I’ve been thinking about the Flynn case and the slow-walking document releases and although I can’t pinpoint the exact cause/reason, here’s some real life background on how FOIAs/lawsuits work in federal agencies (from a low-end peon’s involvement):
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Federal agencies have their own lawyers. They are there to protect the agency. Period.
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When a FOIA request/litigation comes in, a team is immediately assembled which is made up of records management, subject matter experts(SMEs- those involved directly with the request), lawyers, and the agency director is notified (but doesn’t typically participate in the meetings but then the ones I attended weren’t as controversial as Flynn’s case).
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A strategy is worked out where words are parsed (particularly if it’s sensitive i.e. embarrassing to the agency) so they can ignore aspects of requested information. (Side note- that’s why one should include the phrase “any and all documents”in FOIA requests).
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Once they find wiggle room in the request, documents are searched on the key words/date ranges specified by the lawyers and SME’s. This is where certain things can be disengeniously excluded as not part of the request. Another go to favorite is “non responsive” (fully redacted). If they don’t find wiggle room, you see things like the Glomar response (neither confirm nor deny).
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Documents are then gathered and reviewed/redacted by the SMEs and lawyers until they are confident that info they don’t want getting out doesn’t.
In Flynn’s case, the SME’s are suspects so I would rule them out of the slow walking process. That leaves the lawyers at the top of the list and then the Director (depending on how involved he is in the process. Typically, the Director is sent weekly updates on ongoing cases and doesn’t get involved, but this is high profile so possibly different). With the mess this is, there is also an outlier (but very real) possibility of horrible record keeping contributing to the problem.
Sorry for rambling, but trying to use process of elimination to determine where the DS is embedded. After writing this out, my money is on either the lawyers or (purposefully or not) shoddy record keeping.