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0 6 . 0 9 . 2 5
All Access
8 items
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Column – State
If you’ve ever participated in a FOIA workshop, you may have encountered the classic exercise of sending a FOIA request for a public body’s FOIA log — the document tracking FOIA requests to that government entity. If you’ve never seen one of these logs, here are a couple of examples. In 2020, I received this FOIA log in response to a FOIA request to the City of Staunton. Compare it to the following FOIA log produced by Richmond Public Schools to journalist Tom Nash of MuckRock News in 2019. On June 2, 2025, I sent a FOIA request to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s (R) office seeking “a copy of the Governor’s Office FOIA log or any other record used to track FOIA requests and responses” in the 2024 calendar year. On June 6, 2025, I received a response from Denise Burch, FOIA Officer, Office of Governor Glenn Youngkin: “Please be advised that the requested records are being entirely withheld pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3705.7 as working papers and correspondence of the Office of the Governor.”
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State
Over the past several years, state agencies have increasingly been filing inaccurate and late financial reports, the office of Virginia’s Auditor of Public Accounts says. Now that the office has completed the latest round of its annual reviews, it has found state agencies needed to make $4.1 billion of adjustments to financial reports from last year, up from $2.4 billion the year before, said Zach Borgerding, the office’s deputy auditor for human capital and operations. Borgerding said the office’s repeated findings of “material weaknesses” in agency financial reports – the most serious kind of problem any standard government or corporate audit can uncover – revealed misstated reports on how the Department of Health spent its federal grants as well as on how carefully it tracks accounts receivable — money for services it has billed for but has not yet received. The health department was not the only agency where auditors found repeated material weakness in financial reporting.
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Local
Tensions between Loudoun community members supporting Israel and those supporting Palestine have been increasing since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by the terrorist group, Hamas. This week, those tensions boiled over during a Board of Supervisors’ meeting, drawing a warning from County Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large). During Supervisor Kristen Umstattd’s comments, several members of the crowd shouted out at her, but were quickly stopped by Randall. “If one more person yells out, security is taking you out of this room,” Randall said. “It’s just that simple. First of all, put 10 seconds back on her clock. Secondly, the next person that does that, they’re walking out of this room. And thirdly, the people that did that right now, I’m not sure we’re letting them back in this room. You will not disturb this room. It’s just that simple. I control this room.” Randall added that the board allowed more public comment than any other surrounding jurisdiction but that it’s within her purview to change that.
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Local
Toward the end of the Aug. 13, 2024, Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors meeting and following a closed session, the board voted on a vague motion, and county officials didn’t provide clarity afterward. Courtland District Supervisor Drew Mullins made a motion to authorize County Attorney Karl Holsten to cooperate with the Virginia State Police in an ongoing investigation regarding the actions of a person subject to the oversight of a public body in the county. The board unanimously supported the motion, and the meeting was adjourned. There is now a bit more clarity, however, regarding the circumstances surrounding the vote. Richard T. McGrath, the Chief Judge of the 15th Judicial District of Virginia, which includes the Fredericksburg region, was indicted Monday on a Class 4 felony charge of bribery of a public official.
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In other states – Arizona
Social media influencer Emilie Kiser’s lawsuit pushing to stop the release of public records related to her son’s May death is now being litigated in an Arizona court. Kiser’s 3-year-old son Trigg died on May 18 after he was pulled from the family’s backyard pool in Chandler, Arizona, days earlier, police previously confirmed to USA TODAY. On May 27, Kiser filed a lawsuit in Arizona Superior Court for Maricopa County to keep records about what it referred to as an accidental drowning out of public view. Kiser is suing several public agencies to prohibit officials from releasing public documents related to Trigg’s death, including the police report, 911 call and scene photos.
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Federal
The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two victories Friday in cases involving the Department of Government Efficiency, including giving it access to Social Security systems containing personal data on millions of Americans. In one case, the high court halted an order from a judge in Maryland that has restricted the team’s access to the Social Security Administration under federal privacy laws. “We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the court said in an unsigned order. Conservative lower-court judges have said there’s no evidence at this point of DOGE mishandling personal information.
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Federal
The U.S. Supreme Court extended on Friday its block on judicial orders requiring the Department of Government Efficiency to turn over records to a government watchdog group that sought details on the entity established by President Donald Trump and previously spearheaded by his billionaire former adviser Elon Musk. The court put on hold Washington-based U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s orders for DOGE to respond to requests by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for information about its operations. The judge concluded that DOGE likely is a government agency covered by the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
MSN
Federal
A couple of weeks ago, I broke the story about a massive data breach at Opexus, a Washington-based company that contracts with federal agencies to provide software applications to manage FOIA requests and other government records. Opexus is owned by private equity company Thoma Bravo. According to the company’s internal investigation and a separate probe by an independent cybersecurity firm, two Opexus employees, twin brothers Suhaib and Muneeb Akhter, deleted dozens of databases from Opexus systems before they were fired in February. The incident brought down FOIAXpress, the platform used by agencies to process FOIA requests. Now, it is the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI.
Bloomberg
“Democracies die behind closed doors.” ~ U.S. District Judge Damon Keith, 2002
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