Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. U.S. Department of Justice
Case Number: 1:26-cv-01855
Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Client: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Background: In March 2026, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking records from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as several of its components, related to the arrests of three independent journalists: Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, and Shane Bollman. The FOIA requests were submitted weeks after federal agents arrested the journalists and charged them with violating federal law following their coverage of an immigration enforcement protest inside a Minnesota church.
The requests asked the federal agencies for records reflecting the attorney general’s authorization to seek warrants for the arrests of Lemon, Fort, and Bollman, applications for search warrants for their electronic devices, as well as emails and other communications that mention them by name.
To date, the agencies — including the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and Offices of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Public Affairs, and Information Policy — have not produced any of the requested records. The Reporters Committee sued, alleging that the Justice Department and ICE violated FOIA by failing to comply with the law’s statutory deadlines and by wrongfully withholding agency records.
Quote: “This was a shocking overcharge by the Trump administration,” Reporters Committee attorney Adam A. Marshall said in a statement about the lawsuit. “This lawsuit seeks records that will provide the public with insight into the government’s initial failed efforts to charge three independent journalists, as well as records pertaining to their eventual arrests and the searches of their electronic devices. The public has a right to know whether, in so doing, the government complied with its obligations under both federal law and Justice Department regulations that are intended to protect journalists from these kinds of actions.”
Related: The lawsuit is the Reporters Committee’s latest effort to bring transparency to recent cases in which the federal government appears to have ignored important legal protections for journalists’ records and unpublished work. It comes on the heels of the Reporters Committee’s fight to unseal search warrant documents related to the January FBI raid on the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, and its separate FOIA lawsuit seeking records related to how the Justice Department wielded its investigative powers in that case.
Filings:
2025-05-29: Complaint
2025-05-29: Exhibit 1
2025-05-29: Exhibit 2
2025-05-29: Exhibit 3
2025-05-29: Exhibit 4
2025-05-29: Exhibit 5
2025-05-29: Exhibit 6