Opinion ID: 3172147
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Reported NSC System Actions

Text: Main Street submits that third‐party reports of NSC System actions demonstrate that it does not function only to advise and assist the President but, rather, exercises authority independent of him. We are reluctant to locate the “authority” indicative of agency status in action unsupported by an identified legal grant from Congress or the President. We do not pursue that point, however, because the actions cited by Main Street are insufficient to demonstrate agency status in any event.24 Main Street submits that then‐Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan’s responses to Senate questions about the selection of drone targets demonstrate Council Staff is protected from unauthorized disclosure, but only to the extent, and for such period, as is necessary to safeguard the national security.”). 24 To the extent Main Street argues that the cited actions raise an inference that classified executive orders exist granting the NSC System independent authority, it effectively invites an inquiry into the discoverability of classified materials, which is not appropriate where pleadings otherwise fail to state a plausible claim. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (holding that complaint must plead “factual content that allows the court to draw [a] reasonable inference” supporting its claim, and plaintiff is not entitled to discovery to satisfy this requirement). 54 that the NSC System exercises authority independent of the President. In fact, the record is to the contrary. Asked who within the Administration makes the final determination to launch a drone strike against an American citizen target, Brennan replied that “[t]he process of deciding to take such an extraordinary action would involve legal review by the Department of Justice, as well as a discussion among the departments and agencies across our national security team, including the relevant National Security Council Principals and the President.” John Brennan, Responses to Posthearing Questions 5 (2013) (emphasis added), available at http://1.usa.gov/1fp6lki. Far from demonstrating authority exercised independent of the President, the described process manifests the very function of advising the President in connection with the exercise of his authority, as envisioned by Congress in establishing the NSC and by the President in organizing the NSC System.25 25 Main Street maintains that even if the President “ultimately approves” drone strike targets, the “authority” wielded by NSC committees in compiling target lists is so significant as to compel finding the NSC System an agency. This ignores the relevant Soucie inquiry, which asks not whether advice given to the President is significant, but only whether it is, in fact, advice. Nothing in the record cited by Main Street indicates that any part of the NSC System exercises drone‐attack authority independent of the President. 55 In a letter submitted before oral argument, see Fed. R. App. P. 28(j), Main Street also cites the partially declassified 500‐page summary to a classified 7,000‐ page Senate Intelligence Committee Report on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques under the administration of President George W. Bush. From this mass of material, Main Street highlights a single statement, attributed to CIA records, that in July 2004, the NSC Principals Committee agreed that the “‘CIA was authorized and directed to utilize’” enhanced interrogation techniques on detainee Janat Gul. Appellant’s Fed. R. App. P. 28(j) Letter, Feb. 23, 2015, at 1 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Sen. Select Comm. on Intelligence, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program—Executive Summary (“Executive Summary”) 344–45 (2014), available at http://1.usa.gov/1RUx1uY). Main Street submits that this was a formal authorization that the Principals Committee granted independently of the President because “the President does not sit” on that Committee, and because “the President was not even briefed on ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ until April 2006.” Id. The quoted statement from the CIA report is too slender a reed to support Main Street’s contention. 56 First, insofar as Main Street’s argument depends on presidential ignorance, the only cited support for this premise is the Summary’s observation that “CIA records indicate that the first CIA briefing for the President on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques occurred on April 8, 2006.” Executive Summary 40. But as the Summary elsewhere states, the CIA had earlier—and repeatedly—briefed a host of presidential advisors on the matter, including the Vice President, several cabinet members, the President’s National Security Advisor, White House Counsel, and various White House staffers. See id. at 38, 115–16, 119. Precedent does not permit an assumption that all these officials kept the President in the dark about CIA interrogation, much less that they did so for four years while the Principals Committee exercised independent authority in this area. See United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996) (holding that “in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that [government officials] have properly discharged their official duties”)26; see generally Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 681–82 (2009) (holding that inference of 26 See also George W. Bush, Decision Points 168–71 (2010) (stating that, in 2002, President was informed of enhanced interrogation techniques and personally decided which would be permitted or forbidden). 57 proscribed intent not plausible where there is more likely explanation for challenged conduct). Further, and more important, the quoted CIA report is insufficient plausibly to allege the NSC’s exercise of authority independent of the President. The report asserts that the Principals Committee agreed that the CIA was “authorized and directed” to utilize enhanced interrogation. But “authorized and directed” by whom? We have already explained how presidents have organized the NSC System, including the Principals Committee, not to exercise independent authority, but to advise them in providing for national security and to assist in ensuring coordinated implementation of presidential policies across government departments. Thus, we will not readily assume that any part of the NSC System has overreached its function. See United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 464. Specifically, we will not assume that when any part of the NSC System concludes that a department is authorized and directed to take action that it is the NSC itself that is authorizing and directing the action rather than simply communicating that the proposed action is authorized and directed by presidential policies. 58 That caution is reinforced here by the Executive Summary’s report that it was the President’s National Security Advisor who initially approved the 2004 interrogation at issue, before proposing that the CIA present the matter to the Principals Committee for “additional guidance.” Executive Summary 135–36. The Committee, in turn, directed the Justice Department to provide the CIA with a legal opinion, which the Attorney General did, acting on his own authority as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. See id. at 136 (reporting Attorney General’s opinion that nine of proposed interrogation techniques comported with Constitution and treaty obligations). These circumstances, where initial approval is conveyed by a presidential advisor not held to exercise authority independent of the Chief Executive, see Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. at 156, and where the NSC, through its Principals Committee, then coordinates among various departments, do not manifest the Committee’s exercise of any authority independent of the President. Accordingly, the actions Main Street attributes to the NSC System do not raise a plausible inference of independent authority so as to make the NSC an agency subject to the FOIA. 59 In sum, because the Council and the NSC System function solely to advise and assist the President and exercise no authority independent of the President, the NSC does not constitute an agency subject to the FOIA. We, therefore, conclude that, insofar as Main Street sues under the FOIA to compel the disclosure of agency documents, its complaint against the NSC was properly dismissed. F. Because the FOIA Agency Requirement Does Not Implicate Subject‐ Matter Jurisdiction, the Complaint Was Correctly Dismissed on the Merits To dismiss a claim on the merits, or to affirm such dismissal, a court must have jurisdiction. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998). The NSC argued before the district court that a court has subject‐matter jurisdiction to hear and decide FOIA claims only if the party from whom disclosure is sought is, indeed, an agency. We disagree. Absent agency, a court properly dismisses a FOIA claim on the merits, not for lack of subject‐matter jurisdiction. The FOIA states, in relevant part, as follows: On complaint, the district court of the United States in the district in which the complainant resides, or has his principal place of business, or in which the agency records are situated, or in the District of Columbia, has jurisdiction to enjoin the agency from 60 withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) (emphasis added). Although the statute uses the term “jurisdiction,” the Supreme Court has cautioned that “[j]urisdiction . . . is a word of many, too many, meanings.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. at 90 (internal quotation marks omitted). Some statutes use “jurisdiction” to reference subject‐matter jurisdiction, that is, a court’s “statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate the case.” Id. at 89. Other statutes, however, use “jurisdiction” to “specify[] the remedial powers of the court.” Id. at 90 (emphasis omitted). The latter use does not implicate subject‐matter jurisdiction. See id. Based on its text, we construe § 552(a)(4)(B) to reference remedial power, not subject‐matter jurisdiction. The highlighted language does not speak to the court’s ability to adjudicate a claim, but only to the remedies that the court may award. See id. at 91–92 (rejecting “principle that a statute saying ‘the district court shall have jurisdiction to remedy violations [in specified ways]’ renders the existence of a violation necessary for subject‐matter jurisdiction” (brackets in original)). 61 Admittedly, the Supreme Court has previously referred to § 552(a)(4)(B) as jurisdictional. See United States Dep’t of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 142 (1989); Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. at 150. In those cases, however, the Court appears to have used the term in the sense of remedial power rather than subject‐matter jurisdiction. See United States Dep’t of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. at 142 (discussing “jurisdiction to devise remedies to force an agency to comply with the FOIA’s disclosure requirements”); Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. at 150 (discussing “[j]udicial authority to devise remedies and enjoin agencies”). Moreover, in Steel Co., the Supreme Court held that prior opinions referring to statutes as “jurisdictional” without indicating that they meant subject‐matter jurisdiction, or whether the jurisdictional treatment made a substantive or procedural difference, “have no precedential effect.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. at 91. Accordingly, the Court’s earlier descriptions of § 552(a)(4)(B) as jurisdictional are not controlling here. Because § 552(a)(4)(B) does not implicate subject‐matter jurisdiction, we conclude that the district court properly dismissed the complaint on the merits pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), and we affirm that judgment. 62 G. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion in Denying Discovery In opposing dismissal, Main Street argued that the district court could easily conclude from publicly available materials that the NSC was an agency subject to the FOIA. If the district court was inclined otherwise, however, Main Street sought sweeping discovery into “the complete scope of” the NSC’s “current powers and responsibilities.” Pl.’s Opp’n to Mot. to Dismiss 19. The district court agreed with Main Street that publicly available materials were “wholly sufficient for a proper adjudication” of the agency question, but not with the conclusion Main Street urged therefrom. Main St. Legal Servs. v. Nat’l Sec. Council, 962 F. Supp. 2d at 478 n.4. Accordingly, it granted the NSC’s motion for dismissal, but denied Main Street further discovery. We review a denial of discovery only for abuse of discretion, see Allied Mar., Inc. v. Descatrade SA, 620 F.3d 70, 76 (2d Cir. 2010), and we identify no such abuse here. A plaintiff who has failed adequately to state a claim is not entitled to discovery. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 686 (holding that where complaint fails pleading requirements, plaintiff “is not entitled to discovery, cabined or otherwise”); see also Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 326–27 (1989) (stating that 63 Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) “streamlines litigation by dispensing with needless discovery and factfinding”). To state a claim for relief under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), a plaintiff must plausibly allege, among other things, that the defendant is an agency subject to the FOIA. Where, as here, the defendant is a unit within the Executive Office of the President, Main Street’s conclusory pleading of agency status was insufficient. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; see also Compl. ¶ 5 (“Defendant National Security Council . . . is an agency within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(1).”). To the extent Main Street pointed to publicly available materials to support its agency allegations, we have just explained why those materials do not admit a plausible claim. In the absence of a plausible claim of agency, the district court acted within its discretion in granting dismissal without affording Main Street discovery. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 686; Podany v. Robertson Stephens, Inc., 350 F. Supp. 2d 375, 378 (S.D.N.Y. 2004) (Lynch, J.) (“[D]iscovery is authorized solely for parties to develop the facts in a lawsuit in which a plaintiff has stated a legally cognizable claim, not in order to permit a plaintiff to find out whether he has such a claim, and still less to salvage a lawsuit that has already been dismissed for failure to state a claim.”). 64 The cases Main Street cites that have allowed discovery on a defendant’s agency status are inapposite. Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington v. Office of Administration, No. CIV.A.07‐964 (CKK), 2008 WL 7077787 (D.D.C. Feb. 11, 2008), allowed discovery on the theory that agency status was arguably jurisdictional, see id. at  (noting liberal standard for allowing jurisdictional discovery). We have here rejected that view of the FOIA’s agency requirement. As for Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 877 F. Supp. 690 (D.D.C. 1995), rev’d, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. 1996), the motion to dismiss on the basis that the NSC was not an agency, which the court treated as a motion for summary judgment, was not filed until after discovery had occurred, see id. at 697 & nn. 7‐8. Accordingly, we identify no abuse of discretion by the district court.