Legal Filings

Feb 26, 2010

CREW Files FOIA with DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel Regarding Destruction of Torture Memos

FOIA Requests (Legal Filings), Federal Agencies, Department of Justice, FOIA, John Yoo

Today, CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) seeking documents that would shed light on the destruction of emails of former high-ranking OLC officials John Yoo and Patrick Philbin. A recently released DOJ report disclosed for the first time that an investigation into the actions of Messrs. Yoo and Phlbin in crafting OLC memoranda authorizing torture of detainees was hampered by the destruction of their email.

CREW’s FOIA request seeks documents that would identify the policies governing the retention of email by OLC staff while the memoranda were being drafted as well as documents reflecting any problems with the storage or retention of OLC staff emails. CREW also seeks expedition of its request in light of the widespread media interest in this matter and the questions it raises about the integrity of the Department of Justice, which to date apparently has done nothing to investigate the emails’ destruction even though it clearly violates federal record keeping laws.

Click here to read CREW's FOIA request.

Click here to read CREW's letter requesting expedition.

Click here to read the documents CREW received in response to this request.