Ever wonder what was behind the Trump administration's decision to pull back advertising promotion of HealthCare.gov in the waning days of open enrollment? How about what U.S. Department of Health & Human Services officials were really saying about the Affordable Care Act during those frantic days leading to the failed repeal and replace efforts earlier this year?

If so, a handful of Washington, D.C., lawyers may soon have those answers. A nonprofit group of five former government attorneys — most of whom also have Big Law experience — that launched last month will use the federal Freedom of Information Act to unearth emails and other documents that would, as the organization's leader put it, “line up what [HHS and other regulators] are saying privately with what they are saying publicly.”

“A fundamental theory of ours is that if you can show how people in power are operating, it will have serious impacts on families' lives. It will matter,” added Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, who most recently served as senior counsel for oversight and transparency matters at the U.S. Department of State and prior to that as a litigator at Williams & Connolly.