For two years, I’ve blogged about allegations that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich — not the Russians — was responsible for providing embarrassing DNC emails to Wikileaks. I think we’re finally getting close to the end zone.
Last week, I provided the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn with clear evidence that FBI officials were hiding records about Mr. Rich, who was murdered in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2016. Two days after I filed the motion, Judge Lois Bloom ordered the FBI to respond. The FBI filed a response this afternoon, and it only makes the government look worse.
Before I get to that, let me provide a little background. In my original motion filed on October 8, 2019, I included a transcript from Michael Isikoff’s interview of Deborah Sines, the former federal prosecutor assigned to the Rich case. According to Mr. Isikoff and Ms. Hines, the FBI did investigate Mr. Rich’s computer after his death.
That’s huge, because in response to my Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI has maintained all along that it conducted a “reasonable” search for records about Mr. Rich and it found nothing. The FBI has also maintained that it was never involved in the investigation of Mr. Rich’s death.
The latter part may be technically true, but I didn’t ask for records about a murder investigation. I asked for all records about Seth Rich, which would include all FBI investigations pertaining to Mr. Rich, e.g., records indicating whether he was the source of Democratic National Committee emails published by Wikileaks. [continued on p.2]