Alleged Interference in FOIA Litigation Process

We investigated whether career U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) staff were directed to delay releasing documents responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that was being litigated in U.S. district court, and whether withholding these documents conflicted with the court’s order to the DOI to review a certain number of potentially responsive pages every month. We found that after David Bernhardt’s nomination for Interior Secretary was announced on February 4, 2019, then Counselor to the Secretary Hubbel Relat directed career DOI staff to temporarily withhold documents related to Bernhardt from a release of FOIA documents scheduled to occur under the court order. As a result, 253 pages of information were not included in the scheduled release, but most of those pages were released later in 2019. Accordingly, we have determined that this matter does not warrant further investigation and that the court is the proper venue to determine whether the DOI met its obligations under the court order.