UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CAUSE OF ACTION INSTITUTE, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 19-1915 (JEB) EXPORT-IMPORT BANK OF THE UNITED STATES, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION This case involves two Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by Plaintiff Cause of Action Institute, a self-styled non-partisan government-oversight organization, to Defendant Export-Import Bank of the United States, an independent agency tasked with fostering economic growth by financing exports of various goods and services. In competing Motions for Summary Judgment, the parties focus on the Bank’s redactions to several hundred pages of responsive records, most of which it withheld under the deliberative-process privilege. Although the Court had hoped to settle the propriety of all such withholdings in one fell swoop, an array of unfortunate shortcomings in the Government’s current record renders swift resolution impracticable. The Court, accordingly, delivers a mixed bag of results: it will affirm the agency’s nondisclosure of some records, order the release of another group, and require it to go back and further show its work should it wish to continue withholding still others. I. Background As the procedural history undergirding the present Motions is relatively straightforward, the Court need only briefly summarize it before turning to the merits of the parties’ various 1 disputes. Plaintiff filed a FOIA request on September 20, 2018, for records reflecting communications involving four senior EXIM officials regarding a series of individuals and business entities. See ECF No. 1-1 (FOIA Request # 201800076F). It followed up that initial entreaty with another on May 24, 2019, this time seeking additional records from agency officials pursuant to a handful of new search terms. See ECF No. 1-3 (FOIA Request # 201900047F). Although the Institute’s proposed keywords resist concise summary, it describes its requests as seeking communications among EXIM employees during congressional hearings for Kimberly Reed’s nomination to be the Bank’s President, as well as information relating to certain Government Accountability Office oversight activities. See ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶ 1. After EXIM failed to immediately respond, Plaintiff brought this suit on June 26, 2019. The agency eventually issued full and final responses to both requests, producing non- exempt portions of a combined 783 responsive records totaling 7,633 pages between August 2019 and February 2020. See ECF No. 27-3 (Declaration of Lennell Jackson), ¶ 47; ECF No. 22 (3/3/20 Joint Status Rep.) at 1–2. In so doing, EXIM fully or partially redacted a number of documents, largely citing FOIA Exemptions 5 and 6 as its bases for nondisclosure. Dissatisfied with certain of those withholdings, Plaintiff informed the Bank of its intention to challenge them. See ECF No. 28-4 (Declaration of Ryan P. Mulvey), ¶ 6; see also id. at ECF pp. 30–474 (disputed redacted records). That notice eventually prompted Defendant to move for summary judgment, see ECF No. 27-2 (Def. MSJ), which the Institute opposed with its own Cross-Motion. See ECF No. 28-1 (Pl. MSJ & Opp.). Following the completion of briefing, the Court, in an effort to better understand the withholdings at issue, ...
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