D.C. Cir.

In response to a letter from the Reporters Committee, a federal appeals court has taken a critical first step toward unsealing an opinion in a high-profile Washington, D.C. corruption case.

The appellate court treated the letter as a motion to intervene and unseal part of the record. The court ordered the parties to respond and suggest redactions to its opinion within 30 days.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington issued several secret orders in a completely sealed case this week, as part of an investigation into D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s 2010 campaign.

The case involves a probe into businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson, as reported by The Washington Post and other media sources. Thompson is alleged to have run a secret campaign for Gray, without abiding by campaign-finance disclosure laws or revealing the campaign to the public.

Federal appellate judges on Thursday examined whether the executive branch gets the last word in classifying documents under the Freedom of Information Act's national security exemption.

A federal appeals court Friday denied a journalist access to reports on American International Group (AIG) prepared by an independent consultant under an agreement with federal regulators for alleged securities law violations.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., unanimously reversed an earlier opinion granting journalist Sue Reisinger access to the documents.

Government attorneys confirmed on Tuesday that federal courts have the right under the federal Freedom of Information Act to review agency decisions to classify documents when invoking the law's national security exemption.

An appeal in a defamation case against the late journalist Andrew Breitbart will proceed after a federal appeals court denied a motion to have it dismissed.

Shirley Sherrod, a former official in the Obama administration, sued Breitbart last year, alleging that two writers from his website, BigGovernment.com, defamed her in a YouTube video, which she said unfairly edited a speech she made. Breitbart, a known conservative commentator, died in March.

A federal appeals court allowed a former Detroit prosecutor to continue investigating the identity of a source who leaked information about an internal ethics probe against him to a Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper reporter. The decision, which was released Friday, overturns a district court’s ruling that threw out the case last year and now leaves a newspaper vulnerable to investigations eight years after a U.S. Department of Justice insider leaked information to the reporter.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled yesterday that the CIA could refuse to confirm or deny the existence of records in response to a federal Freedom of Information request – issuing what is referred to as a Glomar response – and rejected a claim that the agency had waived its right to do so.