Opinion ID: 172367
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Trentadue's Suit

Text: Because the FBI had not produced the requested records within 20 business days, see 28 C.F.R. § 16.6(b), Mr. Trentadue initiated a FOIA suit against the FBI and the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office on August 20, 2004, in the United States District Court for the District of Utah. (We will refer to the defendants jointly as the FBI.) He alleged that the FBI had a duty under FOIA to produce the requested documents and that there was no legal basis to withhold them. (Mr. Trentadue later amended his complaint to pursue an additional FOIA request. For simplicity, we will address that request only when relevant to this appeal.) The FBI answered on September 20. It sought dismissal of the complaint, asserting that it was exercising due diligence to process [Mr. Trentadue's] requests as quickly as possible. J.A. at 55. Mr. Trentadue then moved for partial summary judgment with respect to the Freeh Memorandum, arguing that he had already seen the memorandum, which the FBI had produced in response to a FOIA request from someone else. He also argued that the FBI had waived any exemptions to production under FOIA by failing to assert them in the letter to him or in its answer to the complaint. On November 22 the FBI responded to Mr. Trentadue's partial-summary-judgment motion and filed its own summary-judgment motion, contending that it had responded to his request and that his claims were now moot. It said that it could not provide documents concerning Morris Dees unless it received proof of his death or a privacy waiver signed by him. As for the remainder of Mr. Trentadue's FOIA request, the FBI said that it could not find any requested documents. Its memorandum attached a letter to Mr. Trentadue sent by the FBI on November 18. The letter stated, Based on the information you provided, we have not located [the Freeh] memorandum through a search of our indices of our Central Records System.... Id. at 77. And with respect to the remainder of Mr. Trentadue's request (other than the allegedly protected information regarding Dees), the letter said that a search of the indices in our Central Records System files both at FBI Headquarters and in the Oklahoma City Field Office[] has revealed no responsive records. Id. at 78.
Mr. Trentadue responded to the FBI's memorandum by arguing that the FBI was intentionally withholding documents and acting in bad faith. To support this allegation, he submitted a redacted copy of the Freeh Memorandum that he had requested and a redacted teletype (which he terms the BOMBROB-Funding Memorandum) that he claimed to be from FBI Director Louie Freeh dealing with the very subjects of Plaintiff's FOIA Request.  Pl.'s Combined Mem. in Opp'n to FBI Defs. Mot. for Summ. J. & Pl.'s Rule 56(f) Mot. for Continuance Pending Disc. at 5-6, Trentadue v. FBI, No. 2:04 CV 00772 DAK, 2004 WL 3482786 (D.Utah Nov. 30, 2004). He asserted that these two documents revealed that FBI Defendants and/or the SPLC had an informant at Elohim City who reported that two weeks before the bombing of the Murrah Building Tim McVeigh contacted Elohim City trying to recruit others to assist him in carrying out that attack.... J.A. 82. Thus, according to Mr. Trentadue, the FBI Defendants knew about and fail[ed] to prevent the attack upon the Murrah Building, and therefore had an incentive to withhold documents showing such knowledge. Id. at 82-83 (emphasis omitted). Mr. Trentadue also submitted a declaration from a retired FBI agent, stating his belief (1) that the teletypes were authentic, and (2) that it would be a simple matter to retrieve either of these teletypes through searches of the respective case files for the serial[] [numbers] entered on or about the date of each teletype. Id. at 96. As the former FBI agent observed, the Freeh Memorandum listed two file numbers belonging to the OKBOMB investigation, 174A-OC-56120 and 91A-OM-41859, and the BOMBROB-Funding Memorandum listed a third file number belonging to that investigation, 100A-PH-79375. In addition, Mr. Trentadue argued that Dees's privacy interest was outweighed by the substantial public interest in disclosure. Finally, Mr. Trentadue filed a request under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f) for a continuance until Plaintiff has completed limited discovery on the existence of the documents and/or records in question. Pl.'s Combined Mem. in Opp'n at 3, Trentadue, No. 2:04 CV 00772 DAK, 2004 WL 3482786 (Nov. 30, 2004). On January 4, 2005, the FBI replied. It clarified that its position was not that responsive documents do not exist, only that [its] search did not locate any documents responsive to Plaintiff's request. The Federal Defs. Reply Mem. in Supp. of their Mot. for Summ. J. & in Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. to Strike & Stay Dis. (Defs.Reply) at 6, id. (Jan. 4, 2005). It maintained that it had made a good-faith effort to search for the requested documents, warranting summary judgment. To establish its good-faith search efforts, it attached to its reply a December 9, 2004, declaration of David Hardy, Section Chief of the Record/Information Dissemination Section of the FBI's Records Management Division in Washington, D.C. The declaration explained that the FBI's indices to its Central Records System (CRS) generally refer only to subjects of investigations, suspects, and victims, although other names may be indexed by an investigator or supervisor if considered relevant or necessary for later retrieval. [2] It then described the search for the records requested by Mr. Trentadue, stating that the search for records referring to Dees was awaiting a proper privacy waiver and that the search for the other records, using Southern Poverty Law Center as the search term, was fruitless. [3] On February 17, 2005, the FBI submitted a second declaration by Mr. Hardy. Attached to the declaration was a redacted copy of the Freeh Memorandum. The declaration explained why the FBI was now able to produce the document: (7) The initial search of the CRS indices at FBIHQ and the Oklahoma City Field Office, (OCFO) for [the Freeh Memorandum] revealed that, based on the information provided in plaintiff's initial request letter to FBIHQ and the OCFO, the FBI could not locate the original document. (8) The initial search of the CRS indices at FBIHQ and the OCFO for the [Freeh Memorandum] was conducted by using the search term Southern Poverty Law Center as described in the Hardy Declaration ¶ 12. Additionally, a search for the memorandum using the name Timothy McVeigh, failed to reveal the [Freeh Memorandum]. (9) Based on new information [the redacted version of the Freeh Memorandum submitted by Mr. Trentadue] attached as Exhibit A to plaintiff's November 23, 2004 REPLY MEMORANDUM IN FURTHER SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT, it was determined that the document was a teletype dated January 4, 1996. An electronic search of file 174A-OC-56120 for teletypes dated January 4, 1996, was conducted. This additional search revealed the teletype in question which was contained within the FBI's OKBOMB investigative file which investigation was conducted pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 844(d). Second Decl. of David M. Hardy at 3-4 (footnote omitted), Trentadue, No. 2:04 CV 00772 DAK (Feb. 17, 2005). The declaration did not detail search efforts to find the so-called BOMBROB-Funding Memorandum.
On May 5, 2005, the district court denied the FBI's summary-judgment motion, and granted Mr. Trentadue's partial-summary-judgment motion. Given the specific nature of [Mr. Trentadue's] requests . . . and [his] specific evidence that at least some of the requested documents do exist and reasonably should have been found by the FBI, the district court found that the FBI's search was not reasonably calculated to discover[ ] the requested documents. J.A. Vol. 1 at 159. It concluded that [w]hen the FBI's computer search did not identify any responsive documents, it was incumbent upon the FBI to review the actual files for such documents. Id. at 160. In a footnote the district court provided further reason why it doubted the adequacy of the FBI's search. It cited documents provided by Mr. Trentadue regarding his FOIA request for records relating to the FBI investigation of his brother's death. One document was a teletype from FBI headquarters to its field offices instructing that documents prepared for the investigation must not be uploaded into the Automated Case Support [(ACS)] system without prior approval. Id. at 159 n. 2 (emphasis omitted). Two other documents were FBI teletypes that the court characterized as indicating that the FBI lobbied former Senator Don Nickels of Oklahoma to obtain his assurances that no Senate Judiciary Committee oversight would take place with respect to the FBI's handling of the Trentadue investigation. Id. at 159-60 n. 2. The district court also ruled that privacy concerns did not justify withholding or redacting documents because the public interest in the information outweighed any privacy interests of the individuals involved. Accordingly, the court ordered that by June 15 the FBI must (1) produce unredacted versions of the Freeh Memorandum and the BOMBROB-Funding Memorandum, and (2) manually search the OKBOMB files numbered 100A-PH-79375, 174A-OC-56120, and 91A-OM-41859the file numbers listed on the redacted copies of the teletypes that Mr. Trentadue had provided the courtfor documents responsive to Mr. Trentadue's FOIA request. The court denied as moot Mr. Trentadue's motion for a continuance pending further discovery, but added that [u]pon motion, the court will permit Plaintiff to conduct discovery should the FBI fail to produce documents and/or records responsive to his FOIA request. Id. at 160.
The FBI moved for reconsideration of the district court's order. It claimed that (1) the redacted material in the Freeh Memorandum was exempt from disclosure because it would compromise the identity of and information provided by a confidential informant; (2) the BOMBROB-Funding Memorandum did not reference the SPLC and therefore was not responsive to Mr. Trentadue's initial FOIA request; and (3) the additional search ordered by the court would be unduly burdensome. In support of its motion, the FBI submitted a third declaration from David Hardy. Hardy stated that file number 174-OC-56120, one of the three files to be searched under the court's order, contained about 1,152,000 pages. He asserted that the manual search ordered by the court would be extremely time consuming and unprecedented in the history of the FBI FOIA Program. Id. at 204. (The agency's brief below estimated that such a manual search would require thousands of work hours to complete. Id. at 192.) Mr. Hardy also described interim search efforts that the FBI had conducted in an attempt to comply with the order. He said that the FBI had manually searched two of the three files named in the order, which contained about 4,100 pages. And with respect to the 174A-OC56120 file, the agency had performed an electronic search. He described that search as a text search of the ZyIndex which is not a shared drive, but rather is an automated system component which has been used by the OKBOMB Task Force. ZyIndex is an off-the[-]shelf software application that indexes words and phrases to allow an electronic retrieval of documents. An initial text search conducted on the ZyIndex indicates that there are approximately 340 documents that are potentially responsive to plaintiff's request. It took two individuals two days to conduct this burdensome search of the index for the terms Elohim/Poverty; Elhoim/Poverty; OKBOMB/Poverty; BOMBROB/Poverty; McVeigh/Poverty; Guthrie/Poverty; Nichols/Poverty; Mahon/Poverty; Millar/Poverty; Brescia/Poverty; Langan/Poverty; and Strassmeir/Poverty. Id. at 205 (footnotes omitted). The 340 potentially responsive documents had not yet been reviewed by the agency to weed out duplicates and to determine whether the documents were responsive and not covered by FOIA exemptions. In addition, Mr. Hardy provided the context behind the FBI's teletype instructing its field offices not to upload into the ACS system any documents from the investigation into the death of Mr. Trentadue's brother. Such uploading, Mr. Hardy explained, would have made the text of these classified documents available electronically, thereby jeopardizing the security and privacy of FBI employees. (Apparently, some FBI employees were subjects of the investigation and others were witnesses.) The documents would still be retrievable through an electronic search of the FBI's computerized indices. The district court stayed its initial order pending further briefing. It added that [t]o the extent that [the FBI has] discovered documents that are responsive to Plaintiffs's FOIA requests (as interpreted by [the FBI]) and to which [the FBI does] not assert any FOIA exemption, [it] shall produce such documents as they become available. Id. at 239. On July 22, 2005, the FBI produced 17 documents and filed a Notice of Release of Documents to Plaintiff with the court. Id. at 240. Still unsatisfied, Mr. Trentadue filed a response to this notice on July 28, 2005. He claimed that the documents produced were improperly redacted and that the FBI could have produced more documents because (1) the documents produced referenced other responsive documents (e.g., enclosures with teletypes) that were not produced; (2) the oldest document produced was generated a week after the Oklahoma City Bombing, even though the FBI's undercover investigations had allegedly begun before the bombing; and (3) the FBI still had not yet performed searches using the terms Morris Dees or the initials SPLC. The FBI responded that its production of the 17 documents was not in bad faith. It maintained that it had not omitted documents that were referenced by the documents it had produced. Another declaration from David Hardy explained that [i]f a released document referred to or referenced another document, the referred to or referenced document was also released if it, too, was responsive to plaintiff's FOIA requests. . . . Id. Vol. 2 at 497. Likewise, [e]nclosures referred to by a released document were included in the July 21 release, if the enclosures were located in the FBI's search. There were two such enclosures. Id. at 498. Hardy noted that follow-up searches were sometimes necessary to locate these enclosures, because [a]s a general matter, in the filing process, enclosures often become separated from their cover documents. Id. Two enclosures were not located. One was a floppy disk; Hardy stated that [f]loppy disk enclosures are destroyed in the ordinary course. Id. The other was a newspaper article, although the article was identified [in the released document] with sufficient specificity for [Mr. Trentadue] to obtain the document from public sources, should he so desire. Id. In an order issued on March 30, 2006, the district court declined to reconsider its earlier finding that the FBI's initial search had not been reasonably calculated to uncover responsive documents. The court did, however, agree with the FBI that it need not produce the BOMBROB-Funding Memorandum, whose failure to mention either Dees or the SPLC made it nonresponsive to Mr. Trentadue's initial FOIA requests. And it agreed with almost all the FBI's redactions. Most relevant to this appeal, it relieved [the FBI] of conducting a manual search of the OKBOMB file. . . . Id. Vol. 3 at 902. Instead, the court ordered the FBI to conduct searches like those already conducted but using the names Morris Dees (overruling the FBI's privacy contention) and SPLC (the FBI had employed the search term poverty in its ZyIndex to cull documents mentioning the Southern Poverty Law Center). The court noted: [I]t is so troubling that . . . the disclosed documents also refer to other attachments that at one time appear to have accompanied the document, yet these documents have not been produced. While the FBI's failure to discover documents is not necessarily an indication of bad faith, it is puzzling that so many documents could be referenced but not produced. But given the nature of Plaintiff's initial FOIA request and the searches that have been conducted by the FBI thus far, the court declines to order further searches beyond what the court has ordered above. It appears likely, however, that the FBI has not seen the last FOIA request from Plaintiff. Id. at 901. After further searching, the FBI produced one additional document.
In February 2007, eight months after the FBI's production of the additional document, Mr. Trentadue filed the motion that generated this appeal. The motion seeks authorization to take videotaped depositions of Terry Nichols, who was convicted for his role in the Oklahoma City Bombing, and David Paul Hammer, a death-row inmate who claimed to have discussed the bombing in detail with Timothy McVeigh while the latter was on death row. In the motion Mr. Trentadue reiterated his allegation that the FBI's production of documents had been in bad faith because other responsive documentsespecially ones created before the bombinghad to be in FBI files. The depositions of Nichols and Hammer, he asserted, would set forth facts establishing a link between Elohim City and the Murrah Building bombing, thereby establishing FBI Defendants' apparent complicity in that crime through informants, id. Vol. 4 at 988, and would provide evidence of FBI Defendants' bad faith response to Plaintiff's FOIA requests, id. at 1008. To support his motion, Mr. Trentadue submitted declarations by Hammer and Nichols, both of whom gave accounts of alleged involvement of government informants in the bombing. The FBI opposed the motion, arguing: (1) the district court lacked jurisdiction to grant discovery because the district court had already resolved all issues in the case and had no authority under FOIA to order discovery designed only to further a private investigation into terrorism; and (2) Mr. Trentadue had provided no grounds for reopening the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) and had presented no evidence to support a suspicion that Defendants had inadequately responded to his FOIA request. Stating that it had never closed the case, the district court granted Mr. Trentadue's discovery request. With respect to the merits of the discovery request, the court cited its earlier order stating that [u]pon motion, the court will allow Plaintiff to conduct discovery should the FBI fail to produce documents and/or records responsive to [his] FOIA requests. Id. at 1155 (internal quotation marks omitted; first brackets in original). The court then explained: In light of (1) the court's previous finding that the FBI's original search was not reasonably calculated to locate responsive documents; (2) the troubling absence of documents to which other documents referred; and (3) the information that Plaintiff has thus far discovered from Terry Lynn Nichols and David Paul Hammer, the court is persuaded that it continues to maintain jurisdiction over this action, and, furthermore, that by allowing the requested depositions, Plaintiff may be better able to identify the existence of other records responsive to his FOIA request that have not yet been produced. Id. The FBI filed a motion for reconsideration. It reiterated its earlier arguments, but also stressed that discovery in a FOIA action should be limited to the scope of the agency's search for responsive documents and its indexing and classification procedures, not expanded into a fishing expedition into the investigatory action taken by the agency. . . . Id. at 1161. Because Nichols and Hammer lacked any knowledge of the FBI's search for records, the FBI argued, deposing them would be tantamount to conduct[ing] discovery into the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, an unprecedented move given that neither Mr. Trentadue, nor the court, cited any authority allowing for depositions of nonagency personnel. Id. The FBI also argued, alternatively, that the court should prohibit video recording of the depositions out of concern for prison security. The district court denied Defendants' motion except that it ordered that the video show only the deponents and placed other restrictions on the use of video-recording equipment. The court closed the case, but added that [i]f Plaintiff is correct and through these depositions he discovers the existence of records responsive to Plaintiff's FOIA request, he may file a motion to reopen the case. Id. at 1313.