UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BARBARA KOWAL, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 18-2798 (TJK) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Barbara Kowal, a paralegal at the Federal Defender for the Middle District of Florida, filed this FOIA suit against the DOJ and three of its components, the ATF, FBI, and DEA. Kowal requested all records from the ATF and FBI pertaining to Daniel Troya, a capital defendant represented by the Federal Defender in his post-conviction hearings. The ATF and FBI produced documents from their records systems, but withheld some documents in whole or in part under several FOIA and Privacy Act exemptions. The FBI also sent a subset of documents to the DEA for review, which the DEA released in part to Kowal. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the ATF and FBI adequately searched for records, and that the ATF, FBI, and DEA properly withheld documents under certain FOIA and Privacy Act exemptions and met their duty to disclose all reasonably segregable portions of the records. Kowal then cross-moved for summary judgment, arguing that the searches were deficient because the ATF and FBI failed to use adequate search terms and search all relevant records systems, and that the ATF, FBI, and DEA failed to adequately justify the exemptions at issue, improperly withheld information in the public domain, and failed to disclose all reasonably segregable information. For the reasons explained below, the Court will grant Defendants’ motion and deny Kowal’s as to her claims against the ATF and the adequacy of the FBI’s search, and otherwise deny the motions without prejudice. Background Kowal’s office began representing Daniel Troya (“Troya”) in his capital post-conviction proceedings in April 2015. ECF No. 1 (“Compl.”) ¶ 8. Kowal requested all records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) pertaining to Troya under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Id. ¶¶ 13, 18, 19. Kowal submitted one FOIA request to the ATF and two requests to the FBI. 1 Id. The FBI sent a subset of the documents that it identified in response to Kowal’s first request to it to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and referred Kowal’s entire second request to the ATF. Id. ¶¶ 16, 21. The DEA informed Kowal that it had already processed most of the documents by responding to a previous request she had directed to it, and released the remaining documents to her, in part, through the FBI. Id. ¶ 17; ECF No. 1-5; ECF No. 1-6. Because the Court has already addressed the DEA’s response to Kowal’s previous FOIA request, Kowal v. DOJ, No. 18-cv-938 (TJK), 2020 WL 2849889 at *1 (D.D.C. June 1, 2020) (“Kowal I”), it need not do so again here. A. FBI In June 2015, Kowal submitted a FOIA request to the FBI seeking documents related to Troya’s prosecution. Compl. ¶ 13. She requested “all documents, files, records, etc. pertaining to any investigation, arrest, ...
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