In 2016, a staffer for the Democratic National Committee named Seth Rich, believed by some to have been responsible for the leak of internal DNC emails, was murdered under suspicious circumstances in Washington D.C.
A federal judge recently ordered the FBI to release all information related to Rich’s laptop, but the FBI has responded that it will take them several decades in order to comply with that order, TheBlaze reported.
Given that the FBI has acknowledged that it possesses around 400,000 pages of information from Rich’s laptop, in addition to pictures and videos, and that it can only produce that information at a rate of around 500 pages per month, it would take upwards of 66 years for that information to be fully produced — assuming also that it wasn’t ultimately deemed exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act.
FBI finally admits possession of info about Seth Rich
It has been alleged by some that Seth Rich had helped facilitate the leak of internal DNC emails to Wikileaks in the summer of 2016 and was then subsequently murdered in retaliation in an incident staged to look like a botched robbery.
In 2017, an attorney named Ty Clevenger, now representing an individual named Brian Huddleston, began to file multiple FOIA requests with the FBI for any and all documents and information related to Rich’s death.
The FBI initially asserted that it possessed nothing of relevance to those requests, though later was compelled to admit that it had found at least 20,000 pages of information. The FBI has now more recently acknowledged that, with regard to Rich’s laptop, there are approximately 400,000 pages of information plus pictures and videos.
FBI claims it needs 66 years to produce Seth Rich laptop info
In September, District Judge Amos Mazzant issued a 53-page ruling on several motions filed by both the FBI and Huddleston, and while the judge deemed the search for information to be “adequate” and upheld most of the claimed exemptions by the FBI to block the release of certain information, he rejected the claimed exemptions in relation to the information obtained from Rich’s laptop.
As a result, Judge Mazzant ordered the FBI to produce that information relevant to the FOIA requests within 14 days.
About a month later, the FBI filed a motion asking the judge to either reconsider or clarify his prior order and reasserted its claimed exemptions from FOIA with regard to the information from Rich’s laptop.
Failing that, however, the FBI asserted that it would only be able to produce the requested information at a rate of around 500 pages per month — which, as noted, would equate to around 6,000 pages per year and a total of 66 years to produce all 400,000 or so pages of information.
What is the FBI trying to hide?
This is nothing short of a disgraceful move on the part of the FBI that makes a mockery of the FOIA process and displays utter contempt and disdain for the general public, on top of being wholly unbelievable with regard to the claimed timeline for production, and reeks of a blatant attempt to run out the clock and cover up any and all information the government may have in its possession about Seth Rich and his suspicious and untimely murder.
In a statement to the Epoch Times, the attorney Clevenger said, “After dealing with the FBI for five years, I now assume that the FBI is lying to me unless and until it proves otherwise. The FBI is desperately trying to hide records about Seth Rich, and that begs the question of why.”