UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA _________________________________________ ) JOHNMARK MAJUC and JOSEPH JOK, ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 18-cv-566 (APM) ) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ) ) Defendant. ) _________________________________________ ) MEMORANDUM OPINION I. In this Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) case, the court previously held that Defendant Department of Justice had failed to support its categorical withholdings of all responsive records pursuant to Exemption 7(A). See Majuc v. U.S. Dep’t of Just. (Majuc I), No. 18-cv-00566 (APM), 2019 WL 4394843, at *2 (D.D.C. Sept. 13, 2019). The court denied summary judgment. Id. at *4. Defendant now tries again. This time it succeeds. For the reasons that follow, the court grants Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. A. The records sought in this case relate to a criminal investigation of BNP Paribas, S.A. (“BNPP”) and its affiliates for evading economic sanctions against various countries, including Sudan. Id. at *1. In 2014, BNPP pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and Trading with the Enemy Act. Id. It completed a five-year term of probation in 2020. Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 70 [hereinafter Def.’s Mot.], Decl. of Courtney O’Keefe, ECF No. 70-3 [hereinafter O’Keefe Decl.], ¶ 44. Plaintiffs are two Sudanese refugees who are members of a class action lawsuit against BNPP, which seeks to hold the bank responsible for its role in human rights abuses committed by the Sudanese government from 1997 to 2009. See Kashef v. BNP Paribas SA, No. 16-cv-3228 (AJN), 2021 WL 603290 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2021). In November 2016, Plaintiffs submitted a FOIA request to Defendant for 33 categories of records. O’Keefe Decl. ¶ 6; id. Ex. A. 1 Broadly speaking, the request sought all documents “gathered” or “created” in connection with Defendant’s investigation of BNPP’s violations of law “with respect to BNPP’s dealings with Sudan.” Id. Ex. A at 23. Defendant resisted producing any records in response. Majuc I, 2019 WL 4394843, at *1. It invoked a variety of exemptions but asserted Exemption 7(A) as to all records. See id. As noted, after an initial round of summary judgment briefing, in September 2019, the court rejected as inadequate Defendant’s categorical invocation of Exemption 7(A). See id. at *2. B. After the court’s decision, the parties reached agreement on search terms and other aspects of Plaintiffs’ request. Joint Status Report, ECF No. 43. One search term produced nearly 70,000 records, which Defendant estimated might entail close to one million pages. Joint Status Report, ECF No. 44. The parties then agreed to narrow the scope of the search and prioritize certain records. Joint Status Report, ECF No. 48. That winnowing still produced over 100,000 pages, which Defendant then began to process over the course of months. Joint Status Reports, ECF Nos. 52, 54, 57, 59, 61. Eventually, Defendant produced two “interim” responses. On September 22, 2020, Defendant advised that it had reviewed 888 pages of records but intended to withhold all of them based …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals