I’m suing the government for covering up its plans to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
How I Got Here
After President Joe Biden signed a 2022 executive order instructing the government to research and develop a CBDC, nearly every agency responded with public reports. The one outlier was the Department of Justice (DOJ), which chose to withhold its legislative analysis from public view. In fact, they didn’t even share it with Congress.
As both a researcher and a citizen, it pained me to learn that this plan was being kept hidden. It would be one thing if the information in question concerned sensitive matters, such as the location of witnesses in ongoing cases or the details of undercover agents. However, the DOJ was simply asked to explain “whether legislative changes would be necessary to issue a United States CBDC” and to provide “a corresponding legislative proposal.” That’s it.
Not one to be deterred, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in November of 2022 to unearth the plans.
The DOJ quickly denied my request for expedited processing, arguing that it would take additional time to process it due to “unusual circumstances.” Two months went by before I followed up. At this point, the DOJ said that it was still looking for the documents. While a relief at first, the DOJ then told me it would probably be around 500 days before they could help me. Those days came and went.
I followed up again (and again) in 2024 until I learned that they had found the documents. At this point (July 2024), they just needed time for a specialist to review the documents for sensitive information. While I was skeptical that any sensitive information would be included in a legislative analysis, I understood that there is a process. What I didn’t understand was just how long that would take.
It wasn’t until April 2025 that I received the next response. Although the timeline was not ideal, I hoped that the change in administration would increase the likelihood that my request would be granted. After all, President Donald Trump spares no expense to go after his political enemies, and he has openly been against the creation of a CBDC.
I was wrong.
Citing attorney-client privileges, the DOJ said it was now denying my FOIA request. Naturally, I appealed the decision, but it was denied in September 2025. I was told that revealing the Biden administration’s plan to create a CBDC “would harm the interests… protected by the deliberative process privilege and the attorney-client privilege.”
What the DOJ might not have known, however, is that Cato’s Patrick Eddington is just a few doors down from my office. Eddington is a force to be reckoned with in the world of FOIA requests. He has unearthed more government secrets than I can count, and he was happy to help me make this Cato’s next FOIA lawsuit.
Conclusion
What happens next is an open question. Taking matters to the courts is never a guarantee. However, we will see this issue to the end.
Given how the rise of CBDCs has increasingly become a public concern, the American people deserve to know what the DOJ and the White House think needs to be done to create a CBDC in the United States.
