Opinion ID: 186469
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exemption 5 and the Deliberative Process Privilege

Text: 9 The FOIA requires an agency to make agency records available upon request unless it can show they come within one of the nine exemptions in the Act, see 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3), (b); Kowalczyk v. Dep't of Justice, 73 F.3d 386, 388 (D.C.Cir. 1996), which, in furtherance of the Congress's goal of open government, have been consistently given a narrow compass. Dep't of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 151, 109 S.Ct. 2841, 106 L.Ed.2d 112 (1989). The only Exemption at issue here is No. 5, which authorizes the non-disclosure of inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than another agency in litigation with the agency. That means the Government may withhold a document if: (1) its source [is] a Government agency, and (2) it [falls] within the ambit of a privilege against discovery under judicial standards that would govern litigation against the agency that holds it. Dep't of the Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Ass'n, 532 U.S. 1, 8, 121 S.Ct. 1060, 149 L.Ed.2d 87 (2001). 10 One of the privileges incorporated into Exemption 5 is the common-law privilege regarding the government's deliberative process. Bureau of Nat'l Affairs v. Dep't of Justice, 742 F.2d 1484, 1496 (D.C.Cir.1984). Its inclusion in the statute reflect[s] the legislative judgment that the quality of administrative decision-making would be seriously undermined if agencies were forced to `operate in a fishbowl' because the full and frank exchange of ideas on legal or policy matters would be impossible. Tax Analysts v. IRS, 117 F.3d 607, 617 (D.C.Cir.1997). To come within the purpose of the privilege, therefore, a document must be both pre-decisional and deliberative, see In re Sealed Case, 121 F.3d 729, 737 (D.C.Cir.1997); and, by the terms of Exemption 5, it must also be an inter-agency or an intra-agency record. See Klamath Water Users, 532 U.S. at 9, 121 S.Ct. 1060. 11 In this case the Government argues Exemption 5 and the deliberative process privilege authorize the agencies to withhold documents that would reveal the decision-making processes of the NEPDG. The district court rejected that argument, reasoning that because the NEPDG is not itself an agency within the meaning of the FOIA, see 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(I), Exemption 5 does not protect its deliberations from disclosure. In the district court's view, then, the privilege would apply if the NEPDG were informing the agencies' decision-making processes, but not if the agencies were informing the decision-making processes of the NEPDG, as was in fact the case. See 310 F.Supp.2d at 314-16. 12 We agree the NEPDG is not itself an agency subject to the FOIA because its sole function is to advise and assist the President. See Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d 1288, 1292 (D.C.Cir.1993). The district court erred, however, in thinking that Exemption 5 therefore does not protect the deliberations of the NEPDG. Neither Exemption 5 nor the cases interpreting it distinguish between the decision-making activities of an agency subject to the FOIA and those of the President and his staff, who are not subject to the FOIA. On the contrary, both the Supreme Court and this circuit have expressly refused to draw that distinction. 13 In EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 85, 93 S.Ct. 827, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973), the Supreme Court deemed it beyond question that documents prepared by agency officials to advise the President were within the coverage of Exemption 5 because they were `intra-agency' or `inter-agency' memoranda or `letters' that were used in the decisionmaking processes of the Executive Branch. Similarly, in Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067, 1078 (1971), we held that Exemption 5 shields the decisional processes of the President [and] other executive officers with policy-making functions. And in Bureau of National Affairs, 742 F.2d at 1496-97, we held the Office of Management and Budget may properly withhold as predecisional, deliberative interagency memoranda exempt from disclosure under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5) the EPA's budget recommendations, which the EPA submitted to the OMB and which the OMB then used to make its own recommendations to the President, because the President, not the EPA, makes the final decision concerning what budget requests should be submitted to the Congress. 14 The Executive Branch officials who play important roles in the formulation of policy are not necessarily employed by an agency within the meaning of the FOIA; an employee in a unit of the Executive Office of the President engaged solely in advising the President is an obvious example. See, e.g., Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 157, 100 S.Ct. 960, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980) (the President's immediate staff or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the President are not included within the term `agency' under the FOIA); Rushforth v. Council of Economic Advisors, 762 F.2d 1038, 1043 (D.C.Cir.1985) (CEA not an agency under FOIA); Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d at 1289 (Task Force on Regulatory Relief, headed by then-Vice President Bush and composed of cabinet members, not an agency for purposes of FOIA). We are aware of no reason to believe—indeed, we think it inconceivable—the Congress intended Exemption 5 to protect the decision-making processes of the Executive Branch when the decision is to be made by agency officials subject to oversight by the President and not when the decision is to be made by the President himself and those same agency officials are acting in aid of his decision-making processes. As we explained almost 25 years ago in Sierra Club v. Costle, 657 F.2d 298 (1981), the unitary structure of the Executive Branch is one of its essential features: 15 The court recognizes the basic need of the President and his White House staff to monitor the consistency of executive agency regulations with Administration policy. He and his White House advisors surely must be briefed fully and frequently about rules in the making, and their contributions to policymaking considered. The executive power under our Constitution, after all, is not shared—it rests exclusively with the President. The idea of a plural executive, or a President with a council of state, was considered and rejected by the Constitutional Convention. Instead the Founders chose to risk the potential for tyranny inherent in placing power in one person, in order to gain the advantages of accountability fixed on a single source. 16 Id. at 405. See Christopher S. Yoo, Steven G. Calabresi, & Anthony J. Colangelo, The Unitary Executive in the Modern Era, 1945-2004, 90 IOWA L. REV. 601, 730 (2005) (concluding every President [during period studied] defended the unitariness of the executive branch). 17 Our interpretation of Exemption 5 is not inconsistent with its textual limitation to intra-agency or inter-agency communications, as the plaintiffs suggest. Rather, it follows from the principle, well established in this circuit, that a document need not be created by an agency or remain in the possession of the agency in order to qualify as intra-agency. Consider, for instance, Ryan v. Department of Justice, 617 F.2d 781 (1980): 18 When an agency record is submitted by outside consultants as part of the deliberative process, and it was solicited by the agency, we find it entirely reasonable to deem the resulting document to be an `intra-agency' memorandum for purposes of determining the applicability of Exemption 5. 19 Id. at 790. Not to treat in the same way documents shared with or received from the NEPDG, a body established by the President solely to advise him, and composed entirely of federal officials, see In re Cheney, 406 F.3d 723 (D.C.Cir.2005), would be anomalous indeed. 20 That the President, rather than an agency, initiated the policy development process is of no moment; what matters is whether a document will expose the pre-decisional and deliberative processes of the Executive Branch. The district court, which did not evaluate the disputed documents in those terms, should do so upon remand, bearing in mind that the deliberative process privilege does not protect purely factual material contained in privileged documents if the disclosure of such information would not reveal the nature of the deliberations. See EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. at 87-88, 93 S.Ct. 827, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973). 21