The DC Attorney General’s office (OAG) sued the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its foundation (the Foundation), alleging that the Foundation violated District laws by allowing charitable funds to be used for noncharitable purposes, failing to operate independently, and placing the NRA’s interests ahead of its own charitable purposes. The NRA and the Foundation sought to depose both the attorney general and a document custodian for OAG, seeking information related to OAG’s “coordination” with the Office of the Attorney General New York as well as “the identities of witnesses, the basis for the District’s allegations against Defendants, and information relating to the manner and content of documents produced to the OAG.”
OAG argued that the attorney general is a high-ranking official and the chief legal officer overseeing the litigating attorneys in this civil enforcement action. OAG is the chief law enforcement agency of the District of Columbia, so any designee would be required to testify about attorney work product or privileged information, including “facts gathered to prosecute this matter [which] would reveal the litigating attorneys’ strategy and mental impressions of the investigation and the case overall.”
The court held that the Attorney General could not be deposed.
The NRA’s assertions that Mr. Racine has personal knowledge of the facts in this matter due to his social media postings and communications with the Office of Attorney General for New York are not convincing and well outside the scope of discovery related to the claims alleged in this case. Whether Mr. Racine has knowledge about the extent OAG coordinated with New York officials and any political motives are irrelevant to the claims alleged in the Complaint or any potential defenses. Most importantly, as Mr. Racine has the power to control and intervene in all legal proceedings in the District of Columbia, he is considered the NRA’s opposing counsel in this matter.
With respect to the deposition of a records custodian for OAG, the court held that the information sought by the defendants could “most simply be resolved by allowing discovery to continue in its natural course.” The court stated,
Additionally, the potential for disclosure of privileged information and attorney work product is substantial. The Court is not convinced that questions about the District’s investigation of this matter can be appropriately limited to prevent the disclosure of the attorneys’ legal strategies and mental impressions. As there is ample reason to suggest that the District may be harmed from Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of a representative of the OAG, the deposition may not proceed.
D.C. v. NRA Foundation, 2022 D.C. Super. LEXIS 26 (D.C. Super. Apr. 28, 2022)
