Did Trump Cuts Slow Access To Public Records? 26 Cases That Say Yes. [1]
"Lawyers’ pleas for extensions reveal post-DOGE staffing woes at federal agencies’ Freedom of Information Act offices."
"“Hello, the FOIA office has been placed on admin leave and is unable to respond to any emails.”
This was how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responded by email this past spring to a Freedom of Information Act request for records about the risk of catching measles in areas with low vaccination rates.
The public health institute’s FOIA office had lost too many staff members to fulfill public record requests — falling victim to President Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal government by significantly reducing its workforce.
As hundreds of thousands of federal employees were fired or chose to leave the government last year, FOIA requesters — myself included — wondered: Would these personnel reductions further undermine the federal government’s already strained ability to follow federal law and disclose public records when requested under FOIA?
The answer, we now know, is a resounding yes. Attorneys for at least 13 agencies and departments have explicitly stated in 26 FOIA lawsuits that the downsizings were the reasons for failures to meet FOIA deadlines, according to a Washington Post review of 339 active FOIA lawsuits."