Leopold v. DOJ, No. 19-2796, 2021 WL 3128866 (D.D.C. July 23, 2021) (Boasberg, J.)

Leopold v. DOJ, No. 19-2796, 2021 WL 3128866 (D.D.C. July 23, 2021) (Boasberg, J.)

Re:  Request for records concerning Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into 2016 presidential election

Disposition:  Denying plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment; granting defendant's cross-motion for summary judgment

Litigation Considerations & Exemption 5, Other Considerations:  "[T]he Court finds that for each category of documents, DOJ explains the harms with enough specificity so as to render its reasoning not 'boilerplate.'"  "The Government sews a sufficient thread of reasoning between each withheld category of documents and the particular potential harm that would result from its release."  The court relates that "Plaintiffs principally maintain that because the reasoning for differing categories often overlaps, it is by nature 'boilerplate.'"  "Yet such a position asks this Court to treat Defendant's foreseeable-harm arguments as matchsticks that find themselves useless after a short time aflame."  "Played out to its conclusion, Plaintiffs' logic would place an untenable burden on Defendant:  after using one reason for a particular category, it would be barred from using similar reasoning elsewhere."  "While 'nearly identical boilerplate statements' of harm are insufficient, . . . the mere recitation of similar reasoning in showing harm does not by itself render that reasoning 'boilerplate.'"  "If Defendant can specifically and successfully argue why a given reason applies to one category, the Court will not require a completely different rationale for others."  Specific to the documents at issue, first regarding "portions of intra-DOJ discussions and drafts regarding the development of a strategy for responding to congressional and press requests surrounding the Page/Strzok text messages," "[t]he Court agrees with DOJ that the release of these discussions, especially given the high-profile and sensitive nature of this case, would dampen the free exchange of ideas within the agency."  "This would ultimately damage the intra-agency decisionmaking process and the public perception of the department, . . . two harms that Exemption 5 expressly safeguards against."  Regarding "portions of a memorandum authored by [the] then-Associate Deputy Attorney General . . . to [the] Acting Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer . . . in response to a request for legal advice," the court finds that defendant's statement that "disclosure of these communications 'would undermine the ability of Department staff to freely . . . collaborat[e and develop] . . . well-reasoned and accurate final documents'" "satisfied its burden to show that withholding the legal memorandum satisfies the foreseeable-harm standard."  Regarding "internal email communications consisting of FBI staff's preliminary opinions and recommendations for how to process certain personal information within the Page/Strzok texts," "[t]he Court accepts Defendant's reasoning that Plaintiffs' requested disclosure would undermine the ability for DOJ officials to both have frank discussions about issues in the future and provide the public with a unified response after such deliberations have been completed."  Regarding "[t]he Mueller Request involv[ing] two general categories of information:  discussions regarding the response to congressional requests for his testimony, and notes from a March 28, 2019, call concerning his ultimate report on the 2016 election," "[t]he Court thus finds Defendant has met its burden in showing that release of each category of documents would foreseeably and adversely affect future intra-agency decisions and operations."