United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 13, 2021 Decided November 30, 2021

No. 20-5364

ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER,

APPELLEE

JASON LEOPOLD AND BUZZFEED, INC.,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:19-cv-00957)

Matthew V. Topic argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants.

Casen B. Ross, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

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

Brian M. Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, and 

Sharon Swingle, Attorney.

Before: HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit Judges, and 

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.
2

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Jason 

Leopold and BuzzFeed, Inc. (together, BuzzFeed), a media 

outlet employing Leopold as a reporter, sued the United States 

Department of Justice (DOJ) pursuant to the Freedom of 

Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552. BuzzFeed seeks 

disclosure of an unredacted version of the report prepared by 

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III on his investigation into 

Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential 

election (Mueller Report).1 FOIA provides exemptions 

permitting an agency to withhold from disclosure certain 

categories of information it would otherwise be statutorily 

required to disclose. DOJ justified its redactions using several

of these exemptions.

The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, 

which the district court granted in part and denied in part, 

permitting most of DOJ’s redactions. BuzzFeed challenges 

only one aspect of its ruling in this appeal: its grant of summary 

judgment to DOJ with respect to information redacted pursuant 

to FOIA Exemption 7(C), 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C), and relating 

to individuals investigated but not charged by the Special 

Counsel. Exemption 7(C) permits the withholding of law 

enforcement records which, if disclosed, “could reasonably be 

expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal 

privacy.” Id. In granting summary judgment to DOJ, the district 

court determined that the privacy interests of the individuals 

whose information DOJ withheld under the exemption were 

not outweighed by the public’s interest in disclosure of the 

redacted information.

1

 Although the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) 

also sued DOJ and its suit was consolidated with the one brought by 

BuzzFeed, EPIC is not a party to this appeal.
3

We agree but only with respect to redacted passages 

containing personally identifying facts about individuals that 

are not disclosed elsewhere in the Report and would be highly 

stigmatizing to the individuals’ reputations. We disagree, 

however, regarding redacted passages that primarily show how 

the Special Counsel interpreted relevant law and applied it to 

already public facts available elsewhere in the Report in 

reaching individual declination decisions. We determine after 

our own in camera review of the Report that these passages

show only how the government reached its declination 

decisions and do not contain new facts or stigmatizing material.

In so concluding, we follow our pronouncement that “[m]atters 

of substantive law enforcement policy are properly the subject 

of public concern” and are “a sufficient reason for disclosure 

independent of any impropriety.” Citizens for Resp. & Ethics 

in Wash. v. Dep’t of Just. (CREW I), 746 F.3d 1082, 1095 (D.C. 

Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Accordingly, we affirm in part 

and reverse in part.

I.

We begin with a brief history of the circumstances 

surrounding the commencement of Special Counsel Mueller’s 

investigation and the release of his Report. Because the district 

court ably depicted this history, which the parties do not 

dispute, we need not recount it at length here. See Elec. Priv. 

Info. Ctr. v. Dep’t of Just. (EPIC I), 442 F. Supp. 3d 37, 40–46 

(D.D.C. 2020).

In May 2017, then-Acting Attorney General Rod J. 

Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Mueller to investigate 

Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and to 

determine whether any individuals associated with President 

Donald Trump’s campaign were linked to or coordinated with 

the Russian government. Id. at 40–41. Nearly two years later,
4

in March 2019, Special Counsel Mueller concluded his 

investigation and provided Attorney General William Barr 

with a report detailing his conclusions. Id. at 41.

After reviewing the Report, Attorney General Barr advised 

the Congress of “the principal conclusions reached by Special 

Counsel [Mueller]” but did not immediately provide it with 

either an unredacted or a redacted version of the Report. Id.

(alteration in original). The Attorney General asserted that the 

investigation culminating in the Mueller Report “did not find 

that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it 

conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence” 

the 2016 presidential election. Id. He stated further that the 

Mueller Report concluded that the evidence developed during 

the investigation was not sufficient to establish that President 

Trump obstructed justice. Id. at 41–42. Attorney General Barr 

also announced his intention to begin the process of 

determining what information in the Report was suitable for 

public release. Id. at 42. Shortly thereafter, Special Counsel 

Mueller advised the Attorney General by letter of his concerns

about the latter’s public characterization of the Report, which 

he argued “did not fully capture the context, nature, and 

substance of . . . [his] Office’s work and conclusions” and 

created “public confusion” about the results of the 

investigation. Id. The Attorney General responded with yet 

another letter to the Congress maintaining that his initial 

communication was merely a summary of the Mueller Report’s 

main conclusions and “did not purport to be[] an exhaustive 

recounting” of the investigation or the Report. Id.

A few weeks later, Attorney General Barr held a press 

conference at which he repeated the conclusions expressed in 

his first communication to the Congress—namely that the 

Trump campaign did not coordinate, conspire or collude with 

the Russian government in that government’s scheme to 
5

interfere in the presidential election and that there was not 

enough evidence to establish that President Trump committed 

an obstruction-of-justice offense. Id. at 42–44. He then made 

available to the Congress and the public a redacted version of 

the Mueller Report and invoked numerous FOIA exemptions 

to justify the redactions. See id. at 44–45.

BuzzFeed, along with the Electronic Privacy Information 

Center (EPIC), submitted FOIA requests to DOJ seeking a 

copy of the unredacted version of the Mueller Report. Id. at 46–

47. Although DOJ granted BuzzFeed’s request for expedited 

processing of the FOIA request, it did not produce the 

unredacted report by the applicable deadline. Id. at 47. 

BuzzFeed then filed this suit in district court. Id. After the 

parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, the district 

court ordered DOJ to submit the unredacted version of the 

Mueller Report to the court for in camera review. Id. at 52

(granting in part and denying in part BuzzFeed’s summary 

judgment motion and denying without prejudice DOJ’s 

summary judgment motion). The court stated that it would, if 

necessary, issue a supplemental ruling on the summary 

judgment motions after completing its review. Id.

After reviewing the unredacted version of the Report, the 

district court then issued the order sub judice. Elec. Priv. Info. 

Ctr. v. Dep’t of Just. (EPIC II), 490 F. Supp. 3d 246, 275 

(D.D.C. 2020) (granting in part and denying in part both 

parties’ motions for summary judgment). It examined DOJ’s 

justifications for redacting portions of the Mueller Report 

under FOIA Exemptions 3, 5, 6, 7(A), 7(C) and 7(E). Id. at 255; 

see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3), (5), (6), 7(A), 7(C), 7(E). 

Specifically, it granted DOJ’s summary judgment motion with 

respect to (1) grand jury information protected by Exemption 3 

and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), which prohibits 

disclosure of “matter[s] occurring before the grand jury,” FED.
6

R. CRIM. P. 6(e); (2) intelligence sources and methods 

protected by Exemption 3 and the National Security Act, 

50 U.S.C. § 3024(i)(1); and (3) law enforcement and privacy 

information protected by Exemptions 6, 7(A), 7(C) and 7(E). 

Id. at 260, 261, 266, 268, 270. The district court denied DOJ’s 

motion and granted BuzzFeed’s motion with respect to 

deliberative information regarding charging decisions 

allegedly protected by Exemption 5, concluding that DOJ must 

disclose the information redacted pursuant to this exemption, 

“unless such information has been properly withheld pursuant 

to another exemption.”2Id. at 274. Finally, it determined that 

“there are no segregability problems in this case [as] all 

reasonably segregable information within [the Mueller Report] 

has been released.” Id. at 275 (citation omitted).

With respect to Exemption 7(C)3—the only exemption at 

issue on appeal—and the names and personally identifiable 

information of individuals investigated but not charged by the 

Special Counsel, the district court concluded that DOJ 

“adequately explained the harms associated with releasing this 

information” and that the individuals’ privacy interests were 

not outweighed by the public’s interest in disclosure. Id. at 263, 

265. It determined that these individuals—individuals

“including the President’s family, associates, and government 

officials”—despite their public prominence, maintained 

privacy interests in avoiding the stigma, embarrassment and 

other reputational or even physical harm that may come with 

being connected to a high-profile public corruption 

investigation. Id. at 264–65. BuzzFeed had “failed to show how 

the disclosure of individuals’ names would contribute 

significantly to public understanding of the operations or 

2

 DOJ has not challenged the district court’s Exemption 5 

determination.

3

 Exemption 7(C) is set forth infra at 9–11.
7

activities of the government . . . or would be probative of the 

government’s alleged misconduct.” Id. at 265–66 (cleaned up).

BuzzFeed challenges only this aspect of the district court’s 

judgment: the grant of summary judgment to DOJ with respect 

to information withheld from disclosure under Exemption 7(C)

and coded by DOJ in the redacted Report as “(b)(6)/(b)(7)(C)-

2”—specifically information about individuals investigated but 

not charged and the application of law to facts resulting in 

particular declination decisions.4 BuzzFeed categorizes the 

requested information as follows:

1. Information about the decision not to 

prosecute an unnamed person, likely 

Donald Trump, Jr., for potential campaign 

finance violations under Section 1030. Joint 

Appendix (J.A.) 749–50.

2. Information about several people who were 

investigated for false statements and 

obstruction but not charged. J.A. 764, 768–

69.

3. Information about declination decisions that 

appear to relate to contacts between the 

4

 The district court also granted summary judgment to DOJ

regarding information redacted under Exemption 7(C) that included

the “names, social media account information, and other contact 

information of unwitting third parties” and the “names, social media 

account information, contact information, and other personallyidentifiable information of individuals merely mentioned in the 

[Mueller] Report.” EPIC II, 490 F. Supp. 3d at 262, 266 (alteration 

in original). BuzzFeed does not challenge these determinations on 

appeal.
8

Russian government and the Trump 

campaign. J.A. 579.

4. Information about the decision not to charge 

Trump campaign officials with foreign 

agent offenses. J.A. 753.

II.

The district court had subject matter jurisdiction pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 1331, as the suit presented a federal question 

arising under FOIA. BuzzFeed filed a timely notice of appeal 

of the district court’s final order granting in part and denying 

in part the summary judgment motions, giving this court

appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment, applying the same standards that governed the 

district court’s decision. Kimberlin v. Dep’t of Just., 139 F.3d 

944, 947 (D.C. Cir. 1998). “In a suit brought to compel 

production, an agency is entitled to summary judgment if no 

material facts are in dispute and if it demonstrates ‘that each 

document that falls within the class requested either has been 

produced . . . or is wholly exempt from [FOIA’s] inspection 

requirements.’” Students Against Genocide v. Dep’t of State, 

257 F.3d 828, 833 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (quoting Goland v. CIA, 

607 F.2d 339, 352 (D.C. Cir. 1978)).

III.

A.

FOIA requires that each government agency, “upon any 

request for records which (i) reasonably describes such records 

and (ii) is made in accordance with published rules . . . , shall 

make the records promptly available to any person.” 5 U.S.C. 
9

§ 552(a)(3)(A). The statute “was designed to ‘pierce the veil of 

administrative secrecy and to open agency action to the light of 

public scrutiny’” but the public’s access to agency documents 

and records is not absolute. Dep’t of State v. Ray, 502 U.S. 164, 

173 (1991) (quoting Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 

361 (1976)). Indeed, FOIA provides specific exemptions 

authorizing an agency to withhold from disclosure information 

the statute would otherwise require be produced. See 5 U.S.C. 

§ 552(b)(1)–(9). Because the exemptions were not designed to 

frustrate FOIA’s “goal of broad disclosure,” however, the 

Supreme Court has instructed “that the exemptions be ‘given a 

narrow compass.’” Milner v. Dep’t of Navy, 562 U.S. 562, 571 

(2011) (quoting Dep’t of Just. v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 

151 (1989)). Further, the “agency bears the burden of 

establishing that a claimed exemption applies.” CREW I, 

746 F.3d at 1088 (citing Dep’t of Just. v. Reps. Comm. for 

Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 755 (1989)).

Under Exemption 7(C), the only exemption we examine 

today,5“records or information compiled for law enforcement 

purposes” are protected from disclosure, “but only to the extent 

that the production of such law enforcement records or 

information . . . could reasonably be expected to constitute an 

5

 DOJ also justified the redactions of the passages of the Report 

at issue here under FOIA Exemption 6, which permits the 

withholding of “personnel and medical files and similar files the 

disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion 

of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). The district court 

addressed only Exemption 7(C) because it “establishes a lower bar 

for withholding material.” EPIC II, 490 F. Supp. 3d at 262 (quoting 

Prison Legal News v. Samuels, 787 F.3d 1142, 1146 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 

2015)). BuzzFeed does not challenge this aspect of the district 

court’s ruling, conceding “DOJ’s Exemption 6 claims need not be 

considered because . . . the standard under Exemption 7(C) is easier 

for the government to meet than Exemption 6.” Br. of Appellants 10.
10

unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”65 U.S.C. 

§ 552(b)(7)(C). To meet its burden of establishing that 

Exemption 7(C) applies, the agency must demonstrate that 

(1) disclosure could “reasonably be expected to constitute an 

unwarranted invasion of privacy” and (2) the “personal privacy 

interest” is not “outweighed by the public interest in 

disclosure.” Nat’l Archives & Recs. Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 

157, 160 (2004). Once the agency shows that the “privacy 

concerns addressed by Exemption 7(C) are present,” the party 

seeking disclosure must show “that the public interest sought 

to be advanced is a significant one, an interest more specific 

than having the information for its own sake,” and that “the 

information is likely to advance that interest.” Id. at 172. If the 

asserted public interest is “to show that responsible officials 

acted negligently or otherwise improperly in the performance 

of their duties, the requester must produce evidence that would 

warrant a belief by a reasonable person that the alleged 

Government impropriety might have occurred.” Id. at 174. 

Asserting certain other public interests, as we explain below, 

does not require such an evidentiary showing. See, e.g., CREW 

I, 746 F.3d at 1095 (no evidentiary requirement when asserting 

the public’s interest in matters of substantive law enforcement 

policy).

We have held that “individuals have an obvious privacy 

interest cognizable under Exemption 7(C) in keeping secret the 

fact that they were subjects of a law enforcement 

investigation.” Citizens for Resp. & Ethics in Wash. v. Dep’t of 

Just. (CREW II), 854 F.3d 675, 682 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (quoting 

6

 BuzzFeed has not contested in district court or on appeal 

Exemption 7(C)’s threshold requirement that the Mueller Report 

must have been compiled for law enforcement purposes. EPIC II, 

490 F. Supp. 3d at 261 n.5; Br. of Appellants 10 (acknowledging 

“there is no dispute that the [Mueller] Report meets the Exemption 7 

law enforcement threshold”).
11

Nation Mag. v. U.S. Customs Serv., 71 F.3d 885, 894 (D.C. Cir. 

1995)). This privacy interest indisputably exists here. We must 

therefore “balance the . . . privacy interest against the public 

interest in disclosure.” Favish, 541 U.S. at 171.

B.

We turn first to an examination of the personal privacy 

interests at stake and find much to commend in the district 

court’s extensive analysis of those interests. See EPIC II, 490 

F. Supp. 3d at 262–65. Surveying this Court’s case law, the 

district court highlighted our longstanding recognition that 

“individuals have a strong interest in not being associated 

unwarrantedly with alleged criminal activity,” Stern v. Fed. 

Bureau of Investigation, 737 F.2d 84, 91–92 (D.C. Cir. 1984), 

“disclosing the identity of targets of law-enforcement 

investigations can subject those identified to embarrassment 

and potentially more serious reputational harm,” Senate of P.R. 

v. Dep’t of Just., 823 F.2d 574, 588 (D.C. Cir. 1987), and “the 

mention of an individual’s name in a law enforcement file . . . 

carries a stigmatizing connotation,” Schrecker v. Dep’t of Just., 

349 F.3d 657, 666 (D.C. Cir. 2003). See EPIC II, 490 F. Supp. 

3d at 264 (collecting cases).

BuzzFeed does not contest the significant privacy interests 

at stake here. Instead, it posits that the privacy interests are 

diminished because “the people in these records were highranking members of the Trump presidential campaign” and “it 

is already publicly known that specific members of the Trump 

campaign were included in the Special Counsel’s 

investigation.”

We have indeed stated that public officials “may have a 

somewhat diminished privacy interest” in the Exemption 7(C) 

balancing analysis. CREW I, 746 F.3d at 1092 (quoting Quinon 

v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation, 86 F.3d 1222, 1230 (D.C. Cir. 
12

1996)). Of the individuals whose privacy interests may be 

jeopardized by disclosure of the requested information, only 

one is a public official. The remaining individuals are private 

citizens who served on a presidential campaign. And at oral 

argument BuzzFeed’s counsel could not identify a case in 

which we or any other court has held that a private citizen’s 

personal privacy interests are diminished merely by virtue of 

his service on a presidential campaign. All BuzzFeed can 

muster are cases in which we have suggested that a citizen’s 

status as a public figure “might” ultimately weigh in favor of 

disclosure, Fund for Const. Gov’t v. Nat’l Archives & Recs. 

Serv., 656 F.2d 856, 865 (D.C. Cir. 1981), and that “corporate 

officials may have a somewhat diminished interest in personal 

privacy,” id. at 873 (emphasis added). See also Nation Mag., 

Wash. Bureau v. U.S. Customs Serv., 71 F.3d 885, 894 n.9 

(D.C. Cir. 1995) (“candidacy for federal office may diminish 

an individual’s right to privacy”) (emphasis added). We 

hesitate to extend this somewhat equivocal reasoning to 

undermine the significant privacy interests of private citizens 

serving on a presidential campaign. And because this dispute 

can be resolved without such an extension, we decline 

BuzzFeed’s invitation to do so, leaving open for future panels 

the question whether presidential campaign officials have 

diminished privacy interests.

BuzzFeed’s second rationale for finding that the privacy 

interests are diminished is stronger but still misses the mark. 

Although the names of Trump campaign officials appear in 

public portions of the Report, they retain a privacy interest in 

“avoiding disclosure of the details of the investigation.” 

Kimberlin, 139 F.3d at 949. “[T]he fact that [an individual] was 

under investigation” is distinct from the “privacy interest in the 

contents of the investigative files.” CREW I, 746 F.3d at 1092. 

This, of course, makes sense because disclosure of the latter 

“could reveal new information about a person’s conduct, going 
13

beyond the facts in the public record.” CREW II, 854 F.3d at 

682. “Under such circumstances, that individual would retain a 

privacy interest in the non-disclosure of the new information.” 

Id. Disclosure of the new facts could expose the individual to 

the very reputational and stigmatizing harms against which we 

have found Exemption 7(C) protects.

That’s not what we have here, however—at least with 

respect to the declination decisions relating to purported 

campaign violations, which make up three of the four 

categories of redacted information identified by BuzzFeed. 

After conducting our own in camera review of the unredacted 

Mueller Report, we determined that the factual and personally 

identifying information alleged to be contained in the redacted 

passages on pages 579, 749–50 and 753 of the Joint Appendix

is available elsewhere in the Report. See J.A. 629–30, 693–99. 

The redacted passages contain no new facts; they contain no 

new information or descriptions of conduct that have not been 

made public elsewhere in this very Report. The privacy 

interests, then, are not robust, as no additional reputational or 

stigmatizing harm can result from the disclosure of the 

information contained therein. Regarding the requested

information on pages 764 and 768–69 of the Joint Appendix, 

on the other hand, the redacted materials there contain 

additional facts about individuals that are not disclosed or even 

intimated elsewhere in the Report. The individuals discussed in 

these passages “retain a privacy interest in the non-disclosure 

of the new information.” CREW II, 854 F.3d at 682.

In sum, the privacy interests of the individuals investigated 

for campaign violations are diminished, but not eliminated, by 

disclosure of the relevant facts elsewhere in the Report. The 

individuals purportedly investigated for false statements—the 

fourth category alluded to above—retain a significant privacy 

interest in the contents of the Report because the redacted 
14

sections include new facts that would be stigmatizing. As we 

explain infra, this disparity ultimately alters the balancing 

analysis between the campaign-violation information and the 

false-statement information.

Turning to the public interest side of the equation, we 

agree with the district court that “the public interest in the 

Special Counsel’s investigation is substantial.” EPIC II, 490 F. 

Supp. 3d at 265. The district court did not, however, identify 

the particular public interest considered in concluding that

BuzzFeed “failed to show that the information sought is likely 

to advance the public interest in disclosure” and “how the 

disclosure of individuals’ names would ‘contribute 

significantly to public understanding of the operations or 

activities of the government.’” Id. (quoting Consumers’ 

Checkbook, Ctr. for the Study of Servs. v. Dep’t of Health & 

Hum. Servs., 554 F.3d 1046, 1051 (D.C. Cir. 2009)). It is here 

that we part ways with the district court and conclude that 

BuzzFeed has identified a significant public interest previously 

recognized by this court and has made the required showing

linking the disclosure with the advancement of the public 

interest: “[W]hether the Special Counsel adequately 

investigated and reached proper declination decisions as to 

potential crimes by members of the Trump campaign.” In other 

words, the redacted material covers how the Special Counsel 

carried out his duties to investigate and prosecute criminal 

conduct. CREW I, 746 F.3d at 1093 (citing Quinon, 86 F.3d at 

1231). This public interest suffices to tip the balance in favor 

of disclosure, at least with respect to the information relating to 

individuals investigated for campaign violations, as the factual 

circumstances surrounding this portion of the investigation are 
15

already publicly available in the unredacted portions of the 

Report.

In CREW I, we recognized a “weighty public interest in 

shining a light on the FBI’s investigation of major political 

corruption and the DOJ’s ultimate decision not to prosecute a 

prominent member of Congress.” 746 F.3d at 1092–93. In 

doing so, we followed decades of United States Supreme Court 

precedent, which holds that “the only relevant public interest 

in the FOIA balancing analysis [is] the extent to which 

disclosure of the information sought would ‘she[d] light on an 

agency’s performance of its statutory duties’ or otherwise let 

citizens know ‘what their government is up to.’” Dep’t of Def. 

v. Fed. Lab. Rels. Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 497 (1994) (quoting 

Reps. Comm., 489 U.S. at 773). “[M]atters of substantive law 

enforcement policy,” we added, “are properly the subject of 

public concern.”7 CREW I, 746 F.3d at 1093 (quoting Reps. 

Comm., 489 U.S. at 766 n.18) (also collecting cases 

recognizing a public interest in how the Executive carries out 

substantive law enforcement policy). We have also stressed 

that the “relevant public interest is not to find out what [the 

official] himself was ‘up to’ but rather how the FBI and the 

DOJ carried out their respective statutory duties to investigate 

and prosecute criminal conduct.” Id. (citing Quinon, 86 F.3d at 

1231).

Having identified a significant public interest, BuzzFeed

must still show that “the information is likely to advance that 

interest.” Favish, 541 U.S. at 172. We believe it has done so. It 

seeks disclosure of “passages contain[ing] detailed legal 

analysis that shows how the Special Counsel interpreted the 

7

 No showing of impropriety or illegality is required, as matters 

of substantive law enforcement policy are recognized public interests 

“whether or not the policy in question is lawful.” Am. Civ. Liberties 

Union v. Dep’t of Just., 655 F.3d 1, 14 (D.C. Cir. 2011).
16

relevant law and applied it to the facts in reaching the 

declination decisions.” This, BuzzFeed argues, “is precisely the 

kind of information that would allow the public to understand 

substantive matters of important law enforcement policy.” 

Turning once again to CREW I, we agree. “Disclosure of the 

[information] would likely reveal much about the diligence of 

the [Special Counsel’s] investigation and the [] exercise of [his] 

prosecutorial discretion: whether the government had the 

evidence but nevertheless pulled its punches.” CREW I, 

746 F.3d at 1093. Disclosure would also show how the Special 

Counsel interpreted the relevant law and applied it to already 

public facts in reaching his declination decisions. We reject 

DOJ’s argument that the public interest is reduced because 

“[m]ost of the Mueller Report has already been disclosed” and 

the “Congress has also released a substantial volume of 

information about the events underlying the Special Counsel’s 

investigation.”8 Those statements, in and of themselves, may 

be true but they are irrelevant to the fact that the Special 

Counsel’s legal analysis that led to the declination decisions

has not been released and likely would “contribute significantly 

to public understanding of the operations or activities of the 

government.” Reps. Comm., 489 U.S. at 775. Thus, BuzzFeed

has identified a significant public interest and demonstrated 

how disclosure will advance that interest.

We turn finally to the balancing of the public and privacy 

interests at stake, following the “case-by-case” approach we 

8

 DOJ’s reliance on our decision in Judicial Watch, Inc. v. 

National Archives & Records Administration, 876 F.3d 346 (D.C. 

Cir. 2017), is also misplaced. That case is distinguishable. The FOIA 

requesters there sought copies of draft indictments against Hillary 

Rodham Clinton related to the Independent Counsel’s investigation 

in the early 1990s. Id. at 347. Unlike here, it did not involve 

information that would show how law enforcement applied law to 

facts to reach a charging or declination decision.
17

have previously endorsed. CREW I, 746 F.3d at 1095. As 

discussed, there are substantial interests on both sides of the 

scale. The public interest in matters of substantive law 

enforcement policy is strong with respect to each category of 

redacted information sought by BuzzFeed. The privacy

interests, undoubtedly significant, are slightly less (although 

not eliminated) with respect to the individuals whose 

personally identifiable information is already available in 

public portions of the Report in the context of potential 

criminal charges. We refer to these broadly as the three 

categories of information that detail the declination analysis for 

purported campaign violations. For this material, the strong 

public interest tips the scale in favor of disclosure, as releasing 

this information would show only government 

decisionmaking, not new private information. The privacy 

interests relating to individuals investigated for but not charged 

with making false statements, however, remain significant. On 

our read, this material contains additional facts about 

individuals that are not disclosed elsewhere and that would be 

highly stigmatizing. We therefore conclude that their 

substantial privacy interests tip the scale in favor of nondisclosure for this category of material.

Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment to DOJ on its Exemption 7(C) withholding 

claims for the information regarding the Special Counsel’s 

declination decisions on the purported campaign violations. 

The district court is to order DOJ to disclose the material it 

withheld pursuant to Exemption 7(C) only on the following 

pages of the Joint Appendix: 579, 749–50 and 753. The 

relevant material is marked by the notation “(b)(6)/(b)(7)(C)-

2.”9In all other respects, we affirm the district court’s grant of 

9

 We note that portions of the material relating to false 

statements are also marked by the notation “(b)(3)-1.” This notation 
18

summary judgment to DOJ on its Exemption 7(C) withholding 

decisions.

So ordered.

covers the entire redacted material on J.A. 764 and portions of the 

material on J.A. 769. It refers to FOIA Exemption 3, which protects 

materials “specifically exempted from disclosure by statute.” 

5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3). In these portions, information was withheld 

under Exemption 3 because it constitutes federal grand jury 

information, prohibited from disclosure by Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 6(e). The district court granted DOJ’s motion for summary 

judgment on its Exemption 3 withholding claims, EPIC II, 490 F. 

Supp. 3d at 260, and BuzzFeed does not challenge that ruling. Thus, 

Exemption 3 provides an alternative basis for withholding from 

disclosure these portions of the passages relating to false statements, 

independent of our Exemption 7(C) analysis. Our decision today 

does nothing to disturb the district court’s Exemption 3

determination.