The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been accused of omitting more crypto-related “pause letters” it sent to banks in an ongoing Coinbase-backed Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
In a Jan. 17 status report to a Washington, DC, federal court, History Associates said the FDIC “may have omitted additional pause letters entirely” and that it plans to update its lawsuit with new allegations.
The firm claimed that “public whistleblower allegations have surfaced” that alleged the agency “systematically thwarts FOIA requests,” which it said resulted in the FDIC failing to hand over at least 150 documents related to its FOIA request.
The 25 FDIC letters that were shared seemingly advised financial institutions to halt their crypto operations until the agency completed regulatory reviews as part of what the crypto industry believes was a concerted effort to cut off crypto-related firms from banking services dubbed “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”
Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said in a Jan. 16 statement posted on X that the suit asked for all pause letters that the Office of Inspector General identified.
However, he alleges that FDIC limited “their search for pause letters to only those contained in the report — so other pause letters may exist.”
“When we asked them to fix their supposed reasonable interpretation and stop playing word games, they told us it would take at least a year,” Grewal added.
The FDIC argued in its Jan. 17 status report that it has complied with the FOIA request by producing all relevant documents and conducted the necessary search of letters shared with the FDIC Office of Inspector General between March 2022 and May 2023.
The government agency says History Associates has no “reasonable basis” to believe that any letters outside this report and timeframe were covered under the original FOIA request.
The FDIC added that it is reviewing the request for letters outside these parameters “as a separate FOIA request that it would review on an expedited basis.”
In a Jan. 16 letter, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis warned the FDIC that if the allegations of destroyed documents and obstructing the investigation were true, criminal referrals to the Department of Justice would follow.
Related: Coinbase sues SEC, FDIC over FOIA noncompliance
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong initially filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain letters sent by the FDIC in 2022 asking banks to pause crypto-related activities.
The FDIC sent the Coinbase executive heavily redacted versions of the letters — prompting Judge Ana Reyes to order the agency to produce more transparent documents.
Coinbase hired History Associates Incorporated to submit a FOIA request to the FDIC, which was denied and resulted in legal action to obtain the letters.
Magazine: BTC’s ‘reasonable’ $180K target, NFTs plunge in 2024, and more: Hodler’s Digest Jan 12 – 18
