Brennan Center For Justice At New York University School Of Law v. United…
Brennan Center For Justice At New York University School Of Law v. United States Department of State
- Paul Gardephe
- 1:17-cv-07520
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
Brennan Center v. State Department: Judge Gardephe considered the government’s request to delay FOIA disclosure, but the provided text does not clearly state the disposition.
The United States Department of State and the Brennan Center were directly affected by the requested delay in disclosure of the three memorandum pages. The requested stay also concerned the government’s ability to seek appellate review before disclosure.
What happened
In Brennan Center For Justice At New York University School Of Law v. United States Department of State, the court had ordered the government to disclose three pages of a memorandum concerning an executive order. That earlier order followed a ruling that granted in part and denied in part the parties’ requests for summary judgment.
The government asked to delay disclosure for 61 days so it could decide whether to appeal and, if it appealed, until the appeal ended. It argued that disclosure could eliminate its practical ability to seek meaningful appellate review. The Brennan Center agreed to a 21-day extension but opposed the longer delay.
The provided text does not clearly state whether the stay request was granted, denied, or otherwise resolved. The document contains an “SO ORDERED” endorsement, but the specific disposition is not legible or stated in the text supplied. Judge Paul G. Gardephe is identified as the judge.
The detailed version
- Brennan Center For Justice At New York University School Of Law v. United… · No. 1:17-cv-07520
- Paul Gardephe
- Mar. 13, 2025
Background
This document is a letter application by the United States Department of State, represented by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case brought by the Brennan Center for Justice. The government refers to the court’s March 10, 2025 order, which granted in part and denied in part the parties’ motions for summary judgment. Summary judgment is a procedure that allows a court to decide claims without a trial when the relevant facts are not genuinely disputed.
The earlier order held that the government had not properly withheld the first three pages of a September 15, 2017 memorandum from the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to the President concerning Section 2(e) of Executive Order 13780. The court ordered disclosure of those pages within 10 days, and final judgment was entered on March 11, 2025.
Government’s Request
The government requested a stay of the disclosure order for 61 days—from final judgment until May 12, 2025—to allow time to decide whether to appeal. It also requested that, if it timely filed an appeal, the disclosure order remain stayed while the appeal was resolved.
The government argued that releasing the pages before it could decide whether to appeal would cause irreparable harm because disclosure would make the information public and could make an appeal ineffective. It argued that the presidential communications privilege applied to the document in its entirety and that the privilege could not be overcome merely because similar information appeared in other publicly available documents. The government also argued that the public interest favored allowing careful consideration of an appeal.
Plaintiff’s Position
The Brennan Center consented to a 21-day extension of the disclosure deadline, until April 10, 2025, but opposed the requested 61-day extension. It argued that FOIA cases are supposed to proceed quickly, that only three pages were at issue, and that the government had sufficient time to review the pages and decide whether to appeal.
Disposition
The supplied text does not clearly state the court’s disposition of the stay request. It includes an “SO ORDERED” endorsement, but the specific ruling—whether the request was granted, denied, or resolved in another way—is not legible or stated in the provided text. Accordingly, this summary does not characterize the request as granted or denied. The matter concerns an ancillary stay of a FOIA disclosure order rather than a decision on the underlying FOIA withholding dispute.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.