As I wrote elsewhere today, “As a rule, people who fight public disclosure tend to have something to hide.” I should add that when they conceal material even after being forced by a court order to disclose it, there’s even more reason to believe that there is something they are hiding.
The July 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich has drawn our attention for years, and been the subject of litigation and efforts to suppress inquiry. But finally, after denying it had anything on the case, the FBI has been compelled via an FOIA lawsuit to disclose its records, and did release some in a Friday document dump, after heavily redacting them. But what little did make it through, given the concealment via redaction, still raises more questions.
Seth Rich (Linkedin via the Epoch Times)
Zachary Stieber reports for the Epoch Times:
The FBI has produced 68 pages relating to a Democrat National Committee (DNC) worker who was shot dead in 2016 in Washington, including an investigative summary that appears to suggest someone could have paid for his death.
Seth Rich, the worker, was shot dead in the early morning hours on July 16, 2016, near his home in the nation’s capital.
The murder, which is unsolved to this day, fueled widespread media coverage, especially after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested that Rich was the person who provided internal DNC emails to WikiLeaks. Rich’s family has called the notion that Rich leaked documents to WikiLeaks a conspiracy theory.
Recall that the allegation that Russia hacked the DNC files was part of the Russiagate conspiracy theory pushed by the DNC, the Hillary campaign, and their hired minions, along with FBI rogues like Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe.
The newly released files show top Department of Justice officials met in 2018 and discussed Rich’s murder. They reviewed Rich’s financial records and did not identify any unusual deposits or withdrawals.
You can review the documents yourself here. The very first thing that struck me was:
Just a few weeks after the crime, Strzok was contacting his adulterous lover about something (what?) that he “squashed.”
Why, that's not suspicious at all.
Then there is the matter of Rich’s laptop:
A person whose name was redacted took Rich’s personal laptop to his house, according to one of the newly released documents. The page also indicates that authorities were not aware if the person deleted or changed anything on Rich’s personal laptop.
The FBI came into possession of Rich’s work laptop, the bureau previously revealed.
On another page, it was said that “given [redacted] it is conceivable that an individual or group would want to pay for his death.”
Ty Clevenger, the attorney who forced the release of the redacted documents, is not done.
Clevenger said he found concerning how the government apparently does not know whether anything was deleted from Rich’s personal laptop.
The documents were largely redacted but the information that did get through “shows that their whole narrative is falling apart,” he added. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
The attorney plans to ask U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant, an Obama nominee, to produce unredacted copies for his perusal. The judge could rule that some redactions were improper.
Defendants could also face repercussions for not producing all of the documents they have concerning Rich, including fines.
U.S. Attorney Andrea Parker, who is representing the FBI, told the judge in a court filing this week that the bureau can only process 500 pages per month for each Freedom of Information Act request. She asked the court to give the bureau additional time to produce all of the relevant records.
Clevenger told the judge in a court filing this week that the private sector routinely processes 500 pages or more per day and that the government should be afforded no more than two weeks to produce the remaining 1,063 pages.
Rich’s family firmly opposes further inquiry into his death, for reasons that are not comprehensible to me. I am sorry for their loss, but the stakes in getting to the bottom of a case full of intrigue transcend the concern of his family.
I hope that Judge Mazzant acts on the planned motion and personally reviews the redactions. The FBI has lost all credibility and needs outside supervision.
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