## Facts

- A reporter submitted a FOIA request to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) seeking complete, unedited transcripts and audio of all interviews conducted in SIGAR’s Lessons Learned Program (LLP), including interviews given anonymously or not cited in SIGAR reports.
- The LLP compiled materials by reviewing agency documents and interviewing hundreds of individuals about U.S.-funded Afghanistan reconstruction and related oversight concerns.
- SIGAR produced hundreds of records but withheld or redacted portions under multiple FOIA exemptions, including classified-information, deliberative-process, and confidential-source protections.
- After an earlier partial summary-judgment ruling required more detailed justifications, the parties filed renewed cross-motions for summary judgment supported by supplemental declarations and a more detailed Vaughn index.

## Issues

1. Whether supplemental agency submissions adequately justified continued withholdings of classified information under FOIA Exemption 1 and Executive Order 13,526, including foreseeable national-security harm.
2. Whether SIGAR properly withheld interview information under Exemption 7(D) by showing the information came from confidential law-enforcement sources.
3. Whether disputed redactions under Exemption 5 were protected by the deliberative-process privilege as predecisional and deliberative material rather than segregable facts or adopted policy.
4. Whether SIGAR satisfied FOIA’s segregability obligation, including release of interview content designated by interviewees as “on the record.”

## Decision

- The court granted in part and denied in part both parties’ renewed motions for summary judgment.
- The court upheld the challenged Exemption 1 withholdings after finding the supplemental Vaughn index and declarations sufficiently tied specific withheld content to reasonably expected national-security harm.
- The court largely upheld Exemption 7(D) withholdings where SIGAR showed that interviewees had requested non-attribution, which SIGAR treated as an assurance of confidentiality for law-enforcement purposes.
- The court upheld some Exemption 5 redactions but required disclosure where SIGAR did not adequately establish that the material was both predecisional and deliberative or where the information was reasonably segregable.
- The court ordered SIGAR to ensure that portions of interviews interviewees permitted to be “on the record” were produced unless a separate, valid exemption independently justified withholding.

## Legal Principles

- Exemption 1 requires more than classification status; agencies must provide reasonably specific, record-linked explanations showing that disclosure could reasonably be expected to damage national security, and courts give substantial deference absent evidence of bad faith.
- Exemption 7(D) protects information supplied by confidential sources in law-enforcement records; agencies must connect confidentiality to indicia such as express assurances or demonstrated practices tied to a source’s request for non-attribution, not mere boilerplate.
- Exemption 5 (deliberative-process privilege) applies only to materials that are both predecisional and deliberative; purely factual material must be disclosed unless inextricably intertwined with protected deliberation, and privilege may not apply to material adopted as agency policy.
- FOIA requires release of all reasonably segregable, non-exempt information; an interviewee’s permission to be quoted or attributed undermines withholding of that specific content under confidentiality rationales absent an independent exemption.

## Conclusion

The court sustained key withholdings for classified information and for interview material tied to demonstrated confidentiality requests, but required more tailored disclosure where SIGAR failed to show deliberative-process protection or where interviewees had authorized on-the-record release, reinforcing FOIA’s segregability and record-specific justification requirements.


Wash. Post Co. v. Special Inspector Gen. for Afghanistan Reconstruction, No. 18-2622 (ABJ), 2021 WL 4502106 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2021)