Public Domain sues Trump's Interior Department

Our first FOIA lawsuit seeks the calendar entries of top DOGE operatives and other political appointees.

Over the last nine months Public Domain has filed scores of public records requests with the Interior Department, our country’s most important land management agency. Some of those requests have already borne fruit. Public records helped us become the first outlet to uncover the name of key DOGE operative Tyler Hassen. Freedom of Information Act requests led to our investigation into the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, who has numerous potential conflicts of interest. We have published more than 50 stories since we launched earlier this year, and they have often incorporated public records.

But many of our FOIA requests have received no response from the Interior Department. The agency is understaffed and overburdened and DOGE has only made matters worse. In far too many cases, DOI simply cannot respond to FOIA requests in a timely manner, despite the requirements of the law. So we sued.

A portion of our complaint.

This week, Public Domain filed its first FOIA lawsuit against Donald Trump’s Interior Department. We are represented by the excellent attorneys at Loevy & Loevy in Chicago. The lawsuit seeks the official work calendars for a wide variety of DOI political appointees, including the key DOGE operatives who have decimated the agency since Trump regained power in Washington. We want to know who they have been meeting with, how they have spent their days on the taxpayers dime, and what they are cooking up for the future.

This is the first of multiple lawsuits we are planning, all of which are meant to hold Interior Department officials accountable to the public. If you want to support our work, please consider becoming a paying subscriber.