Life & Liberty

SETH RICH UPDATE. Did the FBI just give the middle finger to the White House? In September in our FOIA lawsuit, we made the court aware of numerous records released by the White House, records that should have been produced six years ago by the FBI in response to our request for records about Seth Rich and the purported “hacking” of the Democratic National Committee. In a court filing today, the FBI pushed back against statements and records released by the White House Transparency Task Force, dismissing it as “generalized criticism” that “do[es] not address the FBI’s conduct” related to the Seth Rich case. Oh really? The FBI admits it never searched the OXFERD COMMA or MARCH TOLL files and says it "has no reason to" search them now. It says its Washington Field Office knew the paper file existed and "would have manually searched those files" IF agents thought responsive records were in them. Mind you, this is a FOIA case about who transferred the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, yet the FBI never searched the very file whose first document states the FBI's own conclusion about who did it. Under @Kash_Patel, the @FBI is still fighting tooth and nail to protect its years-long cover-up of records about Seth Rich, Wikileaks, and the DNC “hack,” never mind what the White House says or thinks about it. Interestingly, the FBI finally admitted to the court – six years after the lawsuit was filed – that it never searched for part of our 2020 request at all: the part asking for records on "any other person or persons" who transferred the DNC data. Too vague, it says. Yet the OXFERD COMMA memo names exactly who the FBI thought did it. Another interesting development: the FBI belatedly admits that for “prohibited access” files, a search of its Sentinel system only returns a placeholder. The actual file “must be located and requested” to see what’s in it. That’s significantly different from what the FBI told the court in 2025, when its testimony made it sound as if a Sentinel search would produce “prohibited access”. Bottom line: if a file is designated “prohibited access,” then its contents will NOT be found during a records search. So were the Seth Rich files designated “prohibited access”? The FBI still won’t give us a straight answer. Likewise, the FBI won’t give us a straight answer about records discovered in a secret room at FBI headquarters. In August 2025, after Deputy Director Bongino disclosed a hidden room of Russiagate records, the FBI swore it had "initiated a search" of that room and promised: "Upon completion of the search, the FBI will notify the Court and Plaintiff of the results." The court relied on that promise to deny our motion at the time. Fifteen months later, and despite its promise to the court, the FBI has reported nothing. You may recall that on July 6, I disclosed a conversation wherein a government attorney told me that “several hundred pages” related to Seth Rich were discovered in that secret room. I’ve since been told that I misunderstood what I was told. I don’t think I did, but consider me duly chastened: next time I won’t be reporting anything that the government tells me unless I have it in writing. This much I can say for certain: the FBI is still hiding gigabytes of data about Seth Rich and the DNC “hack,” because it is still refusing to produce records from his electronic devices despite multiple orders from the Court. The FBI's position, stripped of the lawyering: the White House's statements about these files don't matter, the declassified records don't matter, we never looked in the files, we won't tell you what was in the secret room, and we won’t tell you what was on his laptops. But trust us, Seth Rich died in a botched robbery that had nothing to do with Wikileaks or the DNC. Will President Trump ever fire Patel? I certainly hope so. The President’s appointees at DOJ and FBI have been a disaster. Contrast Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, and Kash Patel with his appointees elsewhere: Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr, and Tulsi Gabbard, just to name a few. The difference is night and day. I’d argue that the Justice Department should have been the top priority from day one, yet it never got the talent or the attention that other departments and agencies did. And I hope it’s not too late to fix that. In fairness, I should note that the GOP Congress wasn’t any better. When my July 6 post went viral, Congressman @TimBurchett very publicly released a letter to Patel requesting release of the records (nitter.gq/timburchett/status/207…). A mutual friend gave me the Congressman’s email and cell phone, and I briefly exchanged information with the Congressman. Then he went completely silent. Why? Even Julian Assange has remained silent despite his release from custody, although I can’t blame Assange after what our government did to him. I’ve posted links to the government’s court filings below. I’m angry and I’m tired, but I’m cautiously optimistic that Chief U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant III, the judge presiding over our FOIA case, has had enough of the FBI’s games. Or maybe new White House Chief of Staff @StephenM will light a fire under somebody. Either way, we will be responding to the FBI next week, and we will meticulously inform the court of every lie and equivocation. lawflog.com/wp-content/uploa… lawflog.com/wp-content/uploa… lawflog.com/wp-content/uploa…