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<\/p>\nLauren Harper is Freedom of the Press Foundation\u2019s first Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Department of<\/span> Homeland Security claimed four times within 48 hours that it had \u201cno documents\u201d in response to records requests from the Freedom of the Press Foundation late last year. These brush-offs raise serious questions about whether the agency is saving its documents anymore, much less creating them in the first place.<\/p>\n Each of our Freedom of Information Act requests was for records likely to exist, and any single \u201cno records\u201d response would have been suspicious. But four in rapid succession is enough to cast doubt on Homeland Security\u2019s record-keeping practices and its compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n These are the records we asked for and DHS claims it simply doesn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n DHS responded on December 11 it couldn\u2019t find any records about this attempt to intimidate the press from reporting on ICE. This dubious claim came even though Noem said publicly this summer<\/a> that she was in communication with Attorney General Pam Bondi about prosecuting CNN for reporting on ICEBlock, a crowdsourced application that tracks ICE sightings<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a little hard to see how Noem could have worked with Bondi on potential legal action against both entities without mentioning them by name. It\u2019s similarly difficult to imagine that nobody else within DHS, including its Office of General Counsel, emailed Noem to advise or ask questions on the potential prosecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n One explanation is that Noem\u2019s summer claim was just bluster. Another is that the DHS search wasn\u2019t as thorough as the agency claimed. Yet another possibility is that these discussions happened over third-party applications, like Signal, and were never forwarded to official accounts.<\/p>\n Many agencies\u2019 records management rules do allow for the use of third-party platforms, but Biden-era guidance from the National Archives and Records Administration requires these messages be forwarded to official accounts within 20 days<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as acting head of the National Archives after President Donald Trump removed <\/a>Archivist of the U.S. Colleen Shogan in February, has participated in Signal chats himself<\/a> and has not demonstrated any interest in ensuring that agencies are following his own rules. Rubio\u2019s apparent ambivalence for NARA\u2019s preservation protocols may prove to be one of the biggest systemic threats to holding this administration accountable. If records are not preserved, or not created when they are required to be, they are effectively impossible to search for in response to FOIA requests and litigation.<\/p>\n Again, DHS told us on December 9 it didn\u2019t have any records to share. DHS said this even though it is well known<\/a> that Trump communicates with administration officials through private messages on the social media platform, as his DM-heard-around-the-world<\/a> to Bondi made clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n Is it possible that Trump only messages Bondi, and none of his other officials, on Truth Social? Maybe, but this would raise the question of why Bondi would be an outlier. Another possibility is that Truth Social doesn\u2019t allow for exporting DMs. But if that\u2019s the case, then neither Noem nor the president should have accounts there at all, since that wouldn\u2019t allow officials to comply with federal or presidential records management rules.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet again, ICE said on December 9 it didn\u2019t have any records<\/a> of its Chicago immigration enforcement operation to share with us, even though U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered<\/a> in October that ICE and other immigration agents wear body cameras and turn them on.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response to a request for comment from Minho Kim of the New York Times<\/a>, ICE claimed, \u201cThe premise of your story is false and overly simplifies the court\u2019s relevant order,\u201d and argued the order did not mandate agents who didn\u2019t already have cameras obtain them. <\/p>\n Is it possible that ICE agents in Chicago who did not already have body cameras were entirely exempt from the judge\u2019s order, and that not a single ICE agent in Chicago had a camera before the judge\u2019s order?\u00a0<\/p>\n The possibility exists, but this, again, raises a few serious questions, including why Customs and Border Protection agents wear body cameras<\/a> but not every ICE agent does; why ICE is not outfitting agents in an active enforcement operation with cameras, in apparent violation of the agency\u2019s body camera policy<\/a>; and why ICE isn\u2019t using any of its massive new budget<\/a> to cover the costs of body cameras for officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Secret Service said on December 10 it had no relevant documents, even though the agency publicly acknowledged in August that it had coordinated with the Army Corps of Engineers about Vice President JD Vance\u2019s trip, and geological reports showed a change in the water level coinciding with the Vance family\u2019s vacation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Did the Secret Service really never request that the water level be changed, or is the agency concealing information that might show Vance was \u201cpotentially exploiting public infrastructure resources for his personal recreation,\u201d as The Guardian put it<\/a>, at the same time the administration was drastically cutting funds to outdoor agencies<\/a>, <\/a>including the National Park Service?<\/p>\n In a separate FOIA request for records about the construction of the White House ballroom, the Secret Service didn\u2019t even bother to conduct a search. Instead, it said the records I sought might already be publicly available on federal contracting websites, or would be considered presidential records<\/a> and not subject to release under FOIA until five years after the end of this Trump administration. It then closed the FOIA request without offering any right to appeal. I appealed anyway, noting it was unlikely that every record I sought would fit the definition of a presidential record<\/a>, but it raises even further concerns that the agency is relying on a number of dubious tactics to evade FOIA.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nAll emails sent or received by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem containing the terms \u201cCNN\u201d and \u201cICEBlock\u201d\u00a0<\/h2>\n
The complete archive of Noem\u2019s Truth Social direct messages for her official account, @SecNoem<\/h3>\n
All body camera footage from ICE captured as part of Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago<\/h3>\n
The request the Secret Service made to the Army Corps of Engineers to raise the water level of an Ohio river to ensure JD Vance had a nice kayaking trip<\/h3>\n