UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NATHAN M. F. CHARLES, Plaintiff, Civil Action No. 21-1983 (BAH) v. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff, Nathan M. F. Charles, Esq., proceeding pro se, filed this lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, to compel the production of records maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in connection with plaintiff’s previous employment in DOJ’s National Security Division (“NSD”). Compl. ¶¶ 1–2, ECF No. 1. 1 DOJ now seeks partial dismissal, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), of plaintiff’s two claims. Def.’s Partial Mot. to Dismiss (“Def.’s Mot.”), ECF No. 7. Specifically, DOJ seeks “partially [to] dismiss Count One,” pertaining to two subparts of plaintiff’s five-part records request, and to dismiss “the entirety of Count Two.” Id. at 1. In response to DOJ’s motion to dismiss, plaintiff has moved for sanctions. Pl.’s Mot. for Sanctions (“Pl.’s Mot. Sanctions”), ECF No. 9. For the reasons set forth below, both pending motions are denied. 1 The case caption names the United States as defendant, but DOJ is the sole agency from which plaintiff is “seeking access to records.” Compl. ¶¶ 1, 6. 1 I. BACKGROUND Plaintiff is a “former Trial Attorney in the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section” (“CES”) of the NSD at DOJ, Compl. ¶ 5, a position he held “from January 2015 to June 2020 – a little over five years.” Pl.’s Opp’n to Def.’s Partial Mot. to Dismiss (“Pl.’s Opp’n”) at 1–2, ECF No. 8. From October 2019 to March 2020, plaintiff “made at least three . . . communications . . . reporting gross mismanagement” within CES leadership that “amount[ed] to a public safety and national security threat.” Compl. ¶ 7. Plaintiff made these communications “to progressively more senior authorities,” ultimately filing “a direct complaint to the DOJ Inspector General on March 26, 2020.” Id. Although these communications were allegedly protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act, 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8), Compl. ¶ 5, plaintiff contends that his “CES managers met his protected communications with a series of unwarranted, retaliatory, and progressively severe disciplinary actions,” id. ¶ 8. In May 2020, based on a claim that he had “violat[ed] an instruction he had never received,” id. ¶¶ 8–9, plaintiff was “suspended from the federal service without pay for seven days,” id. ¶ 5. Two days after he returned to work from the suspension, his “direct supervisor informed him that he was to be involuntarily transferred to a position he had refused during settlement negotiations and for which he was not qualified.” Id. ¶ 10. “As a direct result of his manager’s coercion,” plaintiff thereafter “resigned from DOJ effective June 19, 2020.” Id. ¶ 11. On July 30, 2020, in preparation for filing an action “before the Merit Systems Protection Board” against NSD and in the D.C. Superior Court “against his managers . . . for the intentional defamation …
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