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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Government agencies are so

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Speaker 1: unbelievably secret. If you know this right, I mean, they

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Speaker 1: don't want to relinquish any information.

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Speaker 2: That's my colleague, Jason Leopold.

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Speaker 1: I feel it's my job to try and get as

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Speaker 1: much information out of the government as possible.

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Speaker 2: Secrecy seems to go hand in hand with American policy

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Speaker 2: and politics. That's nothing new. Think back to the Watergate scandal,

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Speaker 2: when journalists revealed that President Nixon had tried to cover

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Speaker 2: up a plot to steal top secret documents from the

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Speaker 2: Democratic National Committee. But so much has changed since Watergate.

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Speaker 2: When Nixon left office, Pew Research found that only thirty

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Speaker 2: six percent of Americans trusted their government. At the time,

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Speaker 2: it was a record low. Now that number is down

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Speaker 2: to sixteen percent. As for journalists who held nixonto account,

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Speaker 2: Americans don't trust them either. According to a Gallup poll,

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Speaker 2: back in Nixon's day, almost seventy percent of Americans said

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Speaker 2: they trusted the media. Today that's hovering around thirty percent

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Speaker 2: right now.

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Speaker 1: The public has such a low opinion of journalists and journalism,

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Speaker 1: and I feel that documents and getting the receipts, so

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Speaker 1: to speak, is a great way to show our work

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Speaker 1: and to bring readers into the reporting process.

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Speaker 2: So Jason has made it his mission to claw as

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Speaker 2: many documents as he can from the US government's hands.

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Speaker 2: Between twenty one and twenty twenty, he sued the US

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Speaker 2: government for information more times than any other individual in

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Speaker 2: the country. The only entity that has him beat the

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Speaker 2: New York Times Company and Jason's weapon of choice, the

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Speaker 2: Freedom of Information Act. He says he does this all

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Speaker 2: to show.

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Speaker 1: People here you can read the document for yourself. It

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Speaker 1: just helps win that trust from readers. But in addition

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Speaker 1: to that, I mean, I have to say that I

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Speaker 1: really do enjoy the battle.

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Speaker 2: Today we go inside that battle for transparency with Bloomberg

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Speaker 2: investigative reporter Jason Leopold. How did a Cold War era

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Speaker 2: law ensure the right to transparency from the US government

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Speaker 2: and how are journalists like Jason using that today to

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Speaker 2: hold it accountable? This is the Big Take Podcast. I'm

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Speaker 2: Salaiah Mosen. Jason Leopold is not just any investigative reporter.

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Speaker 2: He's a champion of requesting records using the Freedom of

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Speaker 2: Information Act.

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Speaker 1: FOYA for sure, I have filed more than nine thousand

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Speaker 1: Foyer requests, and that's on the state and federal level.

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Speaker 1: And I have sued the government more than one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty times.

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Speaker 2: I believe his persistent prop of the US government has

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Speaker 2: even earned him a special nickname that he includes in

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Speaker 2: his bio on X.

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Speaker 1: When I was filing one request, I had heard within

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Speaker 1: the FBI that they had referred to me as a

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Speaker 1: FOYA terrorist. Since then, the National Security Agency has said

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Speaker 1: that I have weaponized the FOYA. The Department of Justice

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Speaker 1: said in an email that I was a member of

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Speaker 1: a Foya posse and perhaps that should be my band name.

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Speaker 1: Not too bad of a band name, maybe, And I

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Speaker 1: found out through a FOYER request on myself that the

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Speaker 1: FBI sent an agent out to investigate one of my

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Speaker 1: FOYER requests.

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Speaker 2: Jason, you and I are both reporters, and so to

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Speaker 2: talk about such a nerdy topic as investigative journalism and

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Speaker 2: foya's is super fun at least for me, but for

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Speaker 2: the everyday person. Can you explain what is the Freedom

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Speaker 2: of Information Act?

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Speaker 1: The Freedom of Information Act is a half century old

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Speaker 1: law that allows anyone anywhere in the world to request

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Speaker 1: all sorts of records from the federal government. You can

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Speaker 1: ask for emails, you can ask for text messages, you

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Speaker 1: can ask for photographs, you can ask for audio files.

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Speaker 2: Can I get the President's text messages? No?

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Speaker 1: So when the Freedom of Information Act was passed and

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Speaker 1: signed into law, Congress exempted themselves from the Freedom of

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Speaker 1: Information Act, and then the White House was exempt as well.

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Speaker 1: So this law exists to essentially keep the public informed

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Speaker 1: about what its government is up to, how its tax

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Speaker 1: dollars are being spent.

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Speaker 2: But there's limitations, and FOYA hasn't been around that long.

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Speaker 2: How was it that the Freedom of Information Act came about?

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Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson signed it into law back in the late sixties,

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Speaker 1: and it was basically supposed to be a check on power.

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Speaker 1: There were many different lawmakers who felt that government agencies

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Speaker 1: were just being far too secretive. There was the FBI

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Speaker 1: surveilling various anti war groups the Cold War, and a

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Speaker 1: lot that the government was doing at the time that

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Speaker 1: was being revealed through various Senate hearings. And so this

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Speaker 1: was something to offer up the public to keep them

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Speaker 1: informed about what the government was up to.

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Speaker 2: And what's behind your keen interest or even obsession behind foyeang.

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Speaker 1: I'd spent years as a national security reporter, So I

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Speaker 1: was covering CIA and all the intelligence agencies, and everything

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Speaker 1: in that world is secret. It's either classified top secret

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Speaker 1: or at even a higher classification level. So any kind

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Speaker 1: of information that I would obtain from sources would always

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Speaker 1: be attributed to an anonymous source. And I just feel

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Speaker 1: right now that it's crucial for us as reporters to

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Speaker 1: provide the public with as much documentary evidence as we

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Speaker 1: can obtain when we're reporting our stories, and to back

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Speaker 1: up what we're reporting.

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Speaker 2: You say you'll enjoy the battle. Tell me about your

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Speaker 2: process and what this battle is. Let's say you want

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Speaker 2: to look into something, pick a topic, and take me

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Speaker 2: from A to Z on it.

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Speaker 1: Sure, I don't just fire off requests. What I do

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Speaker 1: is I conduct a extensive amount of research into the

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Speaker 1: topic I'm covering. I'll try to source up either at

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Speaker 1: the agency's Freedom of Information Act office or people who

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Speaker 1: work at the agency and ask them what kinds of

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Speaker 1: documents are there, what's the date on a document, what's

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Speaker 1: this subject line? Where would these records be stored? All

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Speaker 1: of that information you need to go into a Freedom

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Speaker 1: of Information Act request. It has to be kind of

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Speaker 1: a blueprint that will instruct an agency FOYA officer on

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Speaker 1: exactly where to go to look for records. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: when Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed last year

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Speaker 1: and we saw regulators quickly moving to take action as

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Speaker 1: a result of that, I wanted to obtain documents about

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Speaker 1: what took place behind the scenes at the FDIIC, the

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Speaker 1: Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and find out what was happening,

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Speaker 1: what led up to this, what were these officials discussing

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Speaker 1: prior to the failure of the banks, Where there any

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Speaker 1: bank officials that were communicating with regulators.

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Speaker 2: And how do you actually file the request?

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Speaker 1: Believe it or not, There are still some agencies that

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Speaker 1: accept faxes. You can fax a request to the agency.

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Speaker 1: The CIA is kind of notorious for that. You can

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Speaker 1: put a stamp on an envelope and mail it, or

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Speaker 1: you can email it. Increasingly, agencies are using secure portals

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Speaker 1: online where you could submit your request there and by law,

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Speaker 1: they have to respond to your request in twenty calendar days.

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Speaker 1: That means they've acknowledged your request. Maybe if you're a journalist,

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Speaker 1: they've granted you a fee waiver, and then some time

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Speaker 1: passes and you get records. You know, consider this a footnote.

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Speaker 1: If you try to file a request with any of

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Speaker 1: the intelligence agencies, it will take years and years before

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Speaker 1: you get anything back.

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Speaker 2: Once you get the record, is it just easy from there.

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Speaker 2: It's all written there, easy for you to read and

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Speaker 2: figure out.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no no, that's where the fun begins.

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Speaker 2: Coming up, Jason gets some mail and the fun begins.

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Speaker 2: I'm talking with Foya fiend Jason Leopold about what comes

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Speaker 2: next when he receives information back from the government.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of work. Oftentimes records will be redacted

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Speaker 1: and they will contain just as an example, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at a record right now from the Office

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Speaker 1: of the Director of National Intelligence. It's an email partially redacted.

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Speaker 2: On here, and so yeah, I see black marks all

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Speaker 2: over it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So these reactions refer to names. So that means

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Speaker 1: that I have to now sleuth out, to the best

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Speaker 1: of my ability, what's under those reactions. So I read

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Speaker 1: these documents very carefully because even though they're redacted, there's

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Speaker 1: still lots of good information that you can glean from documents.

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Speaker 2: Jason, what's the biggest story that you've broken but the

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Speaker 2: world didn't know about the world needed to know about

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Speaker 2: and it was the Foyer request from you that brought

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Speaker 2: that into the public domain.

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Speaker 1: There's a number of different ones, and I'm going to

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Speaker 1: use some of the records that I obtained from the

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Speaker 1: CIA as an example. So, as I mentioned, I spent

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Speaker 1: many years covering national security, and I had been investigating

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Speaker 1: the CIA's enhanced interrogation program, the torture program that they

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Speaker 1: implemented when they captured high value detainees after nine to eleven.

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Speaker 1: I was able to completely lay bare the money that

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Speaker 1: was spent on the contractors to stand up a portion

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Speaker 1: of that program. Also, one of the big document scores

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Speaker 1: that I got from that was how the CIA was

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Speaker 1: heavily involved in the production of Zero Dark thirty, the movie.

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Speaker 1: They were invited in to CIA to basically tell the

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Speaker 1: CIA's narrative about the immediate aftermath of nine to eleven

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Speaker 1: and what happened at one of its black sites. They

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Speaker 1: allowed the CIA to read scripts and to make notes

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Speaker 1: on the scripts, and it also showed that they had

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Speaker 1: showered these CIA officers with gifts Prada and pearl earrings

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Speaker 1: and dinners, and that was a pretty big story at

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Speaker 1: the time. To be clear, zero Dark thirty and the

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Speaker 1: CIA's role in it. I wouldn't equate that to the

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Speaker 1: biggest story I got out a FOYA, but it was

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Speaker 1: sort of the body of work around the CIA's post

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Speaker 1: nine to eleven interrogation program, and there were about twelve

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Speaker 1: or thirteen stories within that body of work that all

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Speaker 1: relied on documents.

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Speaker 2: Why is it the governments make it so hard? You

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Speaker 2: talk about how you've had to sue governments for information

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Speaker 2: you've waited for a year. I just saw a tweet

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Speaker 2: of yours from a couple of days ago, So that

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Speaker 2: says that a for your request you'd filed a decade ago,

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Speaker 2: you just got the response on that. Why is it

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Speaker 2: so hard?

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Speaker 1: Such a great question. I wish I had a better

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Speaker 1: answer than they just don't want the public to know.

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Speaker 1: You know, the government agencies will say they don't have

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Speaker 1: enough staff to process these requests. They have an enormous

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Speaker 1: backlog of requests that they're dealing with. The federal government

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Speaker 1: just reported last year that they received more than a

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Speaker 1: million Freedom of Information at requests, more than any other

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Speaker 1: year that they've been tracking this. But they haven't increased

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Speaker 1: the number of people that they need at these various

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Speaker 1: agencies to process the requests. They haven't added any money

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Speaker 1: to the budget to hire additional people to get additional resources.

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Speaker 1: That's why when I'm filing requests for certain records, I

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Speaker 1: know exactly what I want.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're giving them a lot of clues. Jason even

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Speaker 2: newsletter now where you share the latests that you've gotten

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Speaker 2: from all your Foyer requests, Can you tell me why

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Speaker 2: people should care about the work that you do.

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Speaker 1: I am informing you about what takes place behind the

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Speaker 1: scenes at federal government agencies and how your tax payer

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Speaker 1: dollars are being spent. These are issues and subjects that

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Speaker 1: you didn't even know existed, and it can really provide

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Speaker 1: you with amazing detail on how the sausage is made.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News.

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Speaker 2: I'm Salia Mosen. Jason Leopold's newsletter, Foya Files, comes out

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Speaker 2: every Friday. You can subscribe at bloomberg dot com slash Newsletters.

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Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was mixed

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Speaker 2: by Ben O'Brien and fact checked by Adrianna Tapia. It

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Speaker 2: was edited by Aaron Edwards. Naomi Shaven is our senior producer.

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Speaker 2: Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction. Nicole Beamster

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Speaker 2: Bower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head

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Speaker 2: of podcasts. Thanks for listening, we'll be back next week.