EXCLUSIVE — Former President Barack Obama’s administration may have skirted the law when it moved to approve the unionization of Transportation Security Administration screeners in 2011, according to Freedom of Information Act documents shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner by Americans for Fair Treatment.

AFFT, an organization that assists public-sector workers dissatisfied with their union representation, recently settled a lawsuit with the TSA forcing the agency to comply with a FOIA request it filed in 2023. The group sought to uncover the legal rationale for allowing TSA screeners to unionize under the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal labor union. The group’s inquiry was spurred by skepticism over the fact that TSA officers are not included under Title 5 of the U.S. Code, which grants the federal employees covered under the law the right to collective bargaining. The documents obtained by the Washington Examiner do not show the TSA engaging in any legal analysis to justify unionization despite the agency’s security officers lacking collective bargaining rights under the law.