Biden's DOJ demands names of Jack Smith's staff be kept secret

President Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ), led by Merrick Garland, is asking a federal court to conceal the names of top staffers on Special Counsel Jack Smith's legal team. 

In a report from Judicial Watch, the outlet recounts a FOIA request made to the DOJ for “staff rosters, phone lists, or similar records depicting all employees hired by or detailed to office of Special Counsel Jack Smith" that was rejected by the federal agency in 2022. The outlet then brought a lawsuit in opposition to the rejection in May 2023.  

The department had acknowledged it had such lists in April before the lawsuit was filed, however, it was not being released due to a "dearth of FOIA public interest" and was holding them for concerns over privacy laws. In an additional court filing submitted on Monday to the US District of Columbia Court, it stated the DOJ argued that "disclosing the more-than-one-year-old rosters could reasonably be expected to interfere" with the Special Counsel's work.  

In the filing, Judicial Watch wrote that the argument is "little more than speculation, and lacks meaningful evidentiary support." 

Adding to the argument in the filing, “It also ignores the fact that the names of at least 23 SCO staffers are readily available from public sources, yet the public availability of these names and in some instances email addresses and a cell phone number does not seem to have had any discernible impact on the functioning of the SCO.”