Webster v. FBI, No. 24-387, 2025 WL 2144099 (D.D.C. July 29, 2025) (Cooper, J.)

Webster v. FBI, No. 24-387, 2025 WL 2144099 (D.D.C. July 29, 2025) (Cooper, J.)

Re: Request for records concerning investigation of police officer plaintiff assaulted

Disposition:  Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment

• Exemption 6; Exemption 7(C):  The court holds that “Exemptions 6 and 7(C) both apply.”  “As a threshold matter, the requested information undeniably falls under the categories protected by the exemptions.”  “The ‘personnel’ and ‘similar files’ encompassed by Exemption 6 are ‘intended to cover detailed Government records on an individual which can be identified as applying to that individual.’”  “And [plaintiff’s] request facially targets government records that identifiably apply to [the subject police officer].”  “Further, as [plaintiff] concedes, ‘[t]here is no question that the [purported] records sought in this matter were compiled for law enforcement purposes.’”  Regarding the privacy interest, the court finds that “[d]isclosure of the existence of any FBI investigation that focused on [the subject police officer] could carry precisely this damaging stigma, and he therefore has a substantial privacy interest at stake.”  Regarding the public interest at issue, the court finds that “even if the claimed investigation took place, its disclosure would not ‘contribut[e] significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government.’”  “[A]cknowledgement of the files would reveal nothing about FBI investigations generally and the files themselves would likely reveal little more.”  “The public interest in his narrow request is therefore minimal and cannot, under any burden, override the significant privacy interest at issue.”
   
• Waiver & Discretionary Disclosure, Waiver:  The court finds that “[plaintiff] has not established that the FBI has previously acknowledged the existence of an investigation into the May 24, 2021, incident described above and therefore has not shown that the agency waived its Glomar response.”  “[Plaintiff’s] argument to the contrary erroneously equates public acknowledgement of an investigation by other agencies with acknowledgement by the FBI that it investigated [the subject police officer].”  “[Plaintiff] argues that the FBI has waived its Glomar response because the [D.C. United States Attorneys Office (“USAO”)] and [D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”)] investigation is a ‘matter[ ] of public record.’”  The court finds that “[t]he FBI is a separate agency from both the D.C. USAO and the MPD.”  “And although the FBI and USAO are both arms of the DOJ, ‘there is no basis to conclude . . . that the FBI conducts all government investigations mentioned by other components of DOJ.’”