freedom of Info and Privateness Act Unit, filed at ECF No. 43-4. Mary C. Williams, Litigation Info Overview Officer within the CIA’s Info Overview and Launch Division, filed at ECF No. 43-5. Documented
None of these three declarations has been obtained or examined for this quantity. What the opinion quotes from them is examined materials and seems in Half 4; what it doesn’t quote is unknown, and no web page right here characterizes the rest. Documented
The Protection, Acknowledged Plainly, and The place It Runs Out
Defenses obtainable to each one in all these businesses deserve stating plainly. A refusal to verify or deny is a lawful reply the place the actual fact of existence itself falls inside an exemption. People do have an apparent privateness curiosity in not being publicly related to a regulation enforcement investigation. Normal responses exist as a result of case-by-case solutions would themselves leak the knowledge the exemption protects. Documented
What none of that reaches is the scenario the place the federal government has already printed the actual fact. Each one in all these refusals was issued in a matter the place the Division of Justice had filed the underlying materials in open court docket thirty years earlier. Nothing quoted or described within the April 2025 opinion reveals that the response letters addressed that documented public acknowledgment. Inference
Later judgment establishes that the FBI and the DEA couldn’t preserve categorical Glomar responses after the Division of Justice’s prior official acknowledgment was positioned earlier than the court docket. Nothing examined establishes what public-record checks the businesses carried out when their administrative responses had been issued. Documented
Effectivity of that sort carried a value the businesses bore on this case. Two years of administrative course of, 4 appeals and a full abstract judgment spherical had been spent defending a place that the federal government’s personal 1993 submitting had already foreclosed. Inference
Recorded Gaps
Recorded Gaps for this half are three. Nothing examined states why the Government Workplace, the IRS or the Division of State had been dismissed. Nothing examined information what searches, if any, these three carried out. Nothing examined establishes the quantity or content material of the FBI’s manufacturing of June 10, 2024 past the looks of Agbele’s identify.
Data Not Retrieved
Data Not Retrieved for this half are the company response letters and attraction determinations at displays 22 via 57 of the second amended criticism, the stipulation of dismissal at ECF No. 40, the three company declarations at ECF Nos. 43-3, 43-4 and 43-5, and the FBI manufacturing of June 10, 2024.
Forensic Plate — Half 2, first exhibit. 5 rows recording every company response, the exemptions invoked and the end result of every administrative attraction, together with three affirmances and one attraction left undecided previous the statutory interval.
Forensic Plate — Half 2, second exhibit. 5 rows distinguishing a refusal to verify, an order to go looking and course of, precise manufacturing, contested withholding and departure by stipulation, with a notice that just one was selected the deserves.
Neither company is requested to reveal exempt content material. Every ought to present a fairly detailed public account of the methods searched, workplaces consulted, date ranges employed and search phrases used, besides the place a particularly justified exemption protects specific operational particulars. Inference
Be aware: this quantity’s Proof Docket is consolidated throughout all components and seems on the shut of the quantity quite than after every installment. It may be transformed to WordPress-ready HTML on request, in the identical method because the components.
