Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05349/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05349-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 10, 2011 Decided August 5, 2011 

No. 10-5349 

JUDICIAL WATCH, INC., 

APPELLANT

v. 

FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:09-cv-01537) 

James F. Peterson argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the brief was Paul J. Orfanedes. 

Mark R. Freeman, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were 

Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen 

Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney. R. Craig 

Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance. 

Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: The Federal Housing Finance 

Agency (FHFA) has been the conservator of Fannie Mae and 

Freddie Mac since 2008. Judicial Watch filed a request under 

the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking the FHFA to 

disclose records of Fannie and Freddie that show how much 

money they gave to political campaigns. But it is uncontested 

that no one at the FHFA has ever read or relied upon any such 

documents. The district court held that the documents are not 

agency records subject to FOIA, and we agree. 

I 

The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie 

Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation 

(Freddie Mac) buy residential mortgages from banks, 

repackage them for sale as mortgage-backed securities, and 

guarantee these securities by promising to make investors 

whole if borrowers default. CONG. BUDGET OFFICE, FANNIE 

MAE, FREDDIE MAC, AND THE FEDERAL ROLE IN THE 

SECONDARY MORTGAGE MARKET viii (2010). Both firms are 

structured as private corporations, but they are federally 

chartered and play an important role in the national housing 

market by making it easier for home buyers to obtain loans. 

See 12 U.S.C. §§ 1452(a), 1723(b). In 2009, the two 

companies guaranteed three-quarters of new residential 

mortgages in the United States. CONG. BUDGET OFFICE,

supra, at iii. 

National housing prices began a sustained decline in 

2006 that by mid-2008 had substantially eroded the value of 

Fannie- and Freddie-held mortgages. Worried that either or 

both Fannie and Freddie might become insolvent, Congress 

passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 

(HERA), Pub. L. No. 110-289, 122 Stat. 2654, which created 

USCA Case #10-5349 Document #1322703 Filed: 08/05/2011 Page 2 of 8
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the FHFA and authorized this new agency to place the two 

companies into conservatorship under specified 

circumstances. See 12 U.S.C. § 4511 (creating the FHFA); id.

§ 4617 (authorizing the FHFA to place either company into 

conservatorship in various scenarios, including where the 

firm’s assets are insufficient to meet its obligations and where 

the firm’s management consents to a conservatorship). On 

September 7, 2008, with the consent of management at Fannie 

and Freddie, the FHFA placed both into conservatorship. As 

conservator, the FHFA has power to exercise “all rights, titles, 

powers, and privileges of the regulated entity, and of any 

stockholder, officer, or director of such regulated entity with 

respect to the regulated entity and the assets of the regulated 

entity.” Id. § 4617(b)(2)(A)(i). 

Judicial Watch asked the FHFA to disclose “[a]ny and all 

Freddie Mac . . . or Fannie Mae records concerning political 

campaign contributions,” Letter from Judicial Watch to FHFA 

(May 29, 2009), and it sued when the agency refused. FOIA 

gives federal courts jurisdiction “to order the production of 

any agency records improperly withheld from the 

complainant.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B). But under FOIA, a 

federal court may only order an agency to release “agency 

records.” Id.; see U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 

U.S. 136, 142 (1989). Judicial Watch acknowledges that 

Fannie and Freddie are not themselves subject to FOIA, but 

argues that the requested documents became “agency records” 

when the FHFA took over as conservator. 

In its motion for summary judgment, the FHFA 

acknowledged that it had access to responsive documents, but, 

in an accompanying affidavit, swore that no one at the agency 

had ever read them. Decl. of David A. Felt, Deputy Gen. 

Counsel, FHFA 3. The FHFA argued that until someone at the 

agency uses the requested documents, they cannot be “agency 

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records” for purposes of FOIA. The district court agreed and 

granted summary judgment for the agency. Judicial Watch, 

Inc. v. Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency, 744 F. Supp. 2d 228 (D.D.C. 

2010). We take jurisdiction to hear Judicial Watch’s appeal 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm the judgment of the district 

court. 

II 

The Supreme Court has held that FOIA reaches only 

records the agency controls at the time of the request. Tax 

Analysts, 492 U.S. at 144-45. Control means “the materials 

have come into the agency’s possession in the legitimate 

conduct of its official duties.” Id. We look to four factors to 

determine whether an agency controls a document: 

(1) the intent of the document’s creator to retain or 

relinquish control over the records; (2) the ability of 

the agency to use and dispose of the record as it sees 

fit; (3) the extent to which agency personnel have 

read or relied upon the document; and (4) the degree 

to which the document was integrated into the 

agency’s record system or files. 

Burka v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 87 F.3d 508, 

515 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (citation omitted). The district court 

considered these factors and determined that the FHFA does 

not “control” the documents Judicial Watch requested 

because the agency had neither used the documents nor 

integrated them into its files. Judicial Watch, 744 F. Supp. 2d 

at 235. We agree. 

As a threshold matter, Judicial Watch argues that the 

FHFA controls the documents because it holds title to them 

and that we therefore need not consider the Burka factors in 

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this case. See 12 U.S.C. § 4617(b)(2)(A)(i) (providing that as 

conservator the FHFA assumes “all rights, titles, powers, and 

privileges” of Fannie and Freddie). But our cases have never 

suggested that ownership means control. On the contrary, in 

Consumer Federation of America v. Department of 

Agriculture, we used the Burka test to conclude a document 

was not an “agency record” even though the agency had an 

arguable property interest in it. 455 F.3d 283, 293 (D.C. Cir. 

2006). In that case, we held that electronic calendars kept by 

agency employees on their work computers were only subject 

to FOIA if they had been distributed widely within the 

agency. Id. at 290-93. Rather than asking whether the agency 

owned the calendars, we used the Burka factors to decide 

whether FOIA applied. And that is the inquiry we undertake 

here. 

The first Burka factor instructs us to consider “the intent 

of the document’s creator to retain or relinquish control over 

the records.” Burka, 87 F.3d at 515. We agree with Judicial 

Watch that Fannie and Freddie, the creators of the documents, 

intentionally relinquished control over the records when they 

agreed to the conservatorship. This case is therefore unlike 

Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 

where the Supreme Court held that the private papers of the 

Secretary of State did not become subject to FOIA when he 

stored them in his State Department office without any 

thought that doing so might transform them into “agency 

records.” 445 U.S. 136, 157 (1980). The documents Judicial 

Watch seeks were transferred to the FHFA with full 

knowledge that the agency might use them in the conduct of 

its official business. 

The second Burka factor also supports Judicial Watch’s 

claim, as there is no question that as the conservator of Fannie 

and Freddie, and the titleholder of their documents, the FHFA 

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enjoys “the ability . . . to use and dispose of the record[s] as it 

sees fit.” Burka, 87 F.3d at 515. The FHFA does not dispute 

this point. 

Although the first two Burka factors help Judicial Watch, 

the third is fatal to its claim. Burka instructs us to consider 

“the extent to which agency personnel have read or relied 

upon the document,” id., and here it is uncontested that the 

FHFA has not used the requested records in any way, Decl. of 

David A. Felt, Deputy Gen. Counsel, FHFA 3. The public 

cannot learn anything about agency decisionmaking from a 

document the agency neither created nor consulted, and 

requiring disclosure under these circumstances would do 

nothing to further FOIA’s purpose of “open[ing] agency 

action to the light of public scrutiny.” Dep’t of Air Force v. 

Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 372 (1976). In deciding whether an 

agency controls a document its employees created, we have 

consistently found that “use is the decisive factor.” Consumer 

Fed’n of Am., 455 F.3d at 288; see also Gallant v. NLRB, 26 

F.3d 168, 172 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (holding that an agency 

official’s personal correspondence was not subject to FOIA in 

part because of a “lack of reliance on the correspondence to 

carry out the business of the agency”); Bureau of Nat’l 

Affairs, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 742 F.2d 1484, 1490 

(D.C. Cir. 1984) (observing that where a document is created 

by an agency employee and located at the agency, “use of the 

document becomes more important in determining the status 

of the document under FOIA”). We think use is decisive here 

as well. Although we appreciate Judicial Watch’s interest in 

how much money Fannie and Freddie gave to which 

politicians in the years leading up to our current financial 

crisis, satisfying curiosity about the internal decisions of 

private companies is not the aim of FOIA, and there is no 

question that disclosure of the requested records would reveal 

nothing about decisionmaking at the FHFA. We therefore 

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hold that where an agency has neither created nor referenced a 

document in the “conduct of its official duties,” Tax Analysts, 

492 U.S. at 145, the agency has not exercised the degree of 

control required to subject the document to disclosure under 

FOIA. 

The fourth Burka factor instructs us to consider “the 

degree to which the document was integrated into the 

agency’s record system or files.” Burka, 87 F.3d at 515. In 

this case, the degree is none at all. It goes without saying that 

an agency cannot integrate into its record system a document 

created by a third party that none of its employees have read, 

and as we have pointed out, it is the undisputed testimony of 

the FHFA’s General Counsel that no one at the agency has 

relied upon these documents in any way. By directing us to 

look to the files an agency uses to make decisions, the fourth 

Burka factor confirms what the third factor teaches: a 

document that could not reveal anything about agency 

decisionmaking is not an “agency record.” 

Although there is no doubt that the FHFA could consult 

the requested records as it conducts its business, the problem 

for Judicial Watch is that no one from the FHFA has done so. 

The Supreme Court held in Forsham v. Harris that documents 

an agency had the right to acquire would not become agency 

records subject to FOIA “unless and until the right is 

exercised.” 445 U.S. 169, 181 (1980). In the same way, the 

FHFA’s unexercised right to use and dispose of the records 

requested in this case is not enough to subject those records to 

FOIA. In weighing the Burka factors, we are mindful that the 

“core purpose of the FOIA” is to “‘contribut[e] significantly 

to public understanding of the operations or activities of the 

government.’” U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for 

Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 775 (1989) (quoting 5 

U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(iii)). 

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The FHFA argues in the alternative that even if it 

“controls” the requested documents, they are not subject to 

disclosure because it has not “obtained” them. See Tax 

Analysts, 492 U.S. at 144-45 (holding that documents are only 

“agency records” within the meaning of FOIA if the agency 

both “create[s] or obtain[s]” the documents and “control[s]” 

them). Because we hold that the FHFA does not control the 

documents, we do not reach that argument. 

III 

The judgment of the district court is 

Affirmed. 

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