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President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Elon Musk in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, May 30, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
The Trump administration is accused of breaching the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by withholding documents concerning an “election denialist” appointed by the Department of Homeland Security during the summer, as claimed by a transparency watchdog group.
American Oversight, a group dedicated to government accountability, has filed a 17-page complaint on Thursday. The complaint alleges that the federal government has consistently ignored FOIA requests for information about Heather Honey, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elections Integrity.
This lawsuit follows a recent article in The New York Times, which discusses remarks Honey reportedly made during a conference call with election officials from every state, organized by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
According to American Oversight, Honey’s comments during this call mirrored “rhetoric long associated with baseless claims of widespread voter fraud,” as stated in a press release announcing their legal action.
Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight, expressed in a statement, “The public has a right to understand how a known election conspiracy theorist was tasked with protecting our nation’s election systems. DHS and its leaders must foster public trust in our elections, not conceal the actions of officials spreading the falsehoods that led to the January 6 insurrection. Transparency regarding Heather Honey’s appointment and actions is crucial to uncovering who this administration is entrusting with election oversight — as it may indicate how they plan to handle and possibly compromise the security of upcoming elections.”
Honey’s prior activism is a focal point of the groups concerns.
The lawsuit cites an Associated Press report that describes Honey as a “conservative election researcher whose faulty findings on voter data were cited by President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn his 2020 election loss.” That report also notes the DHS position she now holds is a new one recently created by the Trump administration.
The filing goes on to quote from each aforementioned news article:
After the 2020 presidential election, Honey’s “election research misrepresented incomplete state voter data to falsely claim that Pennsylvania had more votes reported than voters,” and Honey was “involved in the Arizona Senate’s partisan audit of election results” that was “described by experts as riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology.”
In September, Deputy Assistant Secretary Honey spoke to election officials from across the country, who were left “alarmed,” “confused,” and “anxious” by her “echo[ing] rhetoric that has infused the right-wing election activist movement that emerged since President Trump falsely claimed that his 2020 defeat was the result of widespread fraud.”
Filed in Washington, D.C., federal district court, the complaint alleges the federal government withheld records related to Honey’s hiring, communications, and calendar. The lawsuit also alleges two broader FOIA requests submitted to DHS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – which mentioned Honey by name among many other inquiries – were essentially ignored as well.
Each of those FOIA requests were made on Sept. 16, and acknowledged in the days to come by each relevant records custodian, according to the lawsuit. After each agency exercised its right to invoke a 10-day extension, however, American Oversight says they have “received no further communication” regarding the requests.
“As of the date of this Complaint, Defendants have failed to (a) notify American Oversight of final determinations regarding American Oversight’s FOIA requests, including the scope of responsive records Defendants intend to produce or withhold and the reasons for any withholdings; or (b) produce the requested records or demonstrate that the requested records are lawfully exempt from production,” the lawsuit reads. “Through Defendants’ failure to respond to American Oversight’s FOIA requests within the time period required by law, American Oversight has constructively exhausted its administrative remedies and seeks immediate judicial review.”
The lawsuit is premised on two discrete claims – an alleged failure to conduct adequate searches for responsive records, and the alleged wrongful withholding of non-exempt responsive records.
The plaintiffs are asking the judge to order the agency defendants “to conduct a search or searches reasonably calculated to uncover all records responsive to American Oversight’s FOIA requests” and to then produce such records within 20 days of such a would-be court order. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction barring the government from withholding any such records.