Court Opinion

ID: 9556735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-18 15:01:24.469846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:01:11.836779
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
         FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 11, 2022             Decided August 18, 2023

                        No. 21-5108

            WATKINS LAW & ADVOCACY, PLLC,
                      APPELLANT

                             v.

      UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ET AL.,
                      APPELLEES

        Appeal from the United States District Court
                for the District of Columbia
                    (No. 1:17-cv-01974)

    Seth A. Watkins argued the cause and filed the briefs for
appellant.

    Jeremy S. Simon, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the
cause for appellees. With him on the brief were R. Craig
Lawrence and Jane M. Lyons, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

    Before: SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge, MILLETT, Circuit
Judge, and TATEL, Senior Circuit Judge.

    Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SRINIVASAN.
                               2
     SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge: Appellant Watkins Law &
Advocacy, PLLC submitted requests under the Freedom of
Information Act to various federal agencies including the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and
the Department of Veterans Affairs. Watkins sought records
concerning the process by which the names of certain veterans
and other VA beneficiaries are added to a background check
system that identifies persons barred from possessing firearms
for having been adjudicated as “mental defective[s].” 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(4).

     Dissatisfied with the agencies’ responses, Watkins
initiated this FOIA action in the district court. The district
court granted summary judgment to the agencies on almost all
claims (and to Watkins on the remaining claims, none of which
are at issue here). Watkins appeals the district court’s grant of
summary judgment to the FBI and DOJ on the adequacy of
their searches and to the VA on its withholding of documents
based on the deliberative-process and attorney-client
privileges.

     We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment
in favor of the FBI and DOJ. But we vacate the district court’s
grant of summary judgment to the VA and remand for further
proceedings. The VA did not satisfy its burden to show that
the withheld documents are exempt from disclosure.

                               I.

     Watkins is a D.C.-based law firm that represents a number
of veterans. It frequently assists individuals entitled to VA
benefits—i.e., veterans and other beneficiaries—whom the
National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)
indicates have been “adjudicated as [] mental defective[s].” 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(4); see Nat’l Rifle Ass’n of Am., Inc. v. Reno,
                               3
216 F.3d 122, 125 (D.C. Cir. 2000). Such individuals cannot
possess firearms or ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4).

     A veteran or other beneficiary whom the VA determines
“lacks the mental capacity to contract or to manage his or her
own affairs, including disbursement of funds without
limitation,” 38 C.F.R. § 3.353(a), is considered “adjudicated as
a mental defective” for purposes of the NICS, 27 C.F.R.
§ 478.11; see 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). Tens of thousands of
veterans and other VA beneficiaries are added to the NICS each
year as having been “adjudicated as [] mental defective[s]”
based on the VA’s determinations.

     Pursuant to the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of
2007, federal agencies with records of individuals who have
been “adjudicated as [] mental defective[s]” must report the
information in their records to the Attorney General upon
request and at least quarterly. 34 U.S.C. § 40901(e)(1)(A)–(C).
Agencies must also notify the Attorney General of any updates.
Id. § 40901(e)(1)(D). The Attorney General, in turn, must
submit an annual report to Congress describing each agency’s
compliance with the reporting and notification requirements.
Id. § 40901(e)(1)(E).

                              A.

     Seeking records concerning how the VA provides
information about veterans and other VA beneficiaries to the
Attorney General for purposes of the NICS, Watkins submitted
FOIA requests to the FBI, DOJ, VA, and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms. This appeal concerns only the requests
to the FBI, DOJ, and VA.

    Watkins’s requests to the FBI and DOJ sought three
categories of records: (i) memorandums of understanding
                                4
between the VA and DOJ or the FBI “concerning or relating to
submission by the VA to the DOJ/FBI of information on
persons to be prohibited from purchasing a firearm”;
(ii) records setting out “the providing of information . . . by the
VA to the DOJ/FBI for inclusion in the [NICS]”; and (iii) “all
communications made by or on behalf of the United States
Attorney General (‘OAG’) to the VA requesting or requiring
that the VA submit to DOJ/FBI information on persons to be
prohibited from purchasing a firearm,” and responses from the
VA. Email from Seth A. Watkins to FBI FOIA Requests (Oct.
21, 2015), J.A. 94–95; see also Submission from Seth A.
Watkins to DOJ FOIA Requests (Oct. 21, 2015), J.A. 75; Email
from Seth Watkins to Seth Watkins (Oct. 21, 2015), J.A. 77–
78 (memorializing FOIA request to DOJ).

     Watkins sought from the VA two related categories of
records: (i) records “which set out or reflect the VA’s
approved agency decision-making procedures” in effect at any
time since 2013 “concerning whether the name of a veteran is
to be reported, identified, or otherwise referred for inclusion in
the Mental Defective File” of the NICS; and (ii) records
“indicating the total number of names of veterans reported,
identified, or otherwise referred by the VA each year (or month
or quarter) for inclusion in the Mental Defective File” of the
NICS since 2010. Email from Seth A. Watkins to OGC FOIA
Requests (Oct. 14, 2015), J.A. 47–48 (emphasis omitted).

    Watkins included in each of its FOIA requests language
asking that, if the receiving component “does not have custody
or control over certain requested and responsive records but
knows or believes that another component of [the agency]
subject to FOIA does, please forward this FOIA Request to the
appropriate person and inform us that you have done so.”
Email from Seth A. Watkins to FBI FOIA Requests (Oct. 21,
2015), J.A. 95; Email from Seth Watkins to Seth Watkins (Oct.
                              5
21, 2015), J.A. 78; Email from Seth A. Watkins to OGC FOIA
Requests (Oct. 14, 2015), J.A. 47–48.

      In response, the FBI informed Watkins that its search
located responsive records that had previously been processed
for another FOIA request, but it was withholding the records in
their entirety. DOJ advised Watkins that it had not located any
responsive records. The VA did not respond. Dissatisfied with
the FBI’s withholdings and the DOJ’s failure to unearth
responsive records, and seeking to compel the VA to respond
to its request, Watkins then filed this lawsuit.

                              B.

     Following Watkins’s filing of the complaint, the FBI
conducted another search and determined that the pages it
initially deemed responsive were not in fact responsive. DOJ
released with excisions nineteen pages of material that the VA
had referred to it for processing. And the VA released several
hundreds of pages of documents, including a 1998
Memorandum of Understanding between the VA and the FBI,
but also withheld hundreds of responsive documents.

    On cross-motions for summary judgment, Watkins
challenged the adequacy of the FBI’s and DOJ’s searches, and
the agencies contended that their searches were reasonably
calculated to uncover responsive documents. Each agency
submitted a supporting declaration: the FBI submitted a
declaration by David M. Hardy, the Section Chief of the
Record/Information Dissemination Section of the Information
Management Division, and DOJ submitted a declaration by
Vanessa R. Brinkmann, Senior Counsel in the Office of
Information Policy.
                              6
     In asserting that the agencies’ searches were inadequate,
Watkins highlighted additional search term combinations that
it believed the agencies should have used. Watkins also
observed that the FBI failed to locate the 1998 Memorandum
of Understanding between the VA and the FBI that the VA had
released. The FBI then conducted another search using most
of Watkins’s proposed search term combinations and
submitted a second declaration describing the search.

     Watkins also challenged the VA’s withholdings. (Watkins
challenged DOJ’s withholdings as well, but the propriety of
those withholdings is not before us in this appeal.) The VA
justified its withholdings based on both the deliberative-
process and attorney-client privileges. In support, the VA
submitted a Vaughn index and a declaration by Tracy Knight,
a Government Information Specialist in the VA Office of
General Counsel’s Information Law Group. Watkins asserted
that the VA had failed to meet its burden to show that the
documents were exempt from disclosure and that segregable
information had been disclosed.

     The district court granted summary judgment to the FBI
and the VA. Watkins L. & Advoc., PLLC v. U.S. Dep’t of
Veterans Affs., 412 F. Supp. 3d 98, 122–23 (D.D.C. 2019). But
the court denied summary judgment as to DOJ. Id. at 123.
Finding that DOJ’s “search terms [were] deficient because they
exclude[d] obvious topics such as mental health, which goes to
[the] very heart of plaintiff’s FOIA request, and commonly
used abbreviations,” the court remanded. Id. at 120–21, 123.

                             C.

     On remand, DOJ conducted a supplemental search using
Watkins’s suggested search term combinations. That search
located additional responsive documents, including two annual
                              7
reports from the Attorney General to Congress pursuant to the
NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007. DOJ released
the newly located documents, but with excisions based on
FOIA exemptions and redactions of “non-responsive” sections.

     On renewed cross-motions for summary judgment, DOJ
submitted a second declaration attesting that the supplemental
search rectified the deficiency in DOJ’s initial search and
justifying DOJ’s withholdings. 2d Brinkmann Decl. ¶¶ 8–15,
J.A. 756–61. The Declaration also explained that DOJ
searched records of the Office of the Attorney General, not
other DOJ components, because Watkins’s FOIA request
sought records specifically of that Office. Id. ¶ 13, J.A. 759–
60. Watkins asserted that DOJ should have located certain
other documents, even if that meant broadening the locations
searched, and should have used a more recent cut-off date for
its supplemental search. Watkins also challenged DOJ’s
withholdings.

     The district court granted summary judgment in part to
DOJ. Watkins L. & Advoc., PLLC v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans
Affs., No. 17-1974, 2021 WL 1026173 (D.D.C. Mar. 17, 2021).
The court concluded that DOJ’s supplemental search was
adequate and its withholdings were appropriate, id. at *4–5,
*7–9, but the court ordered DOJ to produce in full the
documents containing sections that had been redacted as “non-
responsive,” id. at *6–7.

                              II.

    Watkins appeals the grant of summary judgment to the FBI
and DOJ on the adequacy of their searches and to the VA on its
withholdings. Our review is de novo. Reps. Comm. for
Freedom of the Press v. FBI, 3 F.4th 350, 361 (D.C. Cir. 2021)
(RCFP II).
                                8

                               A.

     We first address Watkins’s challenges to the grant of
summary judgment in favor of the FBI and DOJ on the
adequacy of their searches for responsive documents. “In order
to obtain summary judgment the agency must show that it made
a good faith effort to conduct a search for the requested records,
using methods which can be reasonably expected to produce
the information requested.” Oglesby v. U.S. Dep’t of Army,
920 F.2d 57, 68 (D.C. Cir. 1990). An agency need not “search
every record system” or “demonstrate that all responsive
documents were found and that no other relevant documents
could possibly exist.” Id. at 68 (citation omitted). Rather, “[a]n
agency fulfills its obligations under FOIA if it can demonstrate
beyond material doubt that its search was reasonably calculated
to uncover all relevant documents.” Valencia-Lucena v. U.S.
Coast Guard, 180 F.3d 321, 325 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (quotation
marks and citation omitted).

                                1.

     We begin by addressing the adequacy of the FBI’s search.
The FBI initially took three steps. First, it searched its Central
Records System, which contains information that the FBI
gathers “in the course of fulfilling its integrated missions and
functions as a law enforcement, counterterrorism, and
intelligence agency.” 1st Hardy Decl. ¶ 23, J.A. 319. The FBI
thought it unlikely that a search of the Central Records System
would identify responsive documents because Watkins sought
documents not specifically tied to an FBI investigation, but the
FBI nonetheless conducted the search “in an abundance of
caution.” Id. ¶¶ 31–32, J.A. 323. Second, the FBI searched the
Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts Document Processing
System to “locate any records on the same topic that had
                               9
already been processed and released.” Id. ¶ 30, J.A. 323.
Third, the FBI asked the division in which the NICS is located
to conduct its own search. Id. ¶¶ 22, 37, J.A. 318–19, 324.

     That process yielded fifty-nine pages of responsive
documents that had previously been processed for another
FOIA request. Id. ¶ 12, J.A. 315. The FBI informed Watkins
that it was withholding those documents in their entirety.
Letter from David M. Hardy, Section Chief, Record/Info.
Dissemination Section, Records Mgmt. Div., FBI, to Seth
Watkins (Nov. 5, 2015), J.A. 97. Shortly thereafter, the FBI
advised Watkins that it had reviewed another twelve pages of
materials and was consulting with another government agency
(the VA) regarding their release. Letter from David M. Hardy,
Section Chief, Record/Info. Dissemination Section, Records
Mgmt. Div., FBI, to Seth Watkins (Jan. 20, 2016), J.A. 341.
After consulting with the VA, the FBI released those twelve
pages, which included a 2012 Memorandum of Understanding
between the FBI and the VA indicating that the VA transmitted
names to the FBI for inclusion in the NICS at least quarterly
using encrypted compact discs. Letter from David M. Hardy,
Section Chief, Record/Info. Dissemination Section, Records
Mgmt. Div., FBI, to Seth Watkins (June 23, 2016), J.A. 344;
see generally 1st Hardy Decl. ¶¶ 8–10, J.A. 314–15.

     After Watkins filed its complaint, the FBI again contacted
the division in which the NICS is located to “verify the results
of their original search.” 1st Hardy Decl. ¶ 38, J.A. 325. The
FBI also contacted the author of the 2012 Memorandum of
Understanding and the FBI employee who received the
compact discs from the VA, neither of whom was aware of an
alternative system in which responsive documents would be
stored. Id. ¶¶ 38–39, J.A. 325. And the FBI reexamined the
fifty-nine pages it initially deemed responsive to Watkins’s
                              10
request and determined that they were not in fact responsive.
Id. ¶ 41, J.A. 326.

     During summary judgment briefing, the FBI conducted a
final supplemental search. The FBI declarations explain that
because Watkins “posit[ed] the FBI should have included in its
searches several additional term combinations,” the FBI again
searched the automated indexes in the Sentinel and Automated
Case Support systems (which had been used to search the
Central Records System) using most of the search term
combinations Watkins suggested. 2d Hardy Decl. ¶ 8 & n.1,
J.A. 586–87.       The FBI also observed that the 1998
Memorandum of Understanding between the VA and the FBI
released by the VA, which Watkins had attached to its
opposition to summary judgment, contained two FBI file
numbers that did not come up in the FBI’s original search. Id.
¶ 9, J.A. 587. The FBI “determined it needed to supplement its
original search by searching through these files,” which yielded
additional responsive documents. Id. The FBI released some
documents in full and others in part with portions withheld
under various exemptions. Id. ¶ 10, J.A. 587.

     We conclude that the FBI’s search was adequate. The FBI
declarations “describe[] with particularity the files that were
searched, the manner in which they were searched, and the
results of the search,” Steinberg v. DOJ, 23 F.3d 548, 552 (D.C.
Cir. 1994), and show that the agency made “a good faith effort
to conduct a search for the requested records, using methods
which can be reasonably expected to produce the information
requested,” In re Clinton, 970 F.3d 357, 367 (D.C. Cir. 2020)
(citation omitted).

    Watkins asserts that the FBI’s search was inadequate
because it turned up only a single record from 2010 through
2017, despite evidence that the VA had identified to the FBI a
                              11
substantial number of veterans and other VA beneficiaries to
be added to the NICS during that timeframe. The “adequacy
of a FOIA search,” however, “is generally determined not by
the fruits of the search, but the appropriateness of the methods
used to carry out the search.” Ancient Coin Collectors Guild v.
U.S Dep’t of State, 641 F.3d 504, 514 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (citation
omitted). And “belated disclosure of even responsive
documents,” such as those located following the FBI’s
supplemental search of the two FBI file numbers, “does not
necessarily undermine the adequacy of an agency’s search.” In
re Clinton, 970 F.3d at 367 (emphasis omitted). The FBI’s
original and supplemental search efforts, taken together, were
reasonable. See Hodge v. FBI, 703 F.3d 575, 580 (D.C. Cir.
2013) (“[B]y the time a court considers the matter, it does not
matter that an agency’s initial search failed to uncover certain
responsive documents so long as subsequent searches captured
them.” (emphasis omitted)).

      Watkins next seeks to demonstrate the inadequacy of the
FBI’s search by pointing to the FBI’s acknowledgment that it
did not anticipate finding responsive documents in the Central
Records System. But we do not fault the FBI for searching a
record system in which records were unlikely to be found when
it also conducted additional searches that were “more likely to
elicit responsive records.” 2d Hardy Decl. ¶ 7, J.A. 586.

     Finally, Watkins contends that the FBI should have used
the search terms “Veterans Health Administration,” “VHA,”
“Veterans Benefits Administration,” and “VBA,” which
Watkins had included in its list of “obvious” search term
combinations in briefing before the district court. The FBI,
however, crafted searches reasonably tailored to locate
responsive documents, and indeed used most of Watkins’s
suggested terms.
                              12
     In all, the FBI searched the following terms in the Central
Records System: “Veterans Affairs Gun,” “VA Gun,”
“Veterans Affairs,” “VA,” “National Instant Criminal
Background Check Veterans Affairs,” “National Instant
Criminal Background Check VA,” “NICS Veterans Affairs,”
“NICS VA,” “mental defective,” “mental defectives,” “Brady
Act,” “firearm VA,” “firearm Veterans Affairs,” “firearm
veteran,” “firearm veterans,” “firearms VA,” “firearms
Veterans Affairs,” “firearms veteran,” “firearms veterans,”
“handgun VA,” “handgun Veterans Affairs,” “handgun
veteran,” “handgun veterans,” “handguns VA,” “handguns
Veterans Affairs,” “handguns veteran,” “handguns veterans,”
“NICS Veteran,” and “NICS Veterans.” 1st Hardy Decl. ¶ 40,
J.A. 325–26; 2d Hardy Decl. ¶ 8, J.A. 586–87.

    The FBI’s failure to use four more search term
combinations to which Watkins pointed—“Veterans Health
Administration,” “VHA,” “Veterans Benefits Administration,”
and “VBA”—does not render the agency’s search
unreasonable, especially because nothing in Watkins’s FOIA
request indicated that those terms were essential. Indeed,
Watkins still provides no basis for its claim that “Veterans
Health Administration” or “VHA” are even relevant search
terms with regard to the records being sought. What is more,
the question before us “is not whether there might exist any
other documents possibly responsive to the request, but rather
whether the search for those documents was adequate.”
Weisberg v. DOJ, 745 F.2d 1476, 1485 (D.C. Cir. 1984). We
conclude that the FBI’s search satisfied that standard.

                               2.

    We next consider the adequacy of DOJ’s search. DOJ “has
a decentralized system for responding to FOIA requests, with
each component designating a FOIA office to process records
                               13
from that component.” 28 C.F.R. § 16.3(a)(1). To promote the
agency’s ability to respond to requests in an efficient manner,
DOJ’s regulations instruct requesters to “write directly to the
FOIA office of the component that maintains the records being
sought.” Id. And the regulations refer to DOJ’s FOIA
Reference Guide, which “contains descriptions of the functions
of each component and provides other information that is
helpful in determining where to make a request.” Id. The
regulations and the FOIA Reference Guide state that requesters
may also send requests to a Mail Referral Unit, which “will
forward the request to the component(s) that it determines to
be most likely to maintain the records that are sought.” Id.
§ 16.3(a)(2); see DOJ FOIA Reference Guide, U.S. Dep’t of
Just. (last updated Dec. 22, 2022), https://www.justice.gov/oip
/department-justice-freedom-information-act-reference-guide
[https://perma.cc/7L27-XTN6].

     Watkins submitted its FOIA request to the attention of the
Office of the Attorney General. DOJ’s Office of Information
Policy, which processes records from the Office of the
Attorney General among other components, sent Watkins a
letter acknowledging receipt “on behalf of the Office of the
Attorney General.” Letter from Debra Moore, Gov’t Info.
Specialist, Off. of Info. Pol’y, to Seth Watkins (Nov. 20, 2015),
J.A. 245–47. The letter stated that, because “[t]he records you
seek require a search in another Office,” DOJ “need[s] to
extend the time limit to respond to your request beyond the ten
additional days provided by the statute.” Id. at 245. The letter
also encouraged Watkins to direct a request to the VA
“[b]ecause [Watkins] mention[ed] the VA” in its request, and
informed Watkins that the Office of Information Policy had
forwarded Watkins’s request to the FBI. Id. at 246.

    As the DOJ declarations explain, the Office of Information
Policy then conducted a search of the Departmental Executive
                                14
Secretariat, the Office of the Attorney General’s repository of
all unclassified correspondence sent to or from the Office of
the Attorney General, where the Office of Information Policy
determined any potentially responsive documents would be
located. 1st Brinkmann Decl. ¶¶ 12–15, J.A. 237–39. It also
searched records of departed DOJ employees, and it contacted
the FBI to determine if the FBI had any records of the Office
of the Attorney General’s participation in communications
with the VA concerning the NICS. Id. ¶ 16 & n.5, J.A. 239–
40. That process yielded no responsive records—only a control
sheet related to a potentially responsive document that was no
longer in DOJ custody.

     After the district court’s remand, the Office of Information
Policy conducted a supplemental search of the Departmental
Executive Secretariat using Watkins’s suggested search term
combinations and the same date parameters it used in the initial
search. 2d Brinkmann Decl. ¶¶ 5, 10, J.A. 755, 757–58. That
search located responsive documents, including two annual
reports from the Attorney General to Congress pursuant to the
NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007. DOJ released
those documents with certain excisions and redactions. Letter
from Timothy Ziese, Senior Supervisory Att’y for Vanessa R.
Brinkmann, DOJ, to Seth A. Watkins (Jan. 31, 2020), J.A. 772–
73. The Office then ran “an additional, targeted search for
additional, similar reports [to the reports to Congress] in the
same locations utilized for its prior searches . . . , without time
restriction, using a search term combination made up of terms
appearing in the titles of the reports located by [the Office of
Information Policy in its initial search]: ‘Report to Congress’
AND ‘NICS,’” but it located no additional reports. 2d
Brinkmann Decl. ¶ 14, J.A. 760. DOJ did not search records
of any other DOJ components besides the Office of the
Attorney General. See id. ¶ 9, J.A. 757.
                                15
      Watkins argues that DOJ’s search was inadequate because
it failed to turn up certain documents, including several years
of the annual reports sent from the Attorney General to
Congress pursuant to the NICS Improvement Amendments Act
of 2007. We have established that an “agency’s failure to turn
up a particular document, or mere speculation that as yet
uncovered documents might exist, does not undermine the
determination that the agency conducted an adequate search for
the requested records.” Wilbur v. CIA, 355 F.3d 675, 678 (D.C.
Cir. 2004).

    Watkins’s belief that more reports to Congress exist than
were located, however, is not “mere speculation.” Id. Rather,
since Congress enacted the NICS Improvement Amendments
Act of 2007, the Attorney General has been required by law to
“submit an annual report to Congress that describes the
compliance of each department or agency” with the NICS
requirements. 34 U.S.C. § 40901(e)(1)(E). And one of the
documents that DOJ released indicates that the sixth annual
report was transmitted in 2015, suggesting that annual reports
have been submitted to Congress since 2010. See Letter from
Peter J. Kadzik, Assistant Att’y Gen., to Paul D. Ryan,
Speaker, U.S. House of Reps. (Nov. 30, 2015), J.A. 849. Yet
only two were located in response to Watkins’s FOIA request.

     DOJ attributes the failure of its searches to unearth the rest
of the annual reports to the scope of Watkins’s request. DOJ’s
declarations explain that Watkins’s request sought records
specifically of the Office of the Attorney General, but the
reports were transmitted to Congress by a different DOJ
component, the Office of Legislative Affairs. Watkins
suggests that DOJ should have expanded the scope of its search
beyond the Office of the Attorney General to the Office of
Legislative Affairs to uncover the rest of the annual reports.
Watkins asks, “If OAG delegated responsibility to the Office
                              16
of Legislative Affairs with respect to the reports mandated by
the Act, how is a FOIA requester to know that?” Watkins
Opening Br. 41.

     An agency of course “cannot impose requirements on
requesters that take on the character of a shell game, imposing
unwarranted burdens on requesters without apparent
justification.” Clemente v. FBI, 867 F.3d 111, 119 (D.C. Cir.
2017). And entirely apart from the recovery of records through
a FOIA request and search, it is far from clear why reports
required by law to be annually transmitted to Congress are not
publicly available as a matter of course. But as to the adequacy
of DOJ’s search, we cannot conclude that it was unreasonable
in the circumstances of this request to search only records of
the Office of the Attorney General.

     As noted, DOJ’s FOIA regulations instruct that, in light of
DOJ’s “decentralized system for responding to FOIA
requests,” a requester “should write directly to the FOIA office
of the component that maintains the records being sought.” 28
C.F.R. § 16.3(a)(1). The regulations further provide that, if a
requester is uncertain about which component has the records
she seeks, she may send her request to a Mail Referral Unit,
which will forward the request to the component(s) it
determines to be most likely to maintain responsive documents.
See id. § 16.3(a)(2). And if a component that receives a FOIA
request determines that it was “misdirected” within DOJ, the
component will “route the request to the FOIA office of the
proper component(s).” Id. § 16.4(c). A requester also can
always send a request to more than one DOJ component.

     Watkins submitted the request at issue specifically to the
attention of one component: “Attn: Office of the Attorney
General (OAG).” Submission from Seth A. Watkins to DOJ
FOIA Requests (Oct. 21, 2015), J.A. 75. DOJ handled that
                              17
request in accordance with its FOIA regulations and guidance.
Upon receipt of the request, the Office of Information Policy—
processing the request for the Office of the Attorney General—
determined that the request was partially misdirected to the
extent that it sought FBI records (which the FBI would
maintain), and thus forwarded the request to the FBI. 1st
Brinkmann Decl. ¶ 11, J.A. 237; 2d Brinkmann Decl. ¶ 13, J.A.
759–60; see 28 C.F.R. § 16.4(c). (It is unclear from the record
whether the Office of Information Policy had reason to be
aware that Watkins itself had already submitted a request to the
FBI.) The Office found no basis for believing the request it
received had otherwise been misdirected. 2d Brinkmann Decl.
¶ 13, J.A. 759–60.

     Nor has Watkins identified any reason that the Office of
Information Policy should have concluded that Watkins’s
request had otherwise been misdirected—for instance, that
Watkins should have directed it to the Office of Legislative
Affairs instead of the Office of the Attorney General. The
request did not reference the Office of Legislative Affairs,
documents transmitted by that Office, or the specific annual
reports to Congress on which Watkins now focuses. Instead,
the request sought a broad category of records as to which the
Office of the Attorney General could (and did) have responsive
documents. Accordingly, the Office of Information Policy
searched that Office’s records. Given the phrasing of
Watkins’s FOIA request targeted to the Office of the Attorney
General and the absence of any basis for believing the request
had been misdirected, and in light of DOJ’s regulations
mandating that requests for DOJ components be sent directly
to the FOIA office of the component whose records are sought,
nothing in the circumstances of this case required that the
search extend beyond the Office of the Attorney General’s
records to encompass the records of another component.
                               18
     True, Watkins’s request—like its requests to other
agencies—included language stating that “[i]f DOJ’s OAG
does not have custody or control over certain requested and
responsive records but knows or believes that another
component of DOJ subject to FOIA does, please forward this
FOIA Request to the appropriate person and inform us that you
have done so.” Email from Seth Watkins to Seth Watkins (Oct.
21, 2015), J.A. 78. To the extent Watkins believes that
language required DOJ to expand the scope of its search to
include the Office of Legislative Affairs’s records, we disagree.

     At the time the Office of Information Policy received the
request directed to the Office of the Attorney General, as
explained, there was no reason to conclude that a search should
be conducted of the Office of Legislative Affairs’s records
instead of—or in addition to—the Office of the Attorney
General’s records. If Watkins instead means to suggest that
after the Office of Information Policy conducted its initial and
supplemental searches of the Office of the Attorney General’s
records, it should have examined every responsive document
resulting from the searches to ascertain whether any document
might suggest that another, separate component might also
possess responsive documents, and if so, should have
conducted or provided for a search of that other component as
well, that is incorrect. There was no requirement in the
circumstances of this case for the Office of Information Policy
to conduct that kind of document-by-document review of the
results of its searches of the Office of the Attorney General’s
records to assess whether any responsive document might
suggest that a search of another component could produce
additional responsive documents.

    First, DOJ did not understand Watkins’s “please forward”
language to ask for any such second-stage, document-by-
document examination of the results of the searches of records
                               19
of the Office to whom the request had been directed. Rather,
DOJ understood Watkins’s language to pertain to determining
at the outset which component’s records should be searched,
not determining later based on the results of that search whether
additional searches of other components might also produce
responsive documents. DOJ, that is, understood Watkins’s
language “to be consistent with its obligation” under its
regulations “to route misdirected FOIA requests—indeed, as
noted above, [the Office of Information Policy] did in fact route
[Watkins’s] request to the FBI.” 2d Brinkmann Decl. ¶ 13, J.A.
759–60. DOJ did not understand Watkins’s language to require
it “to reevaluate, in perpetuity”—i.e., even after determining
which Office should be searched and conducting searches of
that Office’s records—“its determination as to which office the
FOIA request was made.” Id., J.A. 760. Watkins does not
respond to DOJ’s understanding or suggest why DOJ’s
understanding was unreasonable.

     Second, and in any event, even if Watkins’s “please
forward” language had asked DOJ in sufficiently clear terms to
scrutinize the results of a search of the Office of the Attorney
General’s records to assess whether responsive documents
might be found in a subsequent search of another component
(and, if so, to conduct such a search), DOJ would not have been
obligated to do so. Watkins points to nothing in DOJ’s FOIA
regulations—or in FOIA itself—that requires that kind of
follow-on examination of responsive records to identify the
existence of potentially responsive records in another
component and to conduct an ensuing search of that other
component’s records. Nor does Watkins argue that the Office
of Information Policy was required to engage in that
examination and subsequent search because it happens to
process FOIA requests for both the Office of the Attorney
General and the Office of Legislative Affairs. Rather, Watkins
relies on the fact that “organizationally, the Office of
                                20
Legislative Affairs sits below [the Office of the Attorney
General].” Watkins Opening Br. 41. But there is no
requirement under DOJ’s regulations—or under FOIA itself—
that a FOIA office assess whether responsive documents might
be found in a subsequent search of any component that “sits
below” the component whose records were initially searched
or to conduct a subsequent search of that other component if
so. Id. And nothing in the statute (or in DOJ’s regulations)
enables a FOIA requester to impose that kind of obligation on
an agency by asking for it. Cf. Mobley v. CIA, 806 F.3d 568,
582 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (an approach that “would allow a
requester to dictate, through search instructions, the scope of
an agency’s search” would “undermine[]” “the reasonableness
test for search adequacy long adhered to in this circuit”).

     To be sure, our decisions have indicated that an agency in
certain circumstances must conduct an additional search of its
records based on the results of its initial search. That obligation
exists in the “rare case . . . in which an agency record contains
a lead so apparent”—i.e., “a lead that is both clear and
certain”—that the agency “cannot in good faith fail to pursue
it.” Kowalczyk v. DOJ, 73 F.3d 386, 389 (D.C. Cir. 1996); see
Campbell v. DOJ, 164 F.3d 20, 28–29 (D.C. Cir. 1998)
(holding that an agency could not decline to search beyond one
record system when records in that system themselves
indicated that there were undiscovered responsive records in
other record systems, because “[a]n agency has discretion to
conduct a standard search in response to a general request, but
it must revise its assessment of what is ‘reasonable’ in a
particular case to account for leads that emerge during its
inquiry”); see also, e.g., Reps. Comm. for Freedom of the Press
v. FBI, 877 F.3d 399, 406–07 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (RCFP I).

    Watkins, though, does not invoke those decisions (or the
understanding they establish) in connection with the adequacy
                               21
of DOJ’s search. Nor does Watkins suggest that the obligation
in certain circumstances to conduct an additional search based
on initial search results could apply when, as here: the agency
has adopted regulations specifically calling for FOIA requests
to be directed to the FOIA office of the particular component
whose records are sought; the requester accordingly submits its
request to the attention of a particular component that could
(and did) have responsive records; and the additional search
would be a search of another component. Cf. Clemente, 867
F.3d at 119 (distinguishing Campbell and noting that, in any
event, “the FOIA request in Campbell predated the agency’s
promulgation of the regulation requiring requests for records
held by [an FBI] field office to be directed to that office”). And
to the extent that Watkins might believe that the two reports to
Congress that the Office of Information Policy’s search
uncovered contained a “lead” that the Office was obligated to
pursue, Watkins does not explain how the lead was sufficiently
“clear and certain” to meet our decisions’ “exacting standard.”
RCFP I, 877 F.3d at 407 (quoting Kowalczyk, 73 F.3d at 389).
Nor does Watkins explain why the Office’s “additional,
targeted search for additional, similar reports” in the Office of
the Attorney General’s records, 2d Brinkmann Decl. ¶ 14, J.A.
760—where it had uncovered the two reports in the first
instance—did not satisfy any such obligation.

     Watkins asserts that the Office of Information Policy’s
letter acknowledging receipt of Watkins’s FOIA request itself
indicated a plan to forward the request to the Office of
Legislative Affairs. Watkins relies on the letter’s statement
that “[t]he records you seek require a search in another Office.”
Letter from Debra Moore, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Off. of Info.
Pol’y, to Seth Watkins (Nov. 20, 2015), J.A. 245. But Watkins
asks us to read too much into that sentence, which says nothing
about the Office of Legislative Affairs or about forwarding the
request to another component of DOJ. DOJ explains that, in
                               22
referring to the need to conduct a search in “another Office,”
the Office of Information Policy was pointing to the Office of
the Attorney General, not the Office of Legislative Affairs.

     Of course, Watkins can submit a FOIA request to the
Office of Legislative Affairs, as it could have done at any point
during the litigation—including when Watkins acknowledged
that the “the full set of reports at issue apparently are only
within the possession, custody, or control of DOJ’s [Office of
Legislative Affairs].” Pl.’s Reply in Support of Its Renewed
Cross-Mot. for Summ. J. at 6, Watkins L. & Advoc., PLLC v.
U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 412 F. Supp. 3d 98 (D.D.C. 2019)
(No. 1:17-cv-01974); see Kowalczyk, 73 F.3d at 389 (“[I]f the
requester discovers leads in the documents he receives from the
agency, he may pursue those leads through a second FOIA
request.”). But DOJ was not required to search that Office’s
records based on the FOIA request at issue here.

     Watkins last contends that DOJ’s search was inadequate
because, in its supplemental search, DOJ failed to use the date
of the supplemental search (January 2020) as the cut-off date
for responsive documents, and instead used the date of the
initial search (September 2017). But the choice of a cut-off
date need only be reasonable under the circumstances, and it
was reasonable for DOJ to use the date of its initial search as
the cut-off date. See Negley v. FBI, No. 11-5296, 2012 WL
1155734, at *1 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 28, 2012). The object of the
supplemental search was to expand the search terms beyond
those used in the initial search, and conducting the same search
again (including with the same date parameters), except with
the new search terms, is, as DOJ explains, a reasonable way to
effectuate that purpose. See 2d Brinkmann Decl. ¶¶ 5, 10, 15,
J.A. 755, 757–58, 760–61. What is more, Watkins states only
conclusorily that DOJ should have used an updated search,
without any further argument disputing the sufficiency of
                               23
DOJ’s decision on its merits. As with Watkins’s other
challenges to the adequacy of DOJ’s search, we sustain DOJ’s
search against this challenge as well.

                                3.

     Watkins contends that the district court erred in applying
a presumption of good faith to the FBI and DOJ declarations.
We have explained that agency affidavits that are “relatively
detailed and non-conclusory” are “accorded a presumption of
good faith.” SafeCard Servs., Inc. v. SEC, 926 F.2d 1197, 1200
(D.C. Cir. 1991) (citation omitted). Here, both agencies’
declarations satisfy that standard. Because Watkins’s claims
about the purported inadequacies of the agencies’ searches
raise no concerns about the declarants’ (or the agencies’) good
faith, we find no error in the district court’s grant of the good
faith presumption to the FBI and DOJ declarations.

                               B.

     We now turn to Watkins’s challenge to the VA’s
withholdings. “Because the government bears the burden of
establishing that a FOIA exemption applies, we may affirm
only if we detect no genuine issue of material fact as to an
exemption’s applicability.” RCFP II, 3 F.4th at 361. We hold
that the VA did not adequately explain its basis for invoking
the deliberative-process and attorney-client privileges to justify
its withholdings.

                                1.

    “FOIA exempts nine categories of records from the
government’s otherwise broad duty of disclosure.”
AquAlliance v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 856 F.3d 101, 103
(D.C. Cir. 2017). This case concerns Exemption 5, which
                               24
protects “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters
that would not be available by law to a party other than an
agency in litigation with the agency.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5).

     That exemption encompasses the deliberative-process and
attorney-client privileges. The deliberative-process privilege
shields     documents       “reflecting     advisory    opinions,
recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a
process by which governmental decisions and policies are
formulated.” NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132,
150 (1975) (citation omitted). The attorney-client privilege
protects “confidential communications between an attorney
and his client relating to a legal matter for which the client has
sought professional advice.” Mead Data Central, Inc. v. U.S.
Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 252 (D.C. Cir. 1977).

     When an agency invokes a FOIA exemption, it bears the
burden to show that a withheld document fits within the
exemption. RCFP II, 3 F.4th at 357, 361. The agency “must
provide a relatively detailed justification, specifically
identifying the reasons why a particular exemption is relevant
and correlating those claims with the particular part of a
withheld document to which they apply.” Mead Data, 566
F.2d at 251. An agency can carry that burden by submitting a
Vaughn index that adequately explains the decision to withhold
certain documents. See Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C.
Cir. 1973). The agency can also present supporting affidavits
that “describe the justifications for nondisclosure with
reasonably specific detail, demonstrate that the information
withheld logically falls within the claimed exemption, and are
not controverted by either contrary evidence in the record nor
by evidence of agency bad faith.” Elec. Frontier Found. v.
DOJ, 739 F.3d 1, 7 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (citation omitted).
                               25
                               2.

     Watkins challenges the VA’s withholding of sixty-seven
documents pursuant to the deliberative-process and attorney-
client privileges. The VA initially contends that, for all but
eight of the sixty-seven challenged documents, Watkins
forfeited its challenge by failing to “specifically” identify the
shortcomings of the VA’s justifications on a document-by-
document basis. Gov’t Br. 48. We disagree. In the
circumstances, Watkins could use the eight documents as
examples and otherwise argue on an across-the-board basis that
the VA’s justifications do not reasonably demonstrate that the
withheld documents fall within the deliberative-process or
attorney-client privileges.     Watkins’s articulation of its
arguments gave the VA adequate notice of the nature of the
challenges to the agency’s withholdings.

    To justify the withholdings, the VA relies upon the Knight
Declaration and its Vaughn index. Those materials, separately
and in combination, fall short.

     The Knight Declaration devotes three brief paragraphs to
justifying the VA’s invocation of Exemption 5 for a total of
382 documents. The first paragraph describes the documents
withheld under the deliberative-process and attorney-client
privileges at a very high level of generality, in two sentences
(one per privilege). Knight Decl. ¶ 11, J.A. 283. The second
and third paragraphs contain three and four sentences,
respectively, that recite the standards for the deliberative-
process and attorney-client privileges and state in conclusory
fashion that the withheld documents fit within those standards.
Knight Decl. ¶¶ 16–17, J.A. 286. Nowhere does the
Declaration use “reasonably specific detail” to “demonstrate
that the information withheld logically falls within the claimed
exemption.” Elec. Frontier Found., 739 F.3d at 7 (citation
                              26
omitted). Instead, its “claims are conclusory, merely reciting
statutory standards” and “are too vague or sweeping.” Hayden
v. Nat’l Sec. Agency, 608 F.2d 1381, 1387 (D.C. Cir. 1979).

     The VA’s Vaughn index, which asserts both privileges for
all sixty-seven challenged documents, fares no better. The
Vaughn index includes a short description of each withheld
document. But like the Knight Declaration, it does not
“specifically identify[] the reasons why a particular exemption
is relevant” to a particular document or “correlat[e] those
claims with the particular part of a withheld document to which
they apply.” Mead Data, 566 F.2d at 251. “Specificity is the
defining requirement of the Vaughn index,” King v. DOJ, 830
F.2d 210, 219 (D.C. Cir. 1987), yet the VA’s Vaughn index in
this case is threadbare.

     As one example, the VA invokes both privileges for a
record it describes in the Vaughn index as “Table of Contents
by Tab Number- October 11, 2005 Brady Act SVAC Meeting
Briefing Book Table of Contents by Tab Number — listing of
documents used during the SVAC meeting.” J.A. 298. There
is no explanation of why either privilege protects that
document. The VA tells us nothing about “what deliberative
process is involved” or the “role” the Brady Act SVAC
Meeting Briefing Book played “in the course of that process.”
Jud. Watch, Inc. v. DOJ, 20 F.4th 49, 56 (D.C. Cir. 2021)
(citation omitted). Nor does it reveal the “nature of the
decisionmaking authority vested in the officer or person issuing
the disputed document,” the “relative positions in the agency’s
chain of command occupied by the document’s author and
recipient,” or even who prepared the document. Id. (citation
omitted). Similarly, neither the Vaughn index nor the Knight
Declaration indicates that the document is related to a
communication between an attorney and his client for the
                              27
purposes of obtaining legal advice. Cf. Mead Data, 566 F.2d
at 253.

      As a second example, the VA invokes both privileges for
a record it describes as “December 23, 1996, letter from VA
Secretary Jesse Brown to James Claretta, ATF regarding
comments to ATF on proposed regulations providing
definitions for the categories of persons prohibited from
receiving or possessing firearms.” J.A. 307. We again do not
know “the ‘who,’ i.e., the roles of the document drafters and
recipients and their places in the chain of command; the ‘what,’
i.e., the nature of the withheld content; the ‘where,’ i.e., the
stage within the broader deliberative process in which the
withheld material operates; [or] the ‘how,’ i.e., the way in
which the withheld material facilitated agency deliberation.”
Jud. Watch, 20 F.4th at 56. Nor is there any indication that
Brown was seeking advice related to a legal matter or why the
attorney-client privilege would be implicated. Cf. Mead Data,
566 F.2d at 253.

     We thus conclude that the VA failed to adequately set out
its basis for asserting the deliberative-process and attorney-
client privileges as to the withheld documents. And because
the VA offers no arguments about specific documents other
than the eight that Watkins highlighted as illustrations, a
blanket remand is appropriate. We accordingly vacate the
district court’s grant of summary judgment to the VA and
remand the case to the district court. On remand, the VA may
disclose the challenged documents or further elaborate on its
rationale for invoking the deliberative-process and attorney-
client privileges for the challenged documents. The district
court can then assess whether the VA has carried its burden to
justify the withholdings and can also determine whether the
VA released all segregable information.
                             28
                     *   *   *    *   *

    For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s
grant of summary judgment in favor of the FBI and DOJ but
we vacate and remand the district court’s grant of summary
judgment to the VA.

                                                 So ordered.