A federal judge has ordered the FBI to turn over the personal and work laptops of murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.
In his Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas directed the agency to provide “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.”
Using the date of the judge’s order, the FBI has until Dec. 12 to provide this information.
The ruling was made as part of a long-running Freedom of Information Act battle between the FBI and Texas attorney Ty Clevenger on behalf of his client, Brian Huddleston.
It follows a September 2022 order by Mazzant directing the FBI and the Department of Justice to hand over all the information they have related to Rich’s death.
In that ruling, the judge said the FBI improperly withheld the contents of Rich’s laptop and rejected the agency’s argument that this was necessary to protect his parents’ privacy.
“The FBI has not satisfied its burden of showing more than a de minimis privacy interest that would justify withholding information from Seth Rich’s laptop,” the judge wrote.
“Accordingly, the Court finds the FBI improperly withheld this information under FOIA, and the Court is thus authorized to order its production.”
Rich’s unsolved murder has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, including those accusing the FBI of a sinister cover-up.
The 27-year-old Democratic operative was gunned down near his home in Washington in July 2016.
Police reports claimed Rich was the victim of an attempted robbery, even though his wallet, credit cards, watch and cellphone were still on his dead body when he was found.
Seth Rich was found shot multiple times near Flagler and W NW just after 4 am Sunday. Police need help. No witnesses pic.twitter.com/5hQ7nclOYQ
— Paul Wagner (@paulcwagner) July 11, 2016
In 2017, Fox News published, but soon retracted, a story suggesting the DNC staffer was targeted because he allegedly sent emails to Wikileaks exposing evidence that the 2016 Democratic primary election was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, who had massive grassroots support.
After Rich’s murder, the FBI repeatedly refused to disclose any information despite countless FOIA requests.
“Huddleston first submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI on September 1, 2017, in an effort to obtain information to help his investigation into Rich’s potential involvement in the DNC e-mail leaks that occurred in June 2016,” Radar Online reported in September 2022.
“Although the FBI responded to Huddleston’s request two weeks later saying they were ‘unable to locate any responsive main files’ in connection to Rich, it was later revealed the bureau was in possession of ‘over 20,000 pages of potentially relevant material,’” the report said.
“Of the 20,000 pages potentially relating to Rich, 1,596 pages were found to be directly related to the murdered DNC employee — although 1,496 of those were withheld due to a series of FOIA exemptions,” it said.
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This ongoing legal wrangling over Rich’s unsolved murder raises concerns about the FBI’s insistence on withholding information on matters of public interest.
The FBI is supposed to be a nonpartisan agency whose mission is to keep the public safe. Instead, it has metastasized into a weaponized arm of the Democratic Party targeting conservatives.
It’s long past time for the taxpayer-funded agency to remember who it’s supposed to serve.
