Judicial Watch, Inc. v. DOD

Judicial Watch filed suit against the DOD, alleging that the Department violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, when it failed to release copies of documents related to a 2014 determination by the Secretary of Defense about the transfer of five Guantanamo Bay detainees to Qatar. At issue is a document Judicial Watch believed was entitled: a memo from Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Lumpkin to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. The court agreed with the district court that the memo was a privileged deliberative document and therefore exempt from disclosure under FOIA. In this case, when the memo was drafted, it was both predecisional and deliberative. The court rejected Judicial Watch's claim that the Secretary expressly adopted the memo and thus the court could not treat the memo as a decisional document subject to disclosure. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Judicial Watch, Inc. v. DOD" on Justia Law