Expense Reports/Requests for Lee Harris

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (5 ILCS 140/1 to 11), I hereby request the following:

Please provide all expense requests and expense reports that identify any money that was used or requested for spending on Mr. Lee Harris (DOB: 5/12/1955) between the following dates: 5/12/1955 and 10/29/1989. Additionally, please include all denied expense requests and documents showing the reason for their denial. If there are any documents that appeal these denials, please include those as well.

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The requester of these documents is a journalist with publishing rights at every major Chicago publication and a number of national and international publications. Parts of the requested documents are likely to be made available to the general public in a news report. As such, under the law, this request is not being made for "commercial purposes." Thus, I request a fee waiver and expedited processing.

Please communicate with me regarding this request in the same manner in which you received the request. I prefer the request to be filled electronically, by e-mail attachment or download link. If neither of those are available to you, please explain why and we can discuss another method of document transmission. I have the right to request that the documents be remitted to me in the form in which they are kept--which means, in this case, a digital, text-based (non-PDF) file. If you have the ability to "convert" whatever file(s) you obtain into a format readable by a standard text editor (.txt, .doc or similar), I request that you do this for me as a professional courtesy.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,
Brandon Smith
Journalist

Dear Ms. Washington,

I apologize for my late response in regards to the request for an extension. Due to my delay, please have a 7 day extension, starting from the 10th of March, to complete my request. I hope to have the documents by the end of the business day on Friday, March 17th.

Thank you,
Brandon Smith

Dear Ms. Washington,

I am writing to follow up my FOIA request submitted on 03/02/2017. Since I did not receive the requested documents on the extended deadline last Friday, March 17th, please try to have them to me within the next couple of days. I am happy to help answer any questions or clarify aspects of the request.

Thank you,
Brandon Smith

Hello,

Thank you again for your assistance with this request.

If I may, can I ask a clarifying question? Do you know whether relevant documents were searched within the Bureau of Organized Crime or had the documents already been disposed of due to the Illinois Records Retention Act (or similar practice/law) and therefore nonexistent?

Brandon Smith