It may sound strange, but we find ourselves in the position of suing the local government of our nation’s capital city.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, the DC Department of Transportation and the DC Department of Public Works for records about the painting of “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” on a DC street in front of the White House (Judicial Watch. v. Muriel Bowser, et al. (2020 CA 003357 B)).
We sued after Mayor Bowser failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests, the DC Department of Public Works failed to respond to two separate FOIA requests, and the DC Department of Transportation stated that they located 616 pages of records, but could not provide 615 of the pages, “due to deliberative process privilege (internal discussions).”
Here’s a summary of the six FOIA requests:
- Three FOIA requests to the Mayor seek all records related to the cost of, communications between District officials and outside organizations about, and policy and procedure for painting “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” on 16th Street. These records also include communications related to our request to paint “Because No One Is Above the Law!” on District streets.
- Two FOIA requests to the Department of Public Works seek all records related to the cost of, communications between District officials and outside organizations about, and policy and procedure for painting “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” on 16th Street.
- One FOIA request to the Department of Transportation seeks records of communication about the closure of 16th Street, N.W. between H and K Streets.
Initially, the Department of Transportation improperly asked for specific names of employees for emails and phone numbers for texts we are seeking. After we responded with a previous DC Court of Appeals ruling as to why the hold on the records search was improper, the Department of Transportation stated that it “located 616 pages of public records held by DOT that are responsive to your FOIA request” and that “615 pages of these records have not been provided to you because, although responsive, they are exempt in their entirety from being disclosed due to deliberative process privilege (internal discussions).”
Separately, we have filed a civil rights lawsuit against DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and other officials for First Amendment violations over their refusal to allow us to paint the message “Because No One Is Above the Law!” on a DC street. We filed this lawsuit after we sent a letter requesting permission to paint the message on another DC street near our headquarters by Capitol Hill in the identical size and coloring of the “Black Lives Matter = Defund the Police” painting.
Mayor Bowser is playing games with the First Amendment, and the DC government is now hiding documents on using tax dollars to paint political messages on DC streets. First, Mayor Bowser refused to allow us to paint our own message, and now we are facing a cover up about this abuse.
Author: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. Visit Judicial Watch at https://www.judicialwatch.org/
