The U.S. Supreme Court on July 8 declined a second request to shield the identities of police officers fighting a public records request seeking information about their attendance at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the U.S. Capitol.
The four unidentified current and former Seattle law enforcement officers said they were investigated and cleared of wrongdoing in connection with their attendance at the rally, which was followed by a security breach at the U.S. Capitol.
The officers argue that even though they have been cleared of any accusations of wrongdoing, Seattle officials have tarnished their reputations. Including the officers’ names in court records would compound the problem by infringing upon their First Amendment rights and chilling their ability to express political opinions, they said.
The Washington Supreme Court ruled in February that the Seattle officers do not have a right to remain anonymous in public.
Seattle officials have claimed that the rally was “for fascists and white supremacists,” and “have attempted to paint guilt by association, wondering aloud on the purpose for [the officers’] attendance at the rally, obviously insinuating they are tied to right wing extremists,” the officers stated in a previous application that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected on June 4.
Acting alone, on July 8, Justice Elena Kagan denied the newer emergency application brought in the case known as John Does 1, 2, 4, and 5 v. Seattle Police Department. Kagan did not explain why she rejected the application. She chose not to refer the application to the full court.
The application, which was filed on June 25, may be revisited by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under court rules, applicants are allowed to direct an application rejected by a single justice to another justice.
The officers sued the city of Seattle after they learned that public records requests about their attendance at the rally had been initiated.
The officers asked the court to stay a June 18 order of the King County, Washington, Superior Court that unsealed certain court documents and directed them to refile their lawsuit using their true names. On June 23, the Washington Court of Appeals decided not to stay the lower court’s order, which means that the officers cannot litigate using pseudonyms.
The fact that the officers intend to file a petition for certiorari, or review, with the U.S. Supreme Court, means that the Washington Supreme Court cannot stay the lower court orders. That court’s rules forbid it from staying a lower court’s order pending the filing of a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, the application states.
This means that the officers are out of options in the Washington state courts, and this realization prompted their latest application to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Thus, now that an immediate and imminent harm has arisen, applicants are in a position which clearly shows that there is no possible effective remedy in State Court,” the application reads.
The officers said in the application that they have tried without success to block public disclosure of unredacted investigatory files, including transcripts of interviews. They said officials threatened to fire them if they failed to participate in the interviews.
In the interviews, the officers had to “disclose their political beliefs, affiliations, reasons for attending the rally, and their mental impressions as to the content of the rally,” the application states.
The officers said in the application that a government agency should not be allowed to publicize their “off duty political activities” and then disseminate internal police records “to those who deliberately seek this information to subject these public servants to vilification without the commission of any misconduct whatsoever.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s denial on June 4 of the previous application took the form of an unsigned order that did not provide reasons for the ruling.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they agreed with the denial because the officers did not appear to have exhausted all their appeals in Washington state courts before asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
Nor had the applicants “adequately explained why at this point they still face an imminent danger of irreparable harm,” they said.
However, Alito and Thomas said the justices’ denial of that application should not be seen as “support for the proposition that the disclosure at issue in this case is consistent with the First Amendment.”
“We have held that the First Amendment provides a measure of protection for the right to engage in anonymous political expression. … The applicants contend that this right will be violated if both their identities and their responses to questions on sensitive subjects are revealed,” they said.
It is unclear whether the officers will present their June 25 application to another justice, as court rules allow.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the officers’ attorney, Aric Bomsztyk of Tomlinson Bomsztyk Russ in Seattle. No reply was received by publication time.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared July 9, 2025, in The Epoch Times. It was updated July 10, 2025.