February 20, 2020
VIA U.S. FIRST CLASS MAIL
Jared Kushner
Senior Advisor to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Kushner:
Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that President Trump has established a task force of
external advisors to provide advice and recommendations regarding reformation of the pardon
process as well as the evaluation of particular candidates for pardons.1 According to that story, the
President established this “team of advisers to recommend and vet candidates for pardons” and the
task force “has been meeting since late last year to discuss a revamped pardon system in the White
House.”
You reportedly have been “taking a leading role in the new clemency initiative,” which “represents
an attempt to establish a more organized way for making clemency decisions.” In addition to
yourself, Ja’Ron Smith, and Pam Bondi, this task force reportedly is made up of a number of private
parties who are not federal employees, including, among others, Alice Johnson; former acting
attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker; Democratic commentator Van Jones; Paul Larkin, a research
fellow at the Heritage Foundation; and Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney in Utah. We write to
you in your capacity as the official reportedly coordinating or chairing this task force.
As you are undoubtedly aware, Congress has imposed certain legal requirements when the
president or agency officials establish or utilize an advisory committee that includes members who
are not part of the federal government.2 With certain limited exceptions not applicable here, the
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requires such advisory committees to hold their
deliberations in public, to make their working papers available for public inspection, and to have a
membership that is fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented.3 In addition, FACA
imposes a number of procedural requirements, including that the advisory committee file a charter

 
See Toluse Olorunnipa et al., White House Assembles Team of Advisers to Guide Clemency Process as Trump
Considers More Pardons, WASH. POST (Feb. 19, 2020, 8:57 PM),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-assembles-team-of-advisers-to-guideclemency-process-as-trump-considers-more-pardons/2020/02/19/752d04d2-532e-11ea-929a64efa7482a77_story.html.
2 See 5 U.S.C. App. § 3.
3 Id. §§ 5, 10.
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1030 15th Street NW, Suite B255, Washington, DC 20005   AmericanOversight.org

 with the Administrator of the General Services Administration before conducting business,
maintain minutes of every meeting, and provide the public advance notice and an opportunity to
participate in any meeting of the committee.4
Specifically, FACA requires that:
the records, reports, transcripts, minutes, appendixes, working
papers, drafts, studies, agenda or other documents which were made
available to or prepared for or by each advisory committee shall be
available for public inspection and copying at a single location in the
office of the advisory committee or the agency to which the advisory
committee reports until the advisory committee ceases to exist.5
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reiterated the right of public inspection when it held as follows:
[U]nder section 10(b) of FACA an agency is generally obligated to
make available for public inspection and copying all materials that
were made available to or prepared for or by an advisory committee.
Except with respect to those materials that the agency reasonably
claims to be exempt from disclosure pursuant to FOIA, a member of
the public need not request disclosure in order for FACA 10(b)
materials to be made available. Thus, whenever practicable, all 10(b)
materials must be available for public inspection and copying before
or on the date of the advisory committee meeting to which they
apply.6
It appears that the presidential task force regarding pardons and the pardon process has failed to
comply with these applicable legal requirements. We would like to inspect all records prepared by
or made available to task force members in connection with any meetings held by the task force
since it was established. In addition, please be advised that the task force should not conduct any
further business without complying with the public notice and access requirements provided by
FACA.
Please have an appropriate employee promptly contact Sara Creighton at
foia@americanoversight.org or 202.869.5245 to coordinate making arrangements for our inspection
of the task force records as soon as possible in order to ensure that we are able to complete our
inspection and any related copying. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

 
Id. §§ 9, 10.
5 Id. § 10(b).
6 Memo. for Comm. Mgmt. Officers from James L. Dean, Dir., Comm. Mgmt. Secretariat
(Mar. 14, 2000), https://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100785 (quoting Food Chem. News v. Dep’t of
Health & Human Servs., 980 F.2d 1468, 1469 (D.C. Cir. 1992)).
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 Sincerely,

Austin Evers
Executive Director
American Oversight

CC:

Pat Cipollone
White House Counsel
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Emily W. Murphy
Administrator, U.S. General Services Administration
1800 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

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