Opinion ID: 3172147
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Committee on Transnational Threats

Text: At the same time that Congress added the Committee on Foreign Intelligence to the NSC System, it also added the Committee on Transnational 33 Threats. See Intelligence Renewal and Reform Act of 1996 § 804, 110 Stat. at 3476–77 (codified as amended at 50 U.S.C. § 3021(i)). That Committee consists of the President’s National Security Advisor, who serves as chair, as well as the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Attorney General, and such other members as the President may designate. See 50 U.S.C. § 3021(i)(2). Its single statutory function is “to coordinate and direct the activities of the United States Government relating to combatting transnational threats.” Id. § 3021(i)(3). We have already explained why “coordination” within the NSC System does not contemplate the exercise of any authority independent of the President. See supra at [20–21]. As for the word “direct,” while it can imply an exercise of authority, it does not always. “Direct” can mean “to manage or guide by advice, helpful information, instruction, etc.” Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 558 (2d ed. 2001); see also Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 640 (1993) (defining “direct” to mean, inter alia, “to assist by giving advice, instruction, and supervision”); 4 The Oxford English Dictionary 701 (2d ed. 1989) (defining “direct” to mean, inter alia, “[t]o regulate the course of; to guide, conduct, lead; to guide with advice, to advise”). Here, the statutory text, 34 context, and legislative history support construing the word to have such an advisory meaning.19 Section 3021(i)(4) lists actions that the Committee on Transnational Threats shall undertake “in carrying out its function.” These include identifying transnational threats, developing strategies to combat those threats, monitoring the implementation of those strategies, assisting in the resolution of policy differences among agencies, developing policies to improve data sharing, and developing guidelines to improve coordination. See id. Such activities— identifying problems, developing best practices, monitoring implementation— are precisely those expected of an advisory body. Nowhere does the statute 19 In reaching this conclusion, we are mindful of the narrowness of the FOIA exception posited by the Conference Report, and by the Soucie case to which it refers, both of which emphasize that in order to escape the definition of “agency,” a unit of the Executive Office of the President must have the “sole function” of advising and assisting the President. See Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d at 1075; H.R. Rep. No. 93‐1380 (Conf. Rep.), reprinted in FOIA Source Book 232. Thus, a unit delegated independent governmental authority over the public or other parts of government could not claim the exception simply because it performed some advisory functions. At the same time, however, in considering whether statutory language does, in fact, confer independent authority on part of a unit, we give due regard to the unit’s predominant function. Where, as here, Congress has created a hierarchical national security system to provide advice and assistance to the President in defining and implementing his policies, we will not readily assume from a single word that Congress’s intent was to convey independent authority on a part inconsistent with the nature of the unit as a whole. 35 confer on the Committee any authority itself to act on identified problems, to enforce policies or guidelines, or otherwise to dictate action to any persons or entities. To the contrary, by placing this Committee within a system of fora, atop which sits a Council whose sole function is to advise and assist the President, Congress signaled its intent that the Committee on Transnational Threats also function advisorily rather than exercise independent authority. The relevant conference report supports this conclusion, stating that the Committee on Transnational Threats was created “to provide senior‐level guidance on issues raised by the intersection of law enforcement and intelligence.” H.R. Rep. No. 104‐832, at 38 (Conf. Rep.). That view was echoed by Senator Arlen Specter (R‐Pa.), the Senate majority’s floor manager for the legislation, who stated that the Committee’s purpose was “to provide better policy guidance . . . for departments and agencies involv[ed] in fighting international terrorism and crime.” 142 Cong. Rec. 23,322 (1996). No different conclusion is warranted because the President and the Department of Justice objected to the creation of the Committee on Transnational Threats. Their concern was separation of powers, i.e., Congress’s intrusion on the President’s prerogative to decide which officials within the executive branch 36 would advise on his policies relating to transnational issues. Nothing in their objections suggests that the Committee was being granted authority independent of the President. See Statement on Signing the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997, 2 Pub. Papers 1813, 1813 (Oct. 11, 1996) (stating with respect to creation of Committee on Transnational Threats that Congress’s “efforts to dictate the President’s policy process unduly intrude upon Executive prerogatives and responsibilities”); see also S. Rep. No. 104‐258, at 28–29 (noting Justice Department’s view that “law enforcement activities should not be directed on the basis of considerations unrelated to the enforcement of law”). In sum, relevant statutory provisions provide for the various parts of the NSC System to perform functions that advise and assist the Council and the President. They confer no authority independent of the President so as to make the NSC System an agency subject to the FOIA. 2. The President Has Not Granted the NSC System Any Independent Authority a. Presidential Delegations of Authority Each President organizes the NSC System as he thinks will best assist him in carrying out his national security responsibilities. See, e.g., PPD‐1, at 1 (“To assist me in carrying out my responsibilities in the area of national security, I 37 hereby direct that the National Security Council system be organized as follows.”). Main Street maintains that the President has done so in a way that allows the NSC System to exercise national security authority independent of him, thereby making it an agency subject to the FOIA. We are not persuaded. At the outset, we observe that a due regard for separation of powers signals judicial caution in assessing a claim that the nation’s Chief Executive has so conveyed his authority to another person or entity that it can now be exercised independent of him. This is not to suggest that the President can never delegate executive authority. But the President alone decides the extent and conditions of any delegation. Moreover, he can revoke a delegation whenever he changes his mind or overrule any exercise with which he disagrees. For these reasons, we are skeptical as to whether a President can ever be said to have delegated his own authority in a way that renders it truly independent of him. See Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d at 1297 (noting even dissent’s doubt that President “would ever delegate true independent authority to his cabinet,” and reaching same conclusion with respect to task force composed in part of certain cabinet officials). 38 This contrasts with statutory grants of authority to executive departments or agencies, which flow from a source independent from the President. Thus, Congress can confer authority beyond the President’s own. In such circumstances, the President may still give directions to executive agencies, and he can usually fire a recalcitrant agency head. But he cannot take away the agency’s statutory authority or exercise it himself. See Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 493 (2010) (recognizing that Congress may vest appointment power in agencies rather than President); Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 135 (1926) (acknowledging that President may not always “overrule or revise” subordinate’s action). Statutory grants therefore easily allow an entity within the executive branch to be deemed an “‘authority of the Government of the United States’” that exercises power independent of the President. Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d at 1073 (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)). But presidential delegations of authority may not warrant that conclusion. They may simply make the entity an extension of the President, a vehicle for assisting him in exercising his authority when he cannot do so in person. See id. at 1075 (stating that entity that is “part of the President’s staff” could not be “separate agency”). 39 We need not here decide when, if ever, a presidential—rather than statutory—grant of authority might allow an executive entity to exercise power independent of the President so as to render it an agency subject to the FOIA. We decide only that no such agency conclusion is warranted here with respect to the NSC System. b. PPD‐1 Clearly Expresses the President’s Intent To Organize the NSC System To Assist Him in Exercising His Authority In assessing a claim that the President has so conveyed his authority as to allow it to be exercised independent of him, separation of powers further counsels a respectful measure of deference to the President’s own statements of intent in taking the action at issue. The first words of the President’s Policy Directive organizing the NSC System clearly express his intent: “To assist me in carrying out my responsibilities in the area of national security, I hereby direct that the National Security Council system be organized as follows.” PPD‐1, at 1 (emphasis added). The highlighted language makes plain that the President organized the NSC System only to secure assistance for himself in carrying out his responsibilities. Nothing in the directive indicates any intent to transfer presidential authority so that it can be exercised independent of the President. In this regard, we reiterate a point made earlier: the relevant Soucie inquiry is not 40 whether a unit within the Executive Office of the President can exercise some discretion in providing the President with advice and assistance. It is whether advice and assistance to the President is the unit’s sole function, or whether it is empowered to exercise authority independent of the President. When we apply Soucie analysis to PPD‐1, we easily conclude from its plain language that it establishes assistance to the President as the sole function of the NSC System and conveys no authority to act independent of the President either with respect to private persons or other government entities. c. PPD‐1 Grants Non‐Statutory Committees No Authority Independent of the President Despite PPD‐1’s plain statement of presidential intent only to secure assistance from the NSC System, Main Street argues that the President has therein organized non‐statutory NSC committees so that they do exercise authority independent of him. For the reasons that follow, PPD‐1 does not support that conclusion.
The Principals Committee referenced in PPD‐1 has operated since 1989 as “the senior interagency forum for consideration of policy issues affecting 41 national security.” PPD‐1, at 2–3 (emphasis added).20 Obviously, it assists the President in carrying out his national security responsibilities to have heads of various executive departments meet together and jointly consider issues affecting national security. The coordination objective at the core of the NSC’s authorizing legislation contemplates both channeling jointly considered policy recommendations up to the Council, and thereby to the President, and channeling the President’s policy decisions down for consistent implementation across departments. See supra at [20–21]. The fact that the Principals Committee may reach “‘conclusions’” and “‘decisions’” does not manifest an exercise of independent authority by the committee. See Appellant’s Br. 24 (quoting PPD‐1, at 3). There may be a “conclusion” that a national security policy needs to be formulated or clarified and a “decision” to refer it to the Council and, thereby, to the President himself. That circumstance manifests advice and assistance to the President, not the 20 The National Security Advisor chairs the Principals Committee, on which serve the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy and Homeland Security; the Attorney General; the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; the U.S. Representative to the United Nations; the President’s Chief of Staff; the Director of National Intelligence; and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Other designated persons can be invited to all or some meetings depending on the agenda. See PPD‐1, at 3. 42 exercise of authority independent of him.21 Or there may be a “conclusion” to coordinate agencies’ implementation of a particular presidential policy and a “decision” about how to achieve that. In that circumstance, however, the Principals Committee does not itself exercise independent authority. Rather, it serves as a forum for members to coordinate the action authority of their individual agencies in furthering presidential policies. Such a coordinating forum assists the President but exercises no authority independent of either him or the forum’s members.
The Deputies Committee, as its name suggests, consists of persons serving as deputies to the ranking officials serving on the Principals Committee. See PPD‐1, at 4. It thus occupies the rung below the Principals Committee in the NSC hierarchy. The Deputies Committee “help[s] ensure that issues being brought before the [Principals Committee] or the NSC have been properly 21 See generally Anderson, supra note 2, at 163–64 (describing value of having interdepartmental groups within NSC test policy proposals before submission to Council: “[M]any differences are reconciled” in this process, “much common ground is found, and many disagreements prove after full discussion to be illusory and not basic differences after all. But if an irreconcilable disagreement arises between the departments represented,” the “elements of the disagreement” and “alternative policy courses” can be clearly identified for full presentation to Council). 43 analyzed and prepared for decision.” Id. at 3. This is plainly a function intended to assist the Principals Committee and the Council, which in turn advises and assists the President. See generally Cutler, supra note 10, at 170 (discussing importance of having items presented for Council deliberation on basis of “carefully staffed and carefully written documents”). It bespeaks no exercise of authority independent of the President. The Deputies Committee also schedules “[p]eriodic reviews of the Administration’s major foreign policy initiatives . . . to ensure that they are being implemented in a timely and effective manner,” and to “consider whether existing policy directives should be revamped or rescinded.” PPD‐1, at 3–4. Such a review‐and‐recommendation process also serves only to assist the President in implementing his policies; it does not constitute authority independent of the President. The Deputies Committee is “responsible for day‐to‐day crisis management, reporting to the National Security Council.” Id. at 4. The qualifying obligation to report to the Council, over which the President himself presides, makes plain that the Committee’s management responsibility involves 44 no exercise of authority independent of the President, but only the hands‐on assistance needed for the President to respond to crises. Finally, the Deputies Committee “review[s] and monitor[s] the work of the NSC interagency process,” a task that includes setting up Interagency Policy Committees to review policies and develop options in respective areas. Id. at 3, 5. That this task only assists the President and exercises no authority independent of him is evident from the responsibilities of the Interagency Policy Committees.
The Interagency Policy Committees are “the main day‐to‐day fora for interagency coordination of national security policy.” Id. at 5. As such, they “provide policy analysis for consideration by the more senior committees of the NSC system and ensure timely responses to decisions made by the President.” Id. They also “review and coordinate the implementation of Presidential decisions in their policy areas.” Id. In short, the Interagency Policy Committees’ only task is to provide assistance within an NSC System that functions solely to advise and assist the President; the Committees exercise no authority independent of the President. 45 In urging otherwise, Main Street contends that a Justice Department investigation shows that, with respect to “policy decision‐making for detention issues,” authority independent of the President was exercised successively at each of three NSC committee levels: the Interagency Policy Committee, the Deputies Committee, and the Principals Committee. Appellant’s Br. 26. In fact, the report cited for this assertion does not support it. See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Insp. Gen., A Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq (2009), available at http://1.usa.gov/1MqabYs. The report states that “discussions” on various detention matters, including “processes for sorting detainees and later for the repatriation or release of detainees, took place in a Policy Coordinating Committee.” Id. at 16–17. Such discussions are necessary to the “coordination” task assigned Interagency Policy Committees by the President. They are not an exercise of authority independent of the President. The cited report further states that “detainee issues” not resolved by an Interagency Policy Committee were raised to the Deputies Committee and, if not resolved there, to the Principals Committee. Id. at 17. This does not demonstrate each committee’s exercise of authority independent of 46 the President. Rather, it shows that where agency representatives in each committee could agree on how to coordinate detainee issues consistent with the President’s policy, they did so, but where they encountered disagreements that they could not reconcile, they raised the issue to the next higher committee level. It is hardly surprising that department heads serving on the Principals Committee, many of whom also served on the National Security Council, were better able than their subordinates to reconcile certain disagreements to ensure their departments’ coordinated compliance with the President’s policies. Nor is there any reason to think that if the Principals Committee could not do so, it would not have raised the matter to the Council for presidential decision. In sum, we identify nothing in the President’s organization of the NSC System that allows any part thereof to exercise authority independent of the President. Rather, PPD‐1 organizes the NSC System to establish a hierarchy of interagency fora for providing the President with information and recommendations on national security issues from across the executive branch, as well as for coordinating implementation of the President’s policies across government departments. Thus, we conclude that the NSC System, like the 47 Council, has a single function: to advise and assist the President. Because it exercises no independent authority, it is not an agency subject to the FOIA. d. Executive Orders Grant the NSC System No Authority Independent of the President The various executive orders cited by Main Street also fail to support its argument that the NSC System exercises authority independent of the President. One cited order provides for coordination, guidance, and dispute resolution in the area of emergency communications policy through the interagency process provided in PPD‐1. See Exec. Order No. 13,618 § 2.1, 3 C.F.R. 273, 273–74 (2013). We have already concluded that coordination and guidance within the NSC System assist the President in implementing his policies; they do not constitute an exercise of independent authority. The same conclusion obtains with respect to dispute resolution through the PPD‐1 interagency process. As we have explained, that process establishes a hierarchy of interagency fora for full discussion across government departments of national security issues and coordinated implementation by departments of the President’s policies. But the resolution of disputes in this process appears to be consensual, thus narrowing the matters requiring Council and, ultimately, presidential attention. Nowhere does the order authorize any part of the NSC 48 System on its own to dictate a resolution to any objecting government department. Another cited order provides for NSC review of both past covert operations and new proposed operations for the purpose of providing “support to the President” and submitting “to the President a policy recommendation.” Exec. Order No. 13,470 sec. 2, § 1.2, 3 C.F.R. 218, 219–20 (2009). This is entirely consistent with the NSC’s statutory advisory function, and indicates no exercise of authority independent of the President. Similarly, executive orders providing for the NSC to formulate or give policy direction for security programs affecting multiple agencies, or to approve or review such programs’ directives or actions, do not reach beyond the NSC’s advisory coordinating function. See Exec. Order No. 13,603 § 104(a), 3 C.F.R. 225, 226 (2013) (providing for NSC, along with other bodies, to “serve as the integrated policymaking forum for consideration and formulation of national defense resource preparedness policy” and to make recommendations to President on use of statutory authority); Exec. Order No. 12,829 § 102(a)–(b), 3 C.F.R. 570, 570–71 (1994) (providing for NSC to give “overall policy direction” on National Industrial Security Program, to approve directives of that program, and 49 to resolve interagency disputes). Because the NSC is statutorily charged with advising the President as to the integration of policies requiring cooperation among diverse agencies, see 50 U.S.C. § 3021(a)–(b), we will not assume that executive orders providing for NSC involvement in programs requiring such coordinated policies grant the NSC authority independent of the President who presides over it. Finally, we identify no grant of independent authority in the executive order creating a Steering Committee, chaired by senior representatives of the NSC Staff and the Office of Management and Budget, to establish and review “goals” for interagency sharing and safeguarding of classified information. Exec. Order No. 13,587 § 3, 3 C.F.R. 276, 277 (2012). The order does not contemplate that the Steering Committee will pronounce policies, or even set priorities or standards. Rather, it directs the Steering Committee to “coordinat[e] interagency development and implementation” of such matters. Id. § 3.1 (emphasis added). Such coordination is at the core of the assistance provided to the President by the NSC. It involves no exercise of authority independent of the President or even independent of the agencies endeavoring to coordinate their own efforts. See supra at [20–21]. This is evident from the fact that, when coordination cannot be 50 achieved in the Steering Committee, the executive order provides for referral to the NSC Deputies Committee in accordance with PPD‐1. See Exec. Order No. 13,587 § 3.3(h), 3 C.F.R. at 277. The Deputies Committee exercises no independent authority, see supra at [43–45]; rather, it provides yet another forum for still higher ranking officials to resolve coordination challenges. Moreover, when the Steering Committee identifies a need for an overarching policy beyond interagency coordination, the executive order does not authorize the Committee to promulgate that policy itself. Rather, it directs the Steering Committee to recommend promulgation to agencies outside the NSC System authorized to do so, specifically, the Office of Management and Budget or the Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives and Records Administration. See Exec. Order No. 13,587 § 3.3(e), 3 C.F.R. at 277. Accordingly, we reject Main Street’s argument that the cited executive orders confer on the Council or NSC System any authority that can be exercised independent of the President.