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A top House Democrat is pressing agencies for details on their Freedom of Information Act operations, citing FOIA staff firings impacting at least one agency under the Trump administration.
In letters to 24 agencies today, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) requests their plans for complying with FOIA. “Preserving your agency’s ability to respond to FOIA requests is a critical tool to provide the American people the transparency to which they are entitled,” Connolly wrote.
The letters request data on how FOIA staffing has changed at agencies in the two months since the Trump administration took power. Connolly cites reporting from CNN about the Office of Personnel Management firing multiple FOIA and privacy officers. In response to a CNN FOIA request, OPM emailed back, “Good luck with that they just got rid of the entire privacy team.”
In addition to staffing, Connolly is requesting communications between White House offices and agencies on FOIA staffing.
“The elimination of staff responsible for facilitating FOIA is the latest effort by this administration to conceal its flagrant violations of the law and prevent the public from obtaining the information about their government that they are entitled to request,” Connolly wrote. “I urge you to provide detailed information responsive to the requests included in this letter to bring sunshine to the FOIA operations within the Trump administration.”
Connolly also points to secrecy around the operations of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Earlier this week, Connolly and Rep. Jamie Raskin submitted a FOIA request seeking details on the U.S. DOGE Service’s authorities. A federal judge recently ruled that DOGE is subject to FOIA requests.
“This administration’s efforts to dismantle agencies, impound congressionally appropriated funds, and unlawfully terminate civil servants have been rapid and capricious,” Connolly wrote. “Now more than ever, maintaining transparency about the operations of government agencies and officials is crucial to enforcing accountability for ongoing abuses of power.”
The letters additionally seek details on the performance of agency FOIA operations since Jan. 21. That request includes data on the number of FOIA requests received, processed and pending.
Connolly is seeking responses from the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies by April 3.
His missive comes as the governmentwide FOIA backlog increased 30% last year, to an all-time high of 267,000 cases by the end of fiscal 2024, according to data released by the Justice Department.
The federal government now routinely receives more than 1 million FOIA requests annually. While agencies are also processing more requests than ever before, backlogs have continued to rise amid staffing and technology challenges.
The challenges with FOIA have stretched across both Democrat and Republican administrations in recent decades.
“Every year it gets worse and worse, harder and harder to get information out of the federal government,” David Cuillier, director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project, said in a recent interview.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently fired the head of DoJ’s Office of Information Policy, which oversees FOIA compliance across agencies. OIP this year also declined to hold a public awards ceremony for FOIA professionals for the first time in years.
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