Albany, NY — The New York State Attorney General’s office is being asked to hand over the details behind its apparent leak of a national non-profit’s sensitive financial documents, according to Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests submitted recently by the Empire Center.
The FOIL requests seek information behind the leak of an unredacted list of donors to former Ambassador Nikki Haley’s non-profit organization, Stand for America, information deemed private by the federal and state government. The documents appear to have originated from OAG, as they are marked with the official stamp of the attorney general.
The FOIL requests, submitted on September 19, request records showing OAG’s document retention, storage, and destruction policies, as well as any reports of security breaches. The FOILs also requested the names of OAG employees with access to sensitive documents and a list of FOILs received by OAG relevant to the leaked data.
To date, the Empire Center FOIL requests have been met only with standard form letters confirming receipt and giving October 17 as a date to respond. A follow-up letter from the Empire Center’s legal counsel was sent to OAG encouraging a full response, without any further delay, on or before the October 17 date it has promised.
“Any move by the Attorney General to defer or further delay responding to this inquiry would reek of a coverup. On the surface, this looks like Albany politics at its worst. We hope the Attorney General’s response to our FOIL clears things up,” said Tim Hoefer, president and CEO of the Empire Center.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta that it was unconstitutional to require charities to disclose their donors, as it violated their First Amendment Rights. “A suitable outcome of this, so far singular, but unsettling event, would be for the Attorney General to direct the immediate destruction of any records in its possession that fall under Bonta, anything short of that would be an affront to taxpayers and a potential infringement on our first amendment rights,” Hoefer concluded.
The full submitted letter can be read here.
The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.
You may also like
Empire Center Poll: New Yorkers Prioritize Low Energy Prices and Have Little Appetite for Radical Climate Policies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ALBANY, N.Y. — New Yorkers across political, geographic, age, and income groups oppose energy and climate policies that raise energy prices or force changes on homeowners, according to new Empire Center analysis Read More
New York’s Electricity Prices Fourth Highest in the Country
New York households are paying the fourth-highest electricity prices in the country, according to the Empire Center's In April 2026, residential electricity prices in New York averaged 29.45 cents per kilowatt-hour - 56 percent above the national average Read More
Fourteen NYC Educators Receive Over Half a Million Dollars in Pensions
Fourteen retired New York City educators received more than $500,000 in pension benefits in 2025, according to , the Empire Center’s government transparency website.
The data was obtained from the New York City Teachers’ Retirement Read More
Hammond Submits CDPAP Testimony to Congress
The Empire Center's Bill Hammond today submitted written testimony for a congressional hearing on healthcare fraud.
Hammond's testimony to the focuses on evidence of overuse and wa Read More
34 MTA Workers Made $200K+ In Overtime In 2025
Thirty-four employees of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) received more than $200,000 in overtime payments in 2025, as total annual pay surpassed half a million dollars for some, according to , the Empire Center’s governm Read More
A Bullying Lawyer Trapped an Innocent Woman in a Five-Year Court Battle – but New York Law can’t Make her Whole
We like to associate the law with justice—protecting the innocent and punishing the wrongdoers. But sometimes our laws punish the innocent and protect the wrongdoers instead.
Dutchess County mom Vika Shock learned this the hard way.
In November 20 Read More
New York at the Crossroads. WILL IT MODERNIZE LIABILITY LAW OR EXPAND IT?
Executive Summary
New York’s Litigation Environment
In a wide range of areas, New York law subjects residents and businesses to greater liability than other states. Consider, for example, that:
Unlike most other states, New York a Read More
New York’s Electricity Prices 70 Percent Above the National Average
Recent data from the Energy Information Administration and Empire Center for Public Policy show New York’s average residential electricity prices at 29.99 cents per kilowatt hour. This is 70 percent higher than the U.S. average of 17.6 cents per kilowat Read More