National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters Washington, DC 20546-0001 January 16, 2020 Office of Communications Hart Wood 1030 15th Street NW Suite B255 Washington, DC 20005 foia@americanoversight.org FOIA: 19-HQ-F-00745 Dear Mr. Wood: This is in response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated and received at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters FOIA Office on August 30, 2019. Your request was assigned FOIA Case Number 19HQ-F-00745 and was for: (1) All email communications (including emails, email attachments, and calendar invitations) regardless of subject matter sent by (a) any of the employees listed in Column A below to (b) any of the individuals or entities listed in Column B below, including but not limited to at the email addresses and domains specified: Column A: Federal Employees • Director Jim Bridenstine Column B: Campaign Committees, Political Action Committees, Consultants, and Other Outside Organizations 2 • Anyone communicating on behalf of Director Bridenstine including executive assistants, personal assistants, or schedulers. • Chief of Staff Janet Karika • White House Liaison Jonathan William Dimock • Associate Administrator for Communications Bettina Inclan • Press Secretary Megan Powers • Senior White House Advisor Erik Noble • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • DonaldJ. Trump for President (@donaldtrump.com, @victory.donaldtrump.com, @trump.com, @donaldjtrump.com) Trump Make America Great Again Committee Trump Victory America First Action (@alapac.org, @prochcpas.com, @redprintstrategy.com) America First Policies ( @americafirstpolicies.org) Republican National Committee (@gop.com, @rnchq.com) Great America Committee (@greatamericacommittee) Great America PAC (@GreatAinericaPAC.com) Great America Alliance (@greatamericaalliance.com) 45 Committee (@45committee.com) Committee to Defend the President (@committeetodefendthepresident.com, dan@political.law, @dbcapitolstrategies.com) Brad Parscale Parscale Strategies (@parscaledigital.com, @gilesparscale.com, @parscale.com) Thomas (Tommy) Hicks William Stepien (wstepien@aol.com, wstepien 1 @aol.com) Linda McMahon (@wwe.com, @wwecorp.com, @mcmahonventures.com, @mcm06.com) Nick Ayers Gnayers@gmail.com, na@nickayers.com, nick@targetla.com) Rob Porter Stefan Passantino (spassantino@michaelbest.com, stefanpassantino@onebox.com) Hope Hicks Tim Murtaugh Kayleigh McEnany Ronna McDaniel (2) Please provide all responsive records for communications with all entities in column B except for Tim Murtaugh, Linda McMahon, Stefan Passantino, and Nick Ayers from June 1, 2018, to the date the search is conducted. (3) Please provide all responsive records for communications with Nick Ayers 3 outside of his tenure at the White House from February 19, 2019, to the date the search is conducted. (4) Please provide all responsive records for communications with Stefan Passantino outside of his tenure at The White House from August 31, 2019, to the date the search is conducted. (5) Please provide all responsive records for communications with Tim Murtaugh outside of his tenure at USDA from February 23, 2019, to the date the search is conducted. (6) Please provide all responsive records for communications with Linda McMahon outside of her tenure at SBA from April 13, 2019, to the date the search is conducted. In an effort to accommodate your agency and reduce the number of responsive records to be processed and produced, American Oversight has limited its request to emails sent by listed custodians. To be clear, however, American Oversight still requests that complete email chains be produced, displaying both the sent messages and the prior received messages in each email chain. This means, for example, that both an agency custodian's response to an email from a listed entity and the initial received message is responsive to this request and should be produced. In response to your request, a search was conducted by the NASA Headquarters Program Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), Division of the Information Technology Division (ITCD), using the information you provided in your FOIA request under “Column B.” The IT division searched the email accounts for the following individuals: Administrator James Bridenstine, Chief of Staff Janet Karika, White House Liaison Jonathan Dimock, and Associate Administrator for Communication Bettina Inclan, Press Secretary Megan Powers and Senior White House Advisor Erik Noble. Additionally, a search request was sent to Ms. Megan Wenrich, Mr. Bridenstine Executive Assistant, directing her to conduct a search of her emails using the information you provided in your FOIA request under “Column B.” The IT division informed this office that Mr. Noble’s and Ms. Powers’ accounts had been deleted after their departure from NASA. 1 However, the remaining individuals’ email was searched using the search terms in Column B of your FOIA request and that search located 2 pages using the search term “@donaldjtrump.com” to be responsive from Ms. Bettina Inclan’s email account. This two-page document is responsive to item one in your FOIA request. The search conducted by Ms. Wenrich, Mr. Bridenstine’s Executive Assistant, did not yield any responsive records. 1 At the time of Mr. Noble’s and Ms. Powers’ departures, email archives of most former agency employees were maintained for 30 days before being deleted. NASA HQ, however, recently underwent a system upgrade. As a result of this upgrade, all NASA HQ employee emails will now be maintained for at least seven years from the time an employee leaves the agency. 4 Since Mr. Noble’s and Ms. Powers’ accounts had been deleted, this office also reached out to the organizations in which each previously worked in NASA’s Office of the Administrator to determine if any emails responsive to your request were archived by the former personnel with their specific organizational office they supported upon their departures from NASA. This search consisted of contact with organizational representatives familiar with the personnel and recordkeeping practices of the particular organization. The Office of the Administrator where both of these individuals worked informed the FOIA Office that no responsive records were located as a result of these additional queries. We have reviewed the 2 pages found by NASA’s IT division under the FOIA to determine whether they may be accessed under the FOIA's provisions. Based on that review, this office is providing the following: Item 1: One Document located consisting of 2 pages (search term used @donaldjtrump.com) is being released in full. Item 2: No Records were located. Item 3: No Records were located. 2 Item 4: No Records were located. Item 5: No Records were located. Item 6: No Records were located. APPEAL RIGHTS You have the right to appeal my action on your FOIA request. Your appeal must be received within 90 calendar days of the date of this letter. Your appeal must be in writing and addressed to: Administrator NASA Headquarters Executive Secretariat MS 9R17 300 E Street, S.W. Washington, DC 20546 ATTN: FOIA Appeals The appeal should be marked, both on the envelope and the face of the appeal letter, with the legend "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION APPEAL." Your appeal should be accompanied by a copy of your original request, the 10-day extension 2 NASA IT division used the individuals’ names referenced in items 3-6 of your request as search terms. 5 letter, and this letter, along with a brief statement of the reasons why you believe this initial decision to be in error. You may contact Chief FOIA Public Liaison to obtain further assistance or seek dispute resolution services for any aspect of your request. You may also send correspondence to Ms. Fox at the following address: Chief FOIA Public Liaison Freedom of Information Act Office NASA Headquarters Attn: Ms. Stephanie Fox 300 E Street, S.W., 5P32 Washington D.C. 20546 Email: Stephanie.K.Fox@nasa.gov Telephone: 202-358-1553 Fax: 202-358-4331 Additionally, you may contact the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives and Records Administration to inquire about the FOIA dispute resolution services it offers. The contact information for OGIS is: Office of Government Information Services National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road-OGIS College Park, Maryland 20740-6001 Email: ogis@nara.gov Telephone: (202) 741-5770 Toll-free: 1-877-684-6448 Fax: (202) 741-5769 Important: Please note that contacting any agency official including the undersigned or NASA’s Principal FOIA Officer and/or OGIS referenced above is not an alternative to filing an administrative appeal and does not stop the 90-day appeal clock. We regret the delay and appreciate your consideration in this matter. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me at hq-foia@nasa.gov or 202-358-2462. Sincerely, Josephine Sibley Headquarters FOIA Public Liaison Officer RELEASED IN FULL 2 pages Megan Powers Reference From: Jacobs, Bob (HQ-NAO00) To: Beutel, Allard (HQ-NI00O) , Sent: February 19, 2019 9:11 :53 AM EST Received: February 19, 2019 9: 11 :53 AM EST Inclan, Bettina (HQ-NA000) Scroll down for Megan's new job ... ---- Foiwarded message ------- From : Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Date: Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 8:00 AM Subject: Donald J. Trump for President Announces New Staff Hires for the 2020 Campaign No Images? Click here - FEBRUARY 19 2019Donald J. Trump for President Announces New Staff Hires for the 2020 Campaign New additions include campaign communications, finance and administrative leadership Arlington, VA- Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. today announced senior leadership roles for the re-election campaign's communications, finance and administrative teams . Tim Murtaugh will serve as Director of Communications, joined by National Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Director of Strategic Communications Marc Lotter. This team will lay out the case for the President's record of leadership and accomplishment and help spread his message to the American people. Cole Blocker will join the campaign to serve as Director of Finance, and Megan Powers will serve as Director of Administrative Operations. "These hires are the next step toward building a national campaign infrastructure with state-of-the-art communications and fundraising tactics, innovative use of social media and a nationwide army of surrogates and small dollar donors," said campaign manager Brad Parscale. "Together, we will spread the President's message far and wide and hold Democrat presidential candidates accountable for their extreme agenda ." BIOS Tim Murtaugh, Director of Communications Tim Murtaugh will oversee the campaign's communications, building a team to oversee message strategy and planning, regional communications, contrast messaging and rapid response. He joins the campaign after two years as Director of Communications for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 60-person communications team, working daily with Secretary Sonny Perdue . Murtaugh has worked for decades in state and national politics, in senior roles at the Republican National Committee, Republican Governors Association, and numerous political campaigns. He also served as Communications Director for Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA} and Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Murtaugh cut his teeth as a Virginia news reporter, before serving as Press Megan Powers Reference NASA-19-1092-A-000001 Secretary for George Allen's successful 2000 Senate campaign and as Communications Director for Virginia Attorney General J.erry Kilgore. Kayleigh McEnany, National Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany will serve as National Press Secretary, coming to the campaign after serving as National Spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. A frequent guest on national television, McEnany was a CNN political contributor, columnist for Above The Law, and has written for various publications spanning the news spectrum, from Newsmax to CNN.com. McEnany graduated from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service with a BSFS in International Politics. She also studied politics and international relations at Oxford University, St. Edmund Hall. She recently authored the book The New American Revolution: The Making of a Populist Movement. Marc Lotter, Director of Strategic Communications Marc Lotter will serve as a campaign surrogate, build support for the President's message and grow the largest grassroots and national surrogate team in political. history. Lotter served as a Special Assistant to the President and Press Secretary to Vice President Mike Pence during the first year of the Trump Administration. Prior to joining the administration, he served as Press Secretary to the Vice President during the 2016 presidential campaign and transition. A frequent surrogate for the White House on national and cable news shows, Lotter worked in top communications roles in Indiana State and local government for years, following a 13-year career as an award-winning producer and manager for television stations across the country . Cole Blocker, Director of Finance Cole Blocker will focus on building a nationwide fundraising organization to support the campaign and its joint fundraising efforts with the Republican National Committee. Blocker joins the campaign from the White House, where he served in the East Wing as the Deputy Director of the White House Visitor's Office, which oversaw official White House events, such as the Easter Egg Roll, attended by President Trump, Vice President Pence and other government officials. During the 2016 campaign, Blocker supported now Ambassador Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV in his role as Finance Vice Chairman for Trump Victory 2016, planning and executing finance events across the country. Blocker is a graduate of Southern Methodist University. Megan Powers, Director of Administrative Operations Megan Powers will work on campaign operations, joining the efforts of Chief Operations Officer Michael Glassner. She joins the campaign from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where she served as Senior Adviser and Press Secretary. Prior to her tenure at NASA, Powers served as Senior Lead Press Representative for the White House, organizing logistics for the press pool during the President's domestic travel. Powers was among the first officials to join the President's nascent campaign in May 2015, serving as National Campaign Coordinator and Press Advance Lead for events throughout the country, and or~anizing operations for the campaign's NewYork City headquarters. Powers is a graduate of New York University. Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. 725 5th Avenue· New York, NY· 10022 info@donaldtrump.com Preferences I Unsubscribe Megan Powers Reference NASA-19-1092-A-000002