(The Center Square) – The Washington State Attorney General’s Office is refusing to provide The Center Square an explanation for redacting a memo obtained through a public records request, which is required under the Public Records Act.
Washington Coalition for Open Government Secretary George Erb wrote in an email to The Center Square that “the statute you cite that requires agencies to identify the specific exemption they used for redacted information is pretty straightforward.”
The redacted memo is connected to a project started in early 2024 by almost two dozen state AGOs to sue Donald Trump. The plan launched at least seven months before Trump was elected president. State attorneys general have sued the Trump Administration nearly 100 times since January 2025. The Center Square has recently reported that the coordinated effort appears to be done under the name “Project for Federal Accountability.”
In late June, The Center Square obtained a memo through a public records request that was entirely redacted on the basis of attorney-client privilege, common interest or joint defense protection, which pertains to pending or active litigation.
After an appeal in July, the AGO released a partially redacted version revealing that it had been written by the Rule of Law Working Group and sent to the Project for Federal Accountability Steering Committee on July 15, 2024.
However, the rest of the memo’s content, including the subject, were left redacted except two footnotes referencing news articles about President Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to have the Department of Justice prosecute Hillary Clinton during his first presidential term.
On Aug. 5 and the same day the partially redacted memo was obtained, The Center Square appealed the rest of the redactions, inquiring how the memo was attorney-client privileged, who were the members of the PFA Steering Committee and the Rule of Law Working Group were, and how they have an attorney-client privileged relationship.
On Aug. 5, The Center Square received a letter from Chief Transparency Council Morgan Damerow in which he wrote “the redactions are marked as Attorney Work Product Privilege – Common Interest or Joint Defense Protection – RCW 42.56.290 identified by the code [2e]. I have reviewed the redactions but have not removed any redactions.”
That same day, The Center Square emailed the AGO Public Records Office requesting a brief explanation for the redactions as required under RCW 42.56.210(3).
“(3) Agency responses refusing, in whole or in part, inspection of any public record shall include a statement of the specific exemption authorizing the withholding of the record (or part) and a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the record withheld.”
The Center Square has yet to receive a reply despite repeated requests for a brief explanation.
Erb also referenced a Municipal Research and Services Center guide to the Public Records Act which states “If a record is redacted or withheld in its entirety, the agency needs to identify the specific statute(s) authorizing redaction or withholding and provide a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the withheld record (RCW 42.56.210(3)). This identification is commonly done using an exemption log, but other methods are allowable as long as they meet the statutory requirement. This identification must provide sufficient explanatory information for requestors to determine whether the exemptions are properly invoked.”
The Center Square also reached out for comment to David Cuillier, Ph.D., the director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project, and co-director of the Brechner Center for Advancement of the First Amendment, at the University of Florida.
Cuillier wrote in an email that “I guess the question is whether the courts in Washington have clarified what that brief explanation should entail.”