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DoD OIG denial letter on Grusch IG complaint

The Black Vault · 4 pages · text from the file's own layer

This March 7, 2024 letter from the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General answers John Greenewald's FOIA request for all records David Charles Grusch submitted to the DoD Inspector General. It says searches found responsive records. However, 25 pages were withheld in full under FOIA exemptions (b)(3), (b)(5), (b)(6), (b)(7)(C) and (b)(7)(E). Other documents were withheld under exemption (b)(7)(A) because they were compiled for a law enforcement inquiry that is still open. The letter also explains how to appeal.

OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
4800 MARK CENTER DRIVE
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA 22350-1500
March 7, 2024
Ref: DODOIG-2024-000205
SENT VIA EMAIL TO: john@greenewald.com
Mr. John Greenewald
The Black Vault, Inc.
27305 W. Live Oak Road, Suite 1203
Castaic, CA 91384-4520
Dear Mr. Greenewald:
This responds to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for “all records and
materials submitted or communicated to the Department of Defense Inspector General by David
Charles Grusch,” to exclude those already provided to you under DODOIG-2023-001013, from
January 1, 2020, through to the date of processing this request. We received your request on
January 12, 2024, and assigned it case number DODOIG-2024-000205.
For your information, Congress excluded three discrete categories of law enforcement
and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. 552(c). This
response is limited to those records that are subject to the requirements of the FOIA. This is a
standard notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be taken as an indication
that excluded records do, or do not, exist.
The Administrative Investigations Component, the Defense Criminal Investigative
Service, the Department of Defense Hotline, and the Evaluations Component conducted searches
and located records responsive to your request. In order to provide you with the greatest possible
access to the responsive records, your request was processed under both the Privacy Act of 1974
(5 U.S.C. § 552a) and the FOIA (5 U.S.C. § 552). However, we have determined that the
records responsive to your request are exempt from the access provisions of the Privacy Act.
See 32 C.F.R. Part 310. For this reason, we have processed your request under the FOIA.
Upon review, we determined that 25 pages are exempt from release in their entirety
pursuant to the following FOIA exemptions:
• (b)(3), which protects information that has been “specifically exempted from disclosure
by statute” in this case, the Inspector General Act of 1978, 5 U.S.C. § 407, which pertains
to the confidentiality of employee complaints to the Inspector General;
• (b)(5), which pertains to certain inter-and intra-agency communications protected by the
deliberative process privilege. The purpose for withholding such recommendations is to
encourage the free and candid exchange of opinions and advice during the decision-
making process. In applying the foreseeable harm standard, we determined that
disclosure of this information is likely to diminish the candor of agency deliberations in
the future;

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