WASHINGTON, D.C. – America First Legal (AFL) has filed a lawsuit against the Judicial Conference of the United States (Judicial Conference) and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (Administrative Office) for unlawfully blocking lawful oversight of core executive-branch functions. This lawsuit seeks to expose the agencies’ ideological capture by the left and restore accountability to the American people.
The lawsuit arises from AFL’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking communications between the Judicial Conference, the Administrative Office, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and U.S. Representative Hank Johnson regarding conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Both the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office denied AFL’s FOIA requests, claiming they “are not subject to FOIA” because they are protected by FOIA’s carve-out for “courts of the United States.” However, AFL’s lawsuit asserts that the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office are not “courts” but federal agencies created by Congress. FOIA requires “each authority of government of the United States,” including “independent regulatory agencies,” to make their records available to the public. Article III of the Constitution limits the judiciary to adjudicatory functions; here, Congress created the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office to engage in administrative and rulemaking activities that fall outside the judiciary’s core function of adjudicating cases and controversies.
Furthermore, the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office engage in the notice-and-comment rulemaking process (a procedure designed for agencies), are subject to legislative oversight, and are not composed of federal judges with lifetime appointments. They can create committees at will, issue subpoenas, and are headed by the Chief Justice, acting in a “department head” capacity — each a core function reserved for the executive branch.
The Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office’s refusal to comply with AFL’s FOIA requests and practice of picking and choosing which oversight efforts to comply with undermine America’s mandate of transparency and accountability. And for Sen. Whitehouse, it is ironic that he demands heightened ethics requirements for conservative judges but has himself been accused of skirting ethics rules.
AFL will keep fighting for the highest lawful standards of transparency and accountability from the federal government.
Statement from Dan Epstein, America First Legal Vice President:
“When it comes to government transparency, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. The Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts accommodated several congressional oversight requests by lawmakers intent on claiming Justices Thomas and Alito had engaged in ethical improprieties. In addition to the manner of appointments to these agencies and their other responsibilities, accommodating congressional requests — or issuing subpoenas or engaging in notice and comment rulemaking — is not the nature of the courts but of executive agencies. As such, those agencies are accountable to public disclosure through the Freedom of Information Act. Justices Thomas and Alito were targets of critics’ claims that they failed to be transparent about their financial relationships. Ironically, the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office, captured by those same critics, are now refusing to be transparent themselves,” said Dan Epstein.
Read the lawsuit here.
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