Dem Obstruction: Crossfire Hurricane, Hillary’s Emails, Rich’s Laptops…

WHEN I SEE A HEADLINE, “Seth Rich’s Laptop to Be Turned Over by FBI, Judge Rules,” I wonder what the agenda really is, i.e., what story is being covered up with this incongruous placement in my RSS newsfeed, though I may just be being my cynical self. (Did I really first learn of this story way back in ’17?!)

On Wednesday, Texas Judge Amos L. Mazzant ordered “a timeline for the disclosure of information on Seth Rich’s personal laptop, Seth Rich’s work laptop, the DVD and tape drive within 14 days following issuance of this Memorandum of Opinion and Order.” This means the feds must hand over two laptops (work and personal) to the plaintiff that were owned by the decedent, among other items.

The order is, of course, referring to the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, then-27, who was killed on 7/10/16 returning home late at night in Washington, D.C.. He was reportedly on the phone with his girlfriend when shots were heard at the time. The public was led to believe it was an attempted robbery, but absolutely nothing appeared to be missing. Rumors, or evidence, depending on one’s bent, surfaced that Rich had publicly leaked thousands of DNC emails via WikiLeaks concerning alleged involvement of Russian hackers in the election of President Donald Trump and was killed as a result, or as a part of, a cover-up, depending again on one’s bent. 

Over the years, attorney Ty Clevenger has been battling the F.B.I. to get FOIA material on the case for his Texan client, Brian Huddleston. Also over the years, the F.B.I. has lied through its collective teeth, mainly by denying the existence of any materials on the case when, in fact, it had in excess of 20,000 pages of information that was likely responsive, and 1,595 directly so, to Huddleston’s request. That was back in 2017. By late 2022, the court entered an order which required the F.B.I. and D.O.J. to produce information on Rich’s laptop and documents relevant to the FOIA request. More stall tactics ensued, ad infinitum…

With Wednesday’s latest order, we should be able to finally start to get a resolution to this. If not, we’ll need to redraft the FOIA and put some teeth into it so that violators, like the F.B.I., pay consequences commensurate to what its victims do when they lie through their teeth. (Attention, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) et al.!)

Now, what stories are really out there today—being covered up like this one?

That’s Rich! The F.B.I. Caught Lying — Again!

NEWS ABOUT SETH RICH’s F.B.I. file have been shrouded in secrecy since his dead body was found, shot, in a D.C. street in 2016. He appeared to be murdered, but by unknown assailants. The F.B.I. has been holding out on providing any information about Rich’s death, even when ordered to do so by a judge. That Rich was a D.N.C. staffer who may have leaked to WikiLeaks wouldn’t have anything to do with that though, of course. 

Earlier this month, it was reported the F.B.I. not only has possession of a laptop owned by Rich, but also a three-page report detailing forensic imaging of what is ded\scribed as his work computer.  This was revealed by a new filing by the F.B.I. which explained , though a sworn declaration by chief of office, Michael Seidel, that they located the report while searching for the work computer. This report is among four documents that were never disclosed by the F.B.I. in the matter. (The others included a letter from a third party accompanying the work computer and two chain-of-custody forms.)

Journalist Sy Hersh, had a source who told him in 2017 about a report, presumably this. The source said the computer showed that Rich had indeed relayed D.N.C. documents to WikiLeaks. Hersh spoke about the source’s claim in a phone call with Ed Butowsky, an investor who later retracted claims about Rich’s brother, Aaron, being a WikiLeaks source, and spoke of that call in a deposition. While the F.B.I. has seemingly come clean on the working computer’s existence, it still wants the court to keep new records away from Brian Huddleston, who filed suit against the Bureau for ignoring Freedom of Information requests for records regarding Rich. (He is represented by Ty Clevenger.) The reason? It would harm its investigation into allegation Russians hacked into U.S. systems. (Sound familiar?)

Back in 2020, the F.B.I. admitted it had files from a second computer owned by Rich, described as his personal computer. Seidel claimed, however, it never had physical possession of the computer. In September, a federal judge ordered the F.B.I. to hand over the disc images to Huddleston. In continual efforts to stall, the F.B.I. has claimed the computer “is not an actual record,” but rather “physical object/evidence” not subject to FOIA. Technically, the Metropolitan Police Department is in charge of the Rich investigation and has declined to comment on whether the F.B.I. was involved. 

Institutional Secrets of the F.B.I. Need to Be Exposed for Its Own Sake.

ONE NEED ONLY CASUALLY PERUSE the news to quickly come to the conclusion that something isn’t quite kosher in the aptly and sinisterly-named J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.. For the preeminent federal law enforcement agency, the F.B.I. seems to hold a lot of secrets from the American public, for whom it is meant to serve. The agency is also expert at stonewalling, which does nothing to instill confidence or trust in it.  

One of the cases that the F.B.I. is continuing to bury concerns the Seth Rich murder. Rich was shot twice in the back near his home early one morning and died shortly thereafter in the hospital. It was written off as a robbery by police even though Rich’s phone, wallet, and personal items were on his person when police arrived on the scene. Rich was believed by some to have been the source of emails sent to WikiLeaks prior to the 2016 election concerning Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. Not long after his death, what became known as the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax was invented. Some believe that story was created in an effort to divert attention from Rich’s murder. 

Nothing has been concluded about the connection, if any, between all these events, but attorney Ty Clevenger, for one, has been trying to find out the truth. Document requests to the F.B.I. were met with denials of it possessing any information on the Rich murder. The denials were fact-check=false, however. When Clevenger brought the agency to court last month, it was ordered to produce all the information on Rich’s computer that they had, along with documents related to CrowdStrike and a purported hack of the DNC in 2016. 

The F.B.I. never did turn over the required information, however, and asked for more time to comply with the court order. (Read Order here.) Actually, it wants two weeks to prepare a Motion for Reconsideration for some reason. (Read Motion to Stay here.) Apparently, the F.B.I. has possession of both Rich’s personal and work computers, so perhaps that can be cleared up in short order. The bureau is also withholding three requested CrowdStrike reports produced in Aug. 2016 surrounding the alleged hack of the DNC. That rationale isn’t clear, either.

Lying and foot-dragging by the F.B.I. isn’t exclusive to the Rich case. It just serves to fuel animus for, and distrust of a supposed premiere law enforcement agency. 

The FBI is Permitted to Lie. So it Does.

LAW ENFORCEMENT in general lies all the time and they’re allowed to. Think about it. They set up a drug sting and lie to dealers about being potential buyers looking to score. Within limitations, they’re allowed to do that, as long as they don’t fall into the murky world of entrapment. (Often, they do.) But when it comes to lying or misleading a court of law, that’s a different matter altogether.

Take, for example, the case of Seth Rich, the murdered D.N.C. staffer found dead in the streets of Washington, D.C. before the 2016 presidential election. Law enforcement was a bit too quick to conclude it was a robbery gone bad. Rich had all his belongings which could’ve been easily stolen by the perpetrators had they wanted them. This cavalier approach to an investigation led, understandably, to speculation of something more sinister.

Some wondered if authorities or politicos weren’t behind the murder out of fear Rich had the goods of them and was about to squeal. There was additional thinking (and evidence) that Rich had disclosed unsavory materials, including emails, about powerful people, such as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. WikiLeaks published damaging Podesta emails before the 2016 election. It was shortly thereafter that the Russia D.N.C. hack story emerged in the press. It turned out to not be true. (Report here with supporting Congressional testimony here.)

For years, Attorney Ty Clevenger has been trying to obtain the F.B.I. materials in this case. Without even bothering to let Clevenger know, the F.B.I. released a large swath of materials this week on their F.B.I. Vault, which until December of 2020, they claimed to have never had at all. In other words, they lied to a court. Some documents were finally acknowledged in December and released, highly redacted, amounting to 20,000 pages. (The new Vault materials released just this week are viewable here.) Why, one wonders, would the F.B.I. be so cagey — or unethical — about evidence in a case they blew off as being just a robbery gone bad?

Meanwhile, we’ve learned the U.K. high court has agreed to hear the United States’ appeal in the Assange case. Six months ago, a lower court ruled not to extradite Assange — not based on the merits (which was outside their purview), but instead, out of fear he’d be tortured across the pond. The U.S. wanted to appeal the denial, and have now won that opportunity. The timing is unlikely coincidental.

Ty’s Tries Start to Pay Off

FOR YEARS, Texas attorney Ty Clevenger has been trying to get documents related to Seth Rich’s death from the F.B.I. using Freedom of Information requests. He’s been met with resistance every step of the way, but on Friday, he received 68 of the apparently 576 documents the F.B.I. has on the matter, most of which were highly or almost totally redacted. Supposedly, more dox are forthcoming, but thorough redaction takes time. 

Rich was a young D.N.C. staffer who was shot twice in D.C. in what was oddly called an unsuccessful robbery attempt on July 10, 2016. It was odd because absolutely nothing appeared to have been taken. 

Until December of 2020, the Bureau even denied having any related documents on Seth Rich at all. The documents just released do not include all the documents the F.B.I. doesn’t have, and the documents they don’t have were highly redacted when released. (The F.B.I. acknowledgement of the documents was, coincidentally or not, around the time the Julian Assange extradition trial was underway in London.) Apparently after Clevenger released the dox on his own website, it crashed, leaving him to rely on Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit to upload them to Scribd (here.) 

The dox refer to a witness the night Rich was killed who saw someone [redacted] walking away from another man laying on the ground, who may have been drunk. Apparently, a cop tried to interview Rich on the way to the hospital, but he was too drunk. Unfortunately the body cam went missing. The dox also mention [redacted] took Rich’s personal laptop home with them. So much is redacted, it’s impossible to tell what they may have found, if anything, and what happened to it.

According to the dox, someone covering for the ASAC knew as early as August 10, 2016 that Assange was saying Rich was a WikiLeaks source and may have been killed because of his leak of D.N.C. dox to the transparency site. 

When a U.S. Attorney Obstructs Justice…

AT LEAST SO FAR, U.S. Attorney John Durham has been unresponsive to attorneys’ request to preserve evidence in the Seth Rich case. Rich was the Democratic National Committee staffer who was murdered in Washington, D.C. back in the summer of 2016. The evidence was slated to be destroyed by April 28th the attorneys learned on April 6th, according to a report by the Gateway Pundit, despite them having requested months ago it be preserved. 

Meanwhile, John Durham is refusing to respond to their request. 

Attorney Ty Clevenger sent a letter to Durham reiterating the request. It read: 

“On October 12, 2020, I sent a letter to you and then-Attorney General William Barr about the need to preserve evidence related to the origins of the “Russian collusion” investigation. Neither you nor anyone else at the Department of Justice responded to the letter.

“Yesterday I learned that the evidence is due to be destroyed not later than April 28, 2021 pursuant to a protective order. I urge you again to take steps to secure the evidence and prevent its destruction, in no small part because I believe the public has a right to know what it reveals. I cannot discuss the exact nature of the evidence, however, because of the restrictions in the protective order.

”If another lawyer informed me about the evidence that was relevant to one of my cases, I cannot imagine sticking my head in the sand the way you have. Like President Trump, I’ve come to suspect that you and Mr. Barr were acting in bad faith, and that you appeased President Trump with the pretense of a legitimate investigation even as you were ‘running out the clock.’ That said, please feel free to prove me wrong.”

Perhaps Durham is honoring this legitimate request and just hasn’t confirmed it with Clevenger, but at the glacial pace Durham is known to work, destroyed evidence could very well become a fait d’accompli, to the detriment of the Rich case. And given the lackadaisical attitude of today’s federal judiciary, one cannot expect anything more than a toothless scolding of the offending bar member. 

And yes, the feds have oodles of evidence in the case. Clevenger has already shown this. It’s thought that Rich leaked D.N.C. emails to WikiLeaks and was murdered for it. This murder was then labeled a robbery, even though nothing at all appeared stolen.

Disloyalty – Cowardliness – Dishonesty: The Corruption of the F.B.I.

THE GATEWAY PUNDIT headline said “F.B.I. Now Has Less Than 3 Months to Produce Seth Rich Material.” I think they meant the Bureau has at least 3 months to cover up and/or lose any and all Seth Rich material, but we’ll see.

Texas attorney Ty Clevenger has been trying to obtain information on what the F.B.I. knows about the Seth Rich murder for four years. He has finally gotten a Judge to agree he may have it. This judge gave the F.B.I. 82 days, or until April 23, 2021, to produce all material in their possession that contains Rich’s name.  

In December, the attorney finally learned the F.B.I. has over 20,000 pages of records about Rich. The F.B.I. had adamantly denied having anything concerning Rich previously. In other words, they lied.

Clevenger has yet to report the latest development on his blog, “LawFlog.” His last post stated the C.I.A. was refusing to admit or deny (asserting a Glomar response) framing Russia for leaked D.N.C. emails published by ‘Guccifer 2.0’ in 2016, and that the F.B.I. apparently ignored Rich’s laptop despite having obtained custody of it. The information was obtained through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits Clevenger filed.

Clevenger is a former attorney in the Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who is now in private practice. 

Rich was a young D.N.C. staffer who was shot dead, twice in the back, in D.C. in 2016. Although described as a robbery gone bad, nothing of Rich’s was taken. Adding to the mystery was that WikiLeak’s Julian Assange alluded to Rich having possibly being his source.

The fact the F.B.I. tried so hard to withhold any documentary evidence suggests they believe this wasn’t just a random robbery gone bad as they have publicly maintained. A section of the F.B.I. involving Foreign Counter Intelligence was apparently investigating the matter, which seems highly unusual if that were true. 

So much for the F.B.I. motto, “Fidelity – Bravery – Integrity.”

Trump’s Last Words

IF I HAD MY DRUTHERS, I’d have President Trump do some last minute things for me before leaving the White House and turning it over to the illegitimate puppet-elect next Wednesday. A few of these things, he’s already done in part, but I’d like to see them completed.

1. Pardon N.S.A. whistleblower Edward Snowden and award him, in abstentia, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that can be given to civilians. Pardon WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange and declassify it all, including the role of murdered D.N.C. staffer Seth Rich, if any, in leaking documents. Pardon miscellaneous others who were badgered and tormented by American intelligence agencies for nefarious reasons.

2. Declassify all materials relating to the Hillary email scandal, including without limitation, the documents, transcripts of interviews, and any and all other supporting written evidence, if any, procured by John Durham in his incomplete investigation into the matter which, presumably, will be kiboshed by the puppet-elect. Durham was elevated to Special Counsel, not just U.S. attorney, ostensibly to survive any funny business by the illegitimate puppet-elect, but to ensure the work so far isn’t buried, all materials so far, should be released to other trusted parties for safekeeping.

3. Declassify all ‘Biden, Inc.’ evidence, including, without limitation, documents relating to schemes the family orchestrated with China and Ukraine and any and all other foreign countries or entities for their personal benefit or schemes involving other persons or entities that directly or indirectly benefited the Biden family or close associates.

4. Declassify all surveillance of all Americans by the Obama administration that was done, even arguably, unlawfully, so these persons can hopefully seek compensatory and punitive damages for having their privacy violated. Obviously, legal surveillance to pursue a proper criminal indictment, past, present, or future, to be excepted.  

5. Declassify all documents procured in the so-called Trump-Russia- collusion hoax (regardless of the code names that may have been used by any agency internally). The names of all persons involved, even tangentially, in perpetrating the hoax, to be provided to appropriate persons or entities outside the agencies themselves to preserved for any prosecutors (and historians.)

6. Draft and sign an Executive Order to investigate a) foreign and b) media interference in the 2020 election, which, obviously, will not be done by the illegitimate puppet-elect.  Special counsel should be appointed and funded with discretionary funds available to the executive branch.

7. Draft and sign an Executive Order to investigate a) voter/election fraud in the ‘disputed’ states and b) the role of Dominion voting machines in mis-tallying votes in the 2020 election. Again, special counsel should be appointed and funded with discretionary funds available to the executive branch.

8. Draft and sign an executive order to investigate the origins and timeline of the so-called ‘Capitol siege.’

9. Declare Antifa and Black Lives Matter ‘domestic terrorist organizations.’

10. Draft and sign an executive order to investigate the bail fund that Kamala Harris participated in, providing money to alleged criminals who may have been considered ‘domestic terrorists.’

11. Affirm that the United States recognizes Taiwan as an independent entity from China. For that matter, any other such declarations that put China in its place should be made. This could include something about ‘home of Covid-19.’

12. Make some final regulatory improvements in peoples’ lives. Things like making water and electricity usage limits optional with private residential products, like toilets, showers, and lights. Allow phosphates in cleaning supplies. And finally, eliminate daylight savings time.

Beware of Leaks Flying Adrift

August 17, 2020

Beware of Leaks Flying Adrift

Fox News eventually bailed on their coverage of the Seth Rich matter, but some of what they uncovered is being revealed at last. Rich was a D.N.C. employee who was killed in Washington, D.C. four years ago on a summer’s night only a block from his home.  It was labeled a robbery even though his wallet, cell phone, watch, necklace, and keys were not taken. It was a suspicious shooting, especially if, as some suspected, he had provided WikiLeaks with purloined D.N.C. emails prior to the presidential election which were thereafter published.

Even though the F.B.I. and the intelligence community have evaded attempts to provide any information about the case to the public, Fox News released its information pursuant to court order in Rich v. Fox.

Apparently, even then, Fox News believed someone at the D.N.C. was interested in preventing the case from advancing. Fox had a claim by a federal investigator saying he had seen and read emails exchanged between Rich and WikiLeaks. That email was in Exhibit K. That wasn’t all. The Fox News report made note of two men shooting Rich were recorded on camera outside of a grocery mart:

It’s odd that the case was blown off a just a botched robbery, but yet, so many entities are interested in keeping everything they know secret. Why would these particular emails be in the possession of the F.B.I.? And why wouldn’t the Washington Police Department have moved forward in the case by now?

From the materials from the docket in this case, it sounds as though there are many more documents that could be publicly forthcoming fairly soon, though the most interesting material probably just live in Julian Assange’s head. Not investigative journalist and Centre for Investigative Journalism founder Gavin MacFadyen’s or victim Seth Rich’s, though. They’re both dead. (MacFadyen died of natural causes.)

Rich v. Fox News Network, L.L.C. can be viewed here.

He Wanted to Talk. No One Listened. Now He’ll Take the Fifth.

It’s not everyday that New York judges invoke the Hague Convention seeking international assistance in obtaining testimony for civil lawsuits against Fox News and other defendants by emotionally distressed parents of a slaughtered man who they claim was slandered.