# 2026-05 Governor's Office Blanket FOIA Exemption On 2026-05-21, the Office of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the data-center FOIA request by withholding all potentially responsive records under the Arkansas FOIA's gubernatorial-working-papers exemption. ## Sources This is a FOIA-correspondence event; its record lives in Gmail, not in `raw/`. - Response email "Response: FOIA request - 5.19.26", from [email protected], 2026-05-21 ([thread](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/19e4ca0df5bd4f2c)). - Original request of 2026-05-19, delivered as a resend after the first address bounced. ## What happened The Governor's Office answered the request item by item: - **Items 1–4 and 6** (external correspondence with developers; correspondence with state agencies; calendars and meeting records; distributed briefing materials; visitor logs): *"Any existing records responsive to this request are exempt from disclosure from the Governor's Office pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. § 25-19-105(b)(7)"* — the exemption for "unpublished memoranda, working papers, and correspondence of the Governor" — citing *Bryant v. Mars*, 309 Ark. 480, 830 S.W.2d 869 (1992). - **Item 5** (press releases and press inquiries): *"No responsive records."* - **Item 7** (travel records): *"No responsive records,"* adding that any such records would also be exempt under § 25-19-105(b)(7). The Office produced **zero documents**. On item 2 it added: *"Please feel free to direct this request to the entities you have listed for any responsive records they may possess."* ## Significance The Governor's Office invoked § 25-19-105(b)(7) as a blanket withholding across every category of correspondence, scheduling, and briefing material relating to the hyperscale data-center buildout — including external correspondence with private developers. The request had been narrowed in advance to categories its drafter argued fall outside that exemption — external correspondence with non-state parties, finalized/distributed records, scheduling and visitor records, and records merely transmitted to or from other agencies. The response does not engage those narrowing arguments and provides no document-by-document withholding log. > [!web-research-unresolved] Whether a blanket § 25-19-105(b)(7) assertion covering external correspondence with private parties survives the narrowing arguments raised in the request is an open legal question and a candidate for a FOIA appeal or follow-up.