- Hey, LegalEagles. It's true, a little while ago, this YouTube channel did in fact file suit against the White House, the CIA, the DOJ, the Department of State, and a whole bunch of
other government agencies. On Twitter and YouTube, I asked for the questions that you had about this particular lawsuit
and you did not disappoint. I got over 2000 questions
about this ongoing suit. And since this is a great opportunity to take you guys along for the ride, I thought I would try and answer some of the most common questions that you had about this lawsuit. Now I'll start off by answering one of the most common questions, which is why? And I think that the point of this lawsuit was misunderstood by a lot of people. The point of this lawsuit is
governmental transparency, which I dare to say I think most people should be in favor of more
governmental transparency. Especially into a part
of government review that is not particularly well known, and is famously opaque. And that is the
prepublication review process for people that have
classified information and then want to write a book. And famously, this is
something that governments don't want people to know very much about. And under the circumstances, it really looks like there
were some political shenanigans that got in the way of
John Bolton being able to publish one or more
different manuscripts of his book for political reasons, not for national security reasons. And a suit like this only works when the government does
something that it shouldn't, that it prevents a former
government official from being able to disclose information that he or she should be able to disclose. If the government had upheld the standards of prepublication review, the lawsuit wouldn't have anywhere to go. Because everything would have
been properly classified. Given what we know, it seems that that is incredibly unlikely, and that some things were
prohibited from being disclosed that really shouldn't have been. And a lot of people also misunderstood what we are trying to accomplish here. Which is that remember, John Bolton submitted
an original manuscript of his book to the government, then they went through
a whole process saying what he could and could not publish. And then they said he was okay to publish, and then reneged on that agreement when a political appointee came in after the career administrator
said that the book was clear to go. So the point of the FOIA requests is not seeking the book that
has already been published, but going towards the original book that John Bolton wanted to publish, even before the initial
prepublication review. And on top of that, we're also looking for the communications amongst the government officials, in terms of what considerations
were they thinking about when they said John Bolton could and could not publish things. Is their correspondence
with Michael Ellis, the political appointee, saying that John Bolton
couldn't publish his book for political reasons? And then of course,
there's the question of what standards if any
did they use to decide whether John Bolton can publish
the information in his book? So we're seeking a lot of
different kinds of documents and not just the book that was published? But the original book that
John Bolton wanted to publish. And the correspondence about the prepublication review process. And what standards if any they were using. And even if the government
didn't disclose anything other than explaining
who did the redactions of John Bolton's book, even that would be incredibly
important information to get a glimpse into
whether the redactions were correct or not. And on top of that, when the US government
responds to a FOIA request, they have to provide way more specificity than they do when they're conducting the prepublication review process. In pre-pub review, they
can basically say remove this information and not
really give you a reason why. When responding to FOIA, they have to tell us if they
were removing information because it was classified
or for some other reason. So even getting those
responses would be a win, because if they told John Bolton that they were removing things
because it was classified. And then tell us and their FOIA requests that the information wasn't classified. Well, then we know that
there were real shenanigans going on in the
prepublication review process in a way that absolutely
should not happen. And this particular suit
on behalf of LegalEagle, it's not entirely new. We're standing on the
shoulders of some real giants in the world of FOIA and
governmental transparency. Organizations like CREW, MuckRock, Judicial Watch back in the day. All of these organizations are the real unsung heroes of FOIA, and are really the ones
that are working every day to disclose things that the US government doesn't want people to see. So we are following in the trail that they have already blazed. And we're indebted to
those kind of organizations that are working every day to further governmental transparency. Now, this particular lawsuit is different for some reasons that we will talk about, and there's some interesting
implications of it. But with that being said, let's dive into all of
your particular questions about this lawsuit. Okay, so one of the most
popular questions I got is a variation of this
question that was asked by user Agma Schwa, who asks. How much does it cost to sue
something like the White House? Now, when you're talking about lawsuits, there are generally two big
things that cost the most. And they're divided into costs and fees. Costs are things like how much
it costs to file the lawsuit. How much it costs to do the
various transactional things like have a court reporter. And then there are the
the much bigger things that are called fees. And that generally refers
to how much it costs for your lawyer. And in the absence of
a fee shifting statute, You gotta pay for your own lawyer. In this particular case, it costs $400 to file a federal lawsuit. That's pretty standard. Then it'll cost probably
a few thousand dollars in terms of other filing fees and things related to court reporters and stenographers for
depositions if we get there. Which for reasons we won't
go into, we probably won't. So on the order in terms
of the actual raw fees you're talking several thousand dollars. Then when you're talking about attorneys, believe it or not in Washington DC probably an average cost of
an attorney is $500 an hour. They're really, really
good big firm attorneys, you're probably talking about
1000, 1200 dollars an hour. So for the kind of things
that you're talking about in this litigation it's
gonna cost definitely a few hundred hours of attorney time. So you guys can do the math on that. So obviously, the big X factor is how many hours of the attorneys time are you going to need to be able to propound something like this. And you know, on the very minimum, you're talking tens of
thousands of dollars of attorney time, and it could be hundreds
of thousands of dollars of attorney time if you're talking about taking this on appeal. Which is particularly
likely in a case like this. So yeah, lawyers and
lawsuits, very expensive. Which takes us to the next question by a user named his Ispirov Junior. Question, have any suits against the White House
succeeded in the past, and if so, how frequently
does this happen? So actually, I can point you
to one very recent example of pretty similar lawsuits
that was very, very successful. And there is a journalist at BuzzFeed whose name is Jason Leopold, who has done a lot of great stuff related to the Mueller report. And recently, Mr. Leopold
filed a FOIA request and then a FOIA lawsuit to
enforce his FOIA requests. To try and get the
unredacted Mueller report. And as a result, lots of the portions of the original Mueller
report were revealed. And further portions of the Mueller report were shown with more specificity as to why they were
redacted and not revealed. So that is an example of
a successful similar suit that as a result of Jason
Leopold and BuzzFeed, we now know a lot more about
the original Mueller report. We don't know everything, but we do know that large
portions were redacted when they probably shouldn't have been. And he's gonna continue we'll probably get even more portions of the Mueller report. And in terms of successful and
how often they're successful. Well, it depends on on what you mean. In terms of getting some of the previous redacted information and
getting more specificity as to why other things were
redacted in the first place, happens pretty frequently. It's rare that you get all of
the documents that you want. But in terms of holding the
government's feet to the fire and getting more information, which is part of the reason
for this particular suit, it happens with some regularity. Okay, user JLdaydream asks, since you've sued the White House, are you actually allowed
to comment on this as it's now an ongoing case? That is a very good question. As we've talked about
a lot on this channel, it's really, really bad
idea for most people to go out and talk about
ongoing litigation. That being said, this video will be approved. (beep) So the odds of me saying something that are incredibly prejudicial to my case are probably pretty low. But this is an example of
do as I say, not as I do. If you find yourself in
litigation or lawsuit or in trouble with the government, best to let your lawyers
handle everything. But also by the same token, don't take legal advice from a YouTube channel. #notlegaladvice. Alright, user tragic solitude asks, how difficult is it to sue something as big as entire departments
of the government? Well, it's not the easiest
thing in the world. Alright, so user justApoet asks, so is this the same as suing
the United States government, Or is the White House in this
context and entity of its own? That's a great question. We are suing several different agencies and entities within the government. So when I say the White House, I'm actually referring to a
couple of different departments. And primarily, we are suing
the National Security Council, which John Bolton was the head of. He was the national security adviser. That is one of the large portions. We're also suing other
agencies within the government that probably had access
to John Bolton's book, and might have participated in the prepublication review process. And so that's why we're
suing entities like the CIA, and the Department of Justice, and a whole bunch of other entities. So I refer to that generally
as the white house, but we're actually suing a
bunch of different entities all because they play different roles with respect to this scenario. Okay, next question is 1 SwedishFish. Ah, too bad you only
have one Swedish fish, Swedish fish are great. How long do you think this
whole ordeal will last? So this lawsuit is going to
take several different forms. And over time, different
things will be adjudicated. And the first thing that we have to do is make sure that
LegalEagle's FOIA requests, the original ones are entitled to what's called expedited review. Because for among other things, this information about John Bolton's book and the process that happened and the information that
he was trying to divulge are really important. It was presumably part and parcel to the whole impeachment saga, and it could be very well relevant to the election in November. So the FOIA requests themselves
need to be adjudicated, to be expedited. So that they can be processed
in a much quicker way. So in terms of getting a court to order that these requests are indeed related to a compelling interest and are entitled to expedited review, that could be on the
order of a few months. And then we get into the
substantive responses to the FOIA requests, which include more information about the prepublication review, what happened in terms of
the political concerns. And then, of course, the responses regarding John Bolton's book in the first place. So that will probably take much longer. That you're probably looking
to six months to a year. And there are some legal issues here that may require the court
of appeals to weigh in here. So you're definitely
looking at a multi-month, multi-year even process with
respect to all this stuff. So it's gonna be a long, long process. Okay, so that brings us to
user Just Kas, who asks, What would be the worst possible outcome that you'll face moving forward with this? Well, other than being
suicided by the CIA, there were so many comments
that people were like. Oh man, it's gonna be terrible when LegalEagle commits suicide by being shot twice in
the back of the head. We've got some definitely some
gallows humor going on here. Putting that aside, really, it's that this is just gonna take a really, really long time. And that the information that we're able to get the government to disclose is minimal. We're gonna fight like hell to make sure that that doesn't happen. We have some legal issues with respect to the
National Security Council. I think we'll be able to overcome those. But it's possible that court of appeals might disagree with us, but that's one of the reasons why there are other government entities here. Because some of the concerns
with respect to the NSC don't really apply to the other
governmental agencies here. And so we should be able to get
some information eventually. It's just gonna take a
really, really long time. And actually now is a great time to thank all of you out there. The outpouring of support
regarding my first videos when we we broached the the
lawsuit was astonishing. And we're still getting
the preliminary numbers in, but the outpouring of the
donations to the nonprofit's, the National Security Counselors who are handling the nuts
and bolts of this litigation was amazing. And I can't divulge
all of the information. But I can say that
because of your support, this will not be a one
off piece of litigation. We will go forward in the future with other lawsuits related
to governmental transparency. And I wanna make it clear, the donations that everyone made to the National Security Counselors through Democracy Engine, none of that goes to me personally, or to LegalEagle, the company, that all goes to the nonprofit the National Security Counselors who are committed to
governmental transparency. And this will not be a
one off collaboration, we are going to make sure
that we do some other stuff in the future. So you know, if you guys have any ideas about other things that we can do in the name of governmental transparency, let us know because we're gonna be working together in the future. Okay, so a user whose username is just a seemingly random
series of letters asks, what does the Central Intelligence Agency have to do with this? This sounds like more of an FBI matter? Well, that is a great question. With respect to John Bolton. Remember, he was the
National Security Adviser. So he was privy to a lot
of different information, and worked with a lot of
different governmental agencies. And the thing about the
prepublication review process is that when there is
sensitive information, or potentially classified information, or potentially prohibited information, instead of having one
agency do the review, you often give the source material to a bunch of different
agencies that are responsible for that particular thing. When he submitted his
book to the government, the National Security Council
for prepublication review, the NSC probably gave that
book to other agencies so they can do their own
review, including the CIA. So that is one of the
reasons why we have sued all these different agencies. Is because they had access
to the book, presumably. And they are subject to FOIA. And we wanna know what concerns they had, what they told John Bolton to remove, and what they said he could not publish. So that's why in this particular case, the CIA and not the FBI
is the particular agency to get FOIA-ied in this particular case. Okay, let's see user
Elizabeth Henning asks, this seems like the kind
of lawsuit newspapers file when their FOIA requests
are ignored or denied and this is a matter of
considerable national interest. Are any press outlets
joining you in the suit? So Elizabeth, you're absolutely right on, this is exactly that kind of suit. And there are other organizations that do this kind of thing all the time. In particular, one I'm particularly
fond of is called CREW. It's the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. They do a great job of
really getting to the heart of important matters, FOIA-ing them and being capable
of taking those to court. To be able to enforce their FOIA requests. So if you believe in the mission of governmental transparency, and you believe in the mission
of this particular lawsuit, I would highly recommend
checking out Crew and MuckRock, they do this kind of thing all the time. This lawsuit is different, I hinted at that before. Because we're taking the the NSC, the National Security Council head on. Which is something that a
lot of these organizations aren't willing to do for various reasons. We think this particular incidence with John Bolton especially
given the impeachment saga and now John Bolton's book, and potentially the election in November, incredibly important. And so we're willing to put in the time and go further with this lawsuit than often some organizations are. Some for very good reasons, but we wholeheartedly
believe in the mission of those other organizations
in fighting corruption that you need transparency
from the government. Especially when things are this important and the stakes are so high. Alright, so that takes me to user Rockery, which asks How do you even
subpoena a government agency? Like who do you send notices to? I wanted to answer this question, because that has been such a huge saga. There are procedures
for this kind of thing. But given that we live not only in a world where it's hard to sue the government and to be able to serve process. So we haven't served subpoenas
so much as FOIA requests and then serving process of the complaint on these government agencies. But also we're dealing with COVID, and everyone's working from home. The shenanigans that the
various government agencies have been pulling with respect
to not accepting service of things that they absolutely should be accepting service on. Changing their addresses, saying that we need to send
notices to different people. Not accepting the mail, like the US Post Office is
having a hard time getting a hold of these various agencies. It's been a mess, and it's
been sort of hilarious and maybe this is just the sort of thing that lawyers who are totally
wonks about this thing, find interesting. But it's been a crapshoot, and it's been a whole thing. I can't wait to tell you
about it at some point. (laughing) Alright, and then finally, user Paulo Emmanuel Tavares asks, given how politically
charged your case is, do you think that the courts
might delay the decision until after the election? So I sort of dispute the fact that this is a politically charged case. This is about governmental transparency. I think everyone on
both sides of the aisle thinks that's John Bolton's information is probably pretty important. And if the government did everything right and wasn't playing games
with classified information, then that's important to know. And we can take faith in the government conducting
prepublication review. If it turns out that's not the case that perhaps we should
support John Bolton, and we should be really, really mad that the government
censored his information if it was for political reasons. So it doesn't seem like
governmental transparency should be a political issue. In terms of how the judiciary
is going to react to this. I don't think they're going
to care one way or the other. Federal judges are very, very independent. Federal judges, especially
at the district court level are really just umpires. They apply the law to the facts, and the law is pretty cut and dry. So I would not be particularly concerned about any particular federal
judge playing political games in this particular case. Now, that being said, I can't thank the National
Security Counselors enough for handling the lion's
share of this litigation. But I do need to spill some legal tea. Because one of the biggest questions I got is why is the website for the
national Security Counselors so terrible. So many of you donated to them, but also left admittedly
accurate snarky comments about their particular website. They are great lawyers, but their website needs work
and they're working on it. Now when I need a new
domain for a website. I go to Hover and maybe
we should just scrap the old NSC website and
create a specialty website like suethewhitehouse.com
or release the Bolton card. And if we do, we'll go to Hover because that's the best
place on the internet to get yourself a domain name. In part because they have
over 400 domain extensions to choose from. Ranging from.com to.io,
.me to .ninja and .pizza. And one of the great things about Hover is that they have lots of domains that you wouldn't normally think of. For example, I got
legaleagle.tv from Hover. And while I haven't set
up that website yet, at least I have that domain ready to go when I'm ready to create
a website for that. And I did actually set up a website called legaleagleprep.com. For the website that I have
that helps law students. And it's super easy to
buy a domain on Hover, there are no annoying upsells no pop-ups. And if you have an account like I do, you can get another domain
in less than 30 seconds, or just check to see if the website of your dreams is available. And once you've set up
your own personal domain, Hover also has the tools to set up a professional email address as well, because you never wanna be that lawyer that uses an AOL or
Earthlink email address. Don't be like Steven Biss. And you can also use
Hover's connect feature to easily hook up that
domain to website builders like SquareSpace, Wix and Shopify. Of course the best part is that if you go over to
hover.comm/legaleagle, which we'll find in the description below, you'll get 10% off of your
first domain purchase. Again, all you have to do is
go to hover.com/legaleagle, or click on the link in the description to get 10% off your first domain. Plus clicking on that link
really helps out this channel. So do you have other questions
about the Bolton lawsuit? Leave your questions in the comments and check out this playlist over here with all of my other legal
videos and legal reactions. So click on this playlist
and I'll see you in court
