Rute v. DOJ, No. 22-168, 2025 WL 2210727 (E.D. Tex. Aug. 4, 2025) (Mazzant, J.)

Rute v. DOJ, No. 22-168, 2025 WL 2210727 (E.D. Tex. Aug. 4, 2025) (Mazzant, J.)

Re: Request for records concerning certain public integrity investigations

Disposition:  Granting in part and denying in part defendants’ motion for summary judgment; granting in part and denying in part plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment

• Litigation Considerations, Mootness and Other Grounds for Dismissal:  The court holds that “[t]he Criminal Division and EOUSA are entitled to summary judgment on the claims against them.”  “In fact, [plaintiff] explicitly states that he ‘challenges only those portions of the [Motion for Summary Judgment] pertaining to the [FBI]’ . . . .”  “The Court finds that the Criminal Division and EOUSA’s summary judgment evidence establishes that [plaintiff] did not exhaust his administrative remedies before filing this lawsuit . . . .”  “Thus, the Court finds the Criminal Division and EOUSA are entitled to summary judgment on the claims against them and these claims are dismissed with prejudice.”
   
• Exemption 6; Exemption 7(C):  Regarding two categories of plaintiff’s request, the court finds that “[t]he FBI properly withheld information pursuant to Exemption 7(C).”  “[Plaintiff] believes that the individuals named in Categories 1 and 4 (the ‘Named Individuals’) are subjects of FBI investigations . . . .” “The Fifth Circuit has stated that ‘[t]here can be no clearer example of an unwarranted invasion of privacy than to release to the public that another individual was the subject of a criminal investigation.’”  “Accordingly, the Court finds that the Named Individuals have a recognizable privacy interest.”  “The Court must next assess the public interest.”  “[Plaintiff] is correct that public corruption is a significant public interest.”  “But, unlike he avers, it is not that privacy interests are diminished where matters of public corruption are concerned.”  “Rather, the public interest may be stronger in suits regarding public corruption and require a more careful balancing between the asserted privacy interest.” “[Plaintiff] establishes that information on the Named Individuals is a public interest because of society’s concern for public corruption.”  “Further, records of the investigation into these Named Individuals, if they exist, would ‘likely advance that interest.’”  “Accordingly, the Court will consider [plaintiff’s] allegations of public corruption as a significant public interest to be weighed against the privacy interests of the Named Individuals.”  “[Plaintiff’s] second argument is that the public has an interest in knowing the Dallas Field Office’s effectiveness at conducting investigations regarding public corruption.”  “The Court agrees that this is a significant public interest.”  “‘The FBI is responsible for detecting and undertaking investigations into possible violations of Federal criminal laws.’”  “Given this responsibility, the FBI’s ability to root out Federal crimes is a significant public interest and records into investigations are somewhat likely to advance this public interest.”  “Thus, the Court will also consider the FBI’s effectiveness at investigating public corruption as a public interest.”  “The Court will now balance the private and public interests against each other.”  The court finds that “[t]he public interest in the information’s disclosure does not outweigh the privacy interests.”  “When viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to [plaintiff], the privacy interests at stake carry the day.”  “These pieces of evidence are insufficient to support [plaintiff’s] allegations that ‘the FBI engaged in any sort of impropriety.’”  “[Plaintiff’s] main qualm is that the FBI has, supposedly, conducted investigations lasting years that have led to no prosecutions.”  “According to [plaintiff], this indicates that the FBI is ineffective at investigating public corruption . . . .”  “[Plaintiff’s] ‘mere allegations fail to satisfy his burden to overcome’ the Named Individuals’ privacy interests.”
   
• Procedural Requirements, Proper FOIA Requests & Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search:  “The Court finds that the FBI’s search was inadequate.”  “The FBI argues that [plaintiff’s] request is improper for two reasons, (1) because the records sought are not reasonably described, and (2) to find responsive records, the FBI would be required to conduct unduly burdensome searches . . . .”  “More specifically, the FBI argues the records sought in Categories 2 and 3 are not reasonably described because they seek information pertaining to public integrity investigations of Collin County officials, lawyers, and law firms for a 7-year period . . . .”  “The FBI claims that its Central Record System (‘CRS’) is not equipped to process such a broadly phrased request . . . .”  “Relatedly, the FBI argues that the searches would be unduly burdensome and require it to draw conclusions, due to [plaintiff’s] lack of specificity . . . .”  “The FBI states that when it conducted a search for responsive records it input the term ‘public integrity’ into its Central Records System (‘CRS’) . . . .”  “According to the FBI, the CRS produced approximately 800,000 hits and evaluating these results is unduly burdensome as well as impractical . . . .” “[Plaintiff] disagrees.”  “He argues that the FBI could have input the term ‘public integrity’ in conjunction with the term ‘Collin County’ which would likely have narrowed the results . . . .”  “Alternatively, [plaintiff] argues that the FBI should have reached out . . . to field offices and individual agents likely to know about responsive records . . . .”  “[Plaintiff’s] argument carries the day.”  “As the FBI notes, ‘an agency need not deploy every conceivable search term or permit the FOIA requester to dictate the search terms in the course of litigation, but it must use terms reasonably calculated to locate responsive records’ . . . .”  “The FBI did not do that here because it merely used the term ‘public integrity’ . . . .”  “Rather, as [plaintiff] recommends, the FBI should have input ‘public integrity’ in conjunction with ‘Collin County’ to narrow the search results to investigations occurring in Collin County . . . .”  “This search is not unduly burdensome and likely would have resulted in responsive records.”  “Accordingly, the Court finds that [plaintiff] is entitled to summary judgment on his claims regarding Categories 2 and 3 in that the FBI must conduct an adequate search.”