UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BABAR JAVED BUTT, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 19-504 (JEB) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION Pro se Plaintiff Babar Javed Butt, who is awaiting deportation after his criminal conviction in the Southern District of Texas, made a multi-part request to Defendant Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act for records about himself to assist in his immigration proceedings. After conducting an initial search that failed to produce any responsive records, Defendant Executive Office of United States Attorneys (a component of DOJ) renewed its efforts after receiving Butt’s suit and eventually released 35 pages of material in full, while withholding 245 pages under various FOIA exemptions. The parties have now filed Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment. At issue are both the adequacy of the Government’s search and the propriety of its exemptions. The Court, satisfied with the more detailed supplemental declarations that the Government provides in its Reply, is persuaded that it conducted a mostly adequate search and properly applied FOIA exemptions in withholding documents. The Court will thus award it summary judgment, with one minor exception. 1 I. Background By a letter dated July 25, 2018, Plaintiff — who previously was convicted in the Southern District of Texas, see ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶ 9 — submitted a FOIA request to EOUSA. See ECF No. 1-1 (July 25 FOIA Request); ECF No. 33-4 (Def. SMF), ¶ 1. He requested: 1. All emails, text messages, notes or any other form of digital or recorded, oral communication between Government prosecutors AUSA Heather Winter (SDTX), AUSA Mrs. Zahra Jivani Fenelon (SDTX), AUSA Miss Stephanie Bauman (SDTX), AUSA and my previous counsels Mr. Mervyn Mosbacker and Mr. Paul Schiffer that directly or indirectly discuss me in any way; 2. All emails, text messages, notes or any other form of digital or recorded, oral communication between Government prosecutors AUSA Heather Winter (SDTX), AUSA Mrs. Zahra Jivani Fenelon (SDTX), AUSA Miss Stephanie Bauman (SDTX), AUSA and AUSA Miss Elizabeth Karpati (SDTX) and United States Attorney Ryan Patrick that has my name or discuss me in any way; 3. All emails, text messages, notes or any other form of digital or recorded, oral communication between Government prosecutors AUSA Heather Winter (SDTX), AUSA Mrs. Zahra Jivani Fenelon (SDTX), AUSA Miss Stephanie Bauman (SDTX), AUSA Miss Elizabeth Karpati (SDTX) and United States Attorney Ryan Patrick that any employee of Department of Homeland Security, ICE, USCIS, HSI, Bureau of Prisons, and FBI that has my name or discuss me in any way; 4. All documents, emails, notes, text messages, files or minutes of conversations/meetings that discusses the assault on me by Paul Skinner’s (HSI) supervisor on April 13, 2016; 5. All documents, emails, notes, or files, both digital and paper, that contains my name or refer to me in any way to the possession or knowledge of EOUSA or in the office of Government prosecutors of the Southern District of Texas; 6. All documents, emails, ...
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