FOIAengine: Over 1,500 Requests Probe Views Using FOIA
A new FOIAengine analysis of just-released Department of Defense Freedom of Information Act requests reveals the extent to which the conservative initiative Project 2025 used massive numbers of FOIA requests to identify Pentagon personnel for potential removal in a new Trump administration. The Project 2025 requests accounted for a remarkable 40 percent (1,545 requests) of all Office of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff (OSD/JS) requests received during fiscal 2024.
These requests can be found in PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine, which tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows.
Project 2025 describes itself as a Presidential Transition Project — “the effort of a broad coalition of conservative organizations that have come together to ensure a successful administration begins in January 2025. With the right conservative policy recommendations and properly vetted and trained personnel to implement them, we will take back our government.”
Heritage’s Project 2025 official website – titled “Building for Conservative Victory Through Policy, Personnel, and Training” – calls the initiative “a historic movement . . . to take down the Deep State and return the government to the people.” Project 2025 includes a policy guide for the next Trump administration and a LinkedIn-style database of personnel who could serve. Although President Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the campaign, as Democrats sought to tie him to it, he recently told NBC’s Meet the Press that “some of it is very good. Some of it’s very mainstream, actually. Frankly, the Democrats should have used some of it.”
One of the key tools in that “vetting” of personnel has been the filing of thousands of FOIA requests with virtually every department and agency of the U.S. government. These lengthy and detailed requests have sought specific information about the online activities of senior and mid-level officials. See our October 9 article about Project 2025 and its affiliates: “A Blizzard of FOIA Requests from Heritage Foundation.”
In the case of OSD/JS, Project 2025’s 1,545 FOIA requests targeted 401 officials, or virtually every member of the Pentagon’s’ leadership. Click here to view the complete list and search by name.
Not surprisingly, the Biden Administration’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was the subject of the most FOIA requests (21). The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security also received significant attention, including Under Secretary Joseph D. Kernan (12); his Deputy Ralph A. Cacci (14); and Congressional Activities head Dave A. Kozik (13)
Six DOD legislative affairs officials were the subject of more than 10 requests each, including Rheanne E. Wirkkala, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs (12) and five officials in her office: John Childress (11), John Olson (11), Karim Farishta (11), Valerie Cash (11), and Yasmin Faruki (11).
Almost every other DOD target was the subject of three nearly identical requests.
The first type of request was aimed at determining whether the official had communicated with specific Democratic or left-leaning organizations since January 20, 2021. Specifically, it sought “all … communications to/from the following email domains (including meeting/calendar invites): @splcenter.org, @demos.org, @adl.org, @electionexcellence.org, @aclu.org, @campaignlegal.org, @advancingjustice-aajc.org, @fairfight.org, @techandciviclife.org, @electioninnovation.org, @narf.org, @maldef.org, @fairelectionscenter.org, @civilrights.org, @opensocietyfoundations.org, @newventurefund.org, @faircount.org, @brennancenter.org, @democracyfund.org, @democracyfundvoice.org, @rockthevote.org, @northfund.org, @triggerthevote.org, @waytowin.us, @fordfoundation.org, @2hadvisors.org, @thesvf.org, @jsoros.com, @wyssfoundation.org, @omidyar.com, @arabellaadvisors.com.”
The second broad request was aimed at determining whether that official had speculated about whether President Biden was suffering from Parkinson’s disease or dementia. Specifically, these requests asked for “All sent communications … mentioning ‘Biden’ AND ’25th’ OR ‘parkinsons’ OR ‘dementia’.”
The third broadly sent request sought copies of any of the official’s correspondence in which he or she had mentioned Project 2025. Specifically, it asked for “All sent communications [via the Custodian’s outbox; not received communications] mentioning ‘Project 2025’ OR ‘P2025’ OR ‘Mandate for Leadership’ OR ‘Heritage Foundation’.”
The reference to the Heritage Foundation is notable, because Heritage controlled and ran the FOIA request operation. Three of its staff – Colin Aamot, Mike Powell, and Roman Jankowski — were responsible for submitting all 1,545 Heritage FOIA requests to OSD/JS. This strategy was pursued by the same Heritage staffers in virtually every department and agency of the U.S. government.
The Heritage Foundation requests were made public this month when the OSD/JS released its fiscal year 2024 FOIA logs, with details about the 3,831 FOIA requests it received between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. While a growing number of agencies have moved to the monthly release of FOIA logs, the Pentagon leadership continued its practice of releasing its logs annually, three to four months after the end of each fiscal year.
The FOIAengine study also analyzed what types of organizations used the OSD/JC FOIA program in fiscal 2024. Not counting the 1,545 Project 2025 requests and the 1,237 requests that did not identify a requesting organization, there were 1,050 requests for which we know the name of the organization making the request. To aid our analysis we assigned each organization to one of the categories listed in the chart below.
As you can see from the chart, which excludes the massive number of FOIA requests from Heritage, news organizations were by far the leading filers of FOIA requests, followed by Commercial Organizations, Non-Profits, Law Firms, Educational Institutions, and the Federal Government.
Given the news media’s active use of FOIA, we dug deeper into who made the requests and what they asked about.
One lesser-known news organization was by far the most active news media requester. Nick Turse of the Type Media Center made 47 percent (176) of the media requests. The Type Media Center describes itself as “a non-profit home for independent journalists and truth-tellers at all stages of their careers. Our mission is to produce high-impact journalism and literary nonfiction that addresses injustice and inequality, catalyzes change, informs and uplifts social movements, while transforming and diversifying the fields of journalism and publishing.”
Other news media filing multiple requests included: MuckRock News (29); Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Government, and Bloomberg Industry Group (15); Federal News Wire (13); The New York Times (10); MSN (8); The Associated Press (8); CBS News (7); Politico (5); DefenseScoop (4); News Nation (3); Forbes (3); Newsweek Magazine (2); The New Yorker (2); The Wall Street Journal (2); The Washington Post (2); CNN (2); NBC News (2); and MilitaryTimes.com (2).
With DOD’s broad responsibilities, enormous budget, and diverse range of programs, the topics addressed by news media FOIA requests ranged across hundreds of defense-related subjects. No one subject attracted a significant number of requests. A sample of request topics include: DARPA reports on the Neuralink implant of a computer chip in a human brain; deepfake tweets with AI generated photos of an explosion at the Pentagon; applications of high energy laser weapons in ground-based warfare; the safety investigation of the Osprey tiltrotor aircraft; risks to the Department’s pharmaceutical supply chain; recruiter misconduct and irregularities; the sale of F-35s to the United Arab Emirates; construction of a temporary pier to provide humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip; Microsoft’s role in the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability effort; and military sales approved for the Government of Israel.
FOIAengine access now is available for all professional members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism. IRE is the world’s oldest and largest association of investigative journalists. Following the federal government’s shutdown of FOIAonline.gov last year, FOIAengine is the only source for the most comprehensive, fully searchable archive of FOIA requests across dozens of federal departments and agencies. FOIAengine has more robust functionality and searching capabilities and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with. PoliScio Analytics is proud to be partnering with IRE to provide this valuable content to investigative reporters worldwide.
To see all the requests mentioned in this story, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine trial user.
Next: The latest FOIA requests to the SEC, FTC, and FDA.
Randy E. Miller, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington lawyer, publisher, and former government official. He has developed several online information products and was a partner at Hogan Lovells, where he founded the firm’s Brussels office and represented clients on international regulatory matters. Miller also has served as a White House trade lawyer, Senior Legal Adviser to the U.S. Mission to the World Trade Organization, policy director to Senator Bob Dole, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He is a graduate of Yale and Georgetown Law. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Miller and Washington journalist John A. Jenkins. Learn more about FOIAengine here. Sign up here to become a trial user of FOIAengine.
Write to Randy E. Miller at randy@poliscio.com.
