DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE SUR-REPLY
Defendant, the United States, respectfully requests leave to file the attached sur-reply to plaintiffs’ May 27, 2015 reply in support of their motion challenging the designation of the Government’s provisional privilege logs as “Protected Information.” A sur-reply is necessary to clarify the Government’s position that it will provide plaintiffs a public, non-protected version of the final privilege logs, with no redacted columns, upon completion of the final logs. In fact, we have already done so with respect to the final privilege log from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
This clarification is necessary given plaintiffs’ speculation that the Government’s final privilege logs might contain wholesale redactions or redacted columns. Pls. Reply at 2. The clarification is also necessary to respond to plaintiffs’ accusation that such redactions are part of a broad “strategy” to prevent public disclosure of information relating to the allegations in plaintiffs’ complaint. Id.
A request to file a sur-reply is normally granted “when a party is ‘unable to contest matters presented to the court for the first time’ in the last scheduled pleading.” Ben-Kotel v. Howard Univ., 319 F.3d 532, 536 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting Lewis v. Rumsfeld, 154 F. Supp. 2d
56, 61 (D.D.C. 2001)); accord United States v. Diabetes Treatment Centers of America, Inc., 238 F. Supp. 2d 270, 276-77 (D.D.C. 2002).
For these reasons, the United States respectfully requests that the attached sur-reply be filed to permit clarification of our position with respect to the final privilege logs.
Respectfully submitted,
BENJAMIN C. MIZER
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General
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