UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GREGORY BARTKO, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 17-781 (JEB) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION This case presents the latest in a long series of disputes between Plaintiff Gregory Bartko and various branches of the federal government over the disclosure of records under the Freedom of Information Act. For a number of years, Bartko has sought records from different agencies in an effort to uncover information about alleged prosecutorial misconduct associated with his conviction for criminal fraud in the Eastern District of North Carolina. He filed this particular pro se suit in connection with several FOIA requests he made to Defendant Executive Office for United States Attorneys. EOUSA now moves for summary judgment as to two of those requests and dismissal as to another, contending that it properly withheld documents under several FOIA exemptions and that Bartko’s claims are otherwise procedurally deficient. Finding that some but not all of EOUSA’s withholdings were proper, and that one of Bartko’s claims is procedurally barred but the other is not, the Court grants in part and denies in part EOUSA’s Motion. 1 I. Background The Court has recounted the circumstances underlying Bartko’s convictions and demands for records in several Opinions in his previous FOIA suit. See, e.g., Bartko v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 62 F. Supp. 3d 134 (D.D.C. 2014). Rather than retread the same ground, the Court confines its discussion of the factual and procedural background to the particulars of the three FOIA requests at issue in Defendant’s Motion. (A fourth request is the subject of separate, ongoing summary-judgment briefing.) A. Request No. 2014-486 Bartko filed the first FOIA request at issue here, No. 2014-486, with EOUSA in 2013, seeking records associated with his prosecution for criminal fraud in the Eastern District of North Carolina. See ECF No. 12 (Answer), Exh. 1, Attachs. F & H. Concluding that the scope of the request was so expansive that its search would take over 93 hours and stretch across 21 boxes of records, EOUSA refused to process it without advanced payment of $2,618. Id., Attach. G. Bartko initially sought judicial review of EOUSA’s response in a previous FOIA suit. This Court dismissed the claim without prejudice because he had not exhausted his administrative remedies. See Bartko v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 2014 WL 12787640, at *7 (D.D.C. Sept. 9, 2014). The Court explained that Bartko “remains free to bring a new suit — or conceivably seek to amend his current one — challenging those actions, provided he has fully exhausted his administrative remedies before filing.” Id. After the Court’s dismissal, Bartko tried to do just that. He filed an administrative appeal with the Office of Information Policy, arguing that the fee demand was improper. See Answer, Exh. 1, Attach. L. But OIP refused to hear the appeal on the ground that his request remained the subject of litigation. Id., Attach. T. 2 Several years after ...
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