Do you understand the part about a Glomarized response being necessary if a denial is to be given without confirming the existence of what is being denied? If a denial is not Glomarized (”the records, IF ANY, are denied...”) then the denial of access is an admission that the record exists. This is basic FOIA terminology.
And did you read the OIP Manual which describes the process - and how the first step is always to see if the record even exists. If it doesn’t exist, that is the answer to the request. No more processing is necessary at that point - none of the steps and reasoning that would be required for a record which actually exists.
This is why I say that you can’t take a short glance at the subject, look for a slam-dunk quote that “Obama’s birth certificate has been amended and the Factcheck COLB is a forgery”, and call it good. You have to know what the terminology means - which is defined by the laws and rules.
When OIP Attorney Joesting stated in her letter that the HDOH had correctly denied access to the requested records, that means that Joesting knew those records exist. If they did not exist, the proper response would be that they did not exist - as Joesting said, herself, to Terri K TWICE, as several OIP Opinion Letters I posted said (including one by OIP Director Cathy Takase), and as the OIP rules themselves say.
To somebody just breezing in those words may not seem like much, but if you know the rules and terminology, this is a big deal. This is a Bill Clinton type of a “depends on what the meaning of is is” situation. Parsing words is what these people do. When they say that records were denied that means something TOTALLY DIFFERENT than “We can’t tell you if the records even exist.” A denial of access to records is a statutory admission that those records exist. I think I have at least a dozen legal-quality references in the blog which all say that.
And even if that conclusion seems too shadowy, there is also the black-and-white, right in front of our eyes situation of the certificate number and “date filed”. Do you understand that?
I understand the point you are trying to make with the certificate date, but I don’t see it as a clincher that HDOH is saying the COLB is forged. As I said, too many missing pieces. You may be right, you may not be, but it won’t convince a journalist to take a risk.