The F.B.I. met a court-ordered deadline to provide an index of files on slain DNC-staffer Seth Rich’s two computers, but more than 300 pages of redactions shed no light on an alleged connection to WikiLeaks, reports Joe Lauria.
Edgar J. Hoover FBI headquarters in Washington. (David Gaines, Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The attorney in the freedom of information case against the Federal Bureau of Investigation seeking the contents from the computers of a murdered staffer of the Democratic National Committee has criticized the number of redactions in the index that the bureau turned over to the court late Monday night.
“Lots of things in the Seth Rich indexes don’t pass the smell test,” wrote Ty Clevenger, the attorney for Brian Huddleson, a Texas businessman, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request in September 2017 seeking to learn whether Rich was the source of WikiLeaks’ 2016 publication of DNC emails that impacted that year’s U.S. presidential election. Huddleson sued the F.B.I. in June 2020 after the bureau turned down his request.
Rich, who was the DNC’s voter expansion data director, was murdered on a Washington D.C. street in the early morning hours of July 10, 2016, 12 days before WikiLeaks released its DNC emails and 15 days before the start of the DNC convention on July 25, 2016. The case has never been solved.
Suspected WikiLeaks Link
The suspicion that Rich may have been WikiLeaks’ source arose when Julian Assange told a Dutch TV interviewer two weeks later on Aug. 10, 2016 that:
“Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.”
Pressed by the interviewer to say whether Rich was the source of the DNC emails, Assange said WikiLeaks never reveals its sources. Yet, it appeared to be an indirect way of naming Rich, while formally maintaining WikiLeaks‘ policy.
(Assange could also have been cynically using Rich’s death to divert the trail from the real source. Rolling Stone magazine reported in November 2019 that lawyers for Seth’s brother Aaron had tried to subpoena WikiLeaks and Assange to depose them on evidence of Seth’s involvement but were unable to.)
On the same day of the Dutch TV interview, WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the solution of the mystery of who killed Rich.
The suspicion was furthered when an audio recording of investigative reporter Sy Hersh, taped without his knowledge, was posted online on Aug. 1, 2017.
“What I know comes off an F.B.I. report. Don’t ask me how. You can figure it out, I’ve been around a long time,” Hersh says on the tape. “I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. This person is unbelievably accurate and careful, he’s a very high-level guy and he’ll do a favor. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
The F.B.I. cyber unit got involved after the D.C. police were unable to access protected files on Rich’s computer, Hersh said. So the F.B.I. “found what he’d done. He had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some juicy emails from the DNC,” to Wikileaks, Hersh said.
“He offered a sample, an extensive sample, you know I’m sure dozens of emails and said ‘I want money.’ Then later Wikileaks did get the password, he had a Dropbox, a protected Dropbox,” Hersh said. He went on:
“Wikileaks got access, and before he was killed … he also, and this is also in the F.B.I. report, he also let people know, with whom he was dealing. … I don’t know how he dealt with the Wikileaks and the mechanism but … the word was passed according to the NSA report, ‘I’ve also shared this box with a couple of friends so if anything happens to me it’s not going to solve your problem.’”
WikiLeaks posted a link to the Hersh audiotape on Twitter on the day it was released. Hersh has since backed away from making those remarks and refuses to discuss it.
Kim Dotcom, the internet entrepreneur who was close to WikiLeaks and Assange, told Consortium News in an interview that he was the middleman between Rich and WikiLeaks, after Rich had contacted him.
And Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity ran a test led by William Binney, a former technical director of the National Security Agency, which showed that the DNC emails had to be copied locally and not sent over the internet.
The NSA, Binney argues, would have a record of a Russian hack of the emails, which it has never produced, despite the mainstream belief, based in part on an unproven U.S. indictment, that Russian military intelligence, and not a DNC insider, had stolen the emails and given them to WikiLeaks. Assange maintains Russia was not his source.
If Rich communicated with someone at WikiLeaks or with Dotcom, a record of those emails or messages would presumably be found on either his work or personal computer. It is that information that Huddleson sought to obtain with his FOIA request.
Reasons for Withholding Information
It took nearly five years battling in court for the F.B.I. to finally turn over a s0-called Vaughn Index of files found on Rich’s laptops and only after a judge’s order in November 2023. This is just a list, not the content, of the files, (some with brief descriptions some without, some with dates and some without), and the reasons why the F.B.I. is withholding them from the public.
Files that have dates are mostly not in chronological order, making it difficult to create a timeline.
The reasons the bureau gave for withholding Rich files were mostly to “protect a person’s personal privacy” and to not “interfere with law enforcement proceedings or investigations.” These were the reasons given on Rich files described as “Written School Assignment, Essay or Term Paper;” “Cover Letter;” “Resume;” “Job Posting;” “Campaign Organization Chart;” and even a “Poem” and a “Birthday Party Menu,” which were withheld.
Yaacov Apelbaum, a technical expert for the plaintiff, says that redacting a file called “Chart of Calls Made and Shifts Scheduled” because it supposedly could interfere with law enforcement suggests “evidence of coordination or activity the FBI does not want exposed.”
He said the redacted “List of Events by Date and Time” file “could suggest organized activities or misconduct.” “Roster of Names and Phone Numbers” “may contain associates, informants, or persons of interest that the FBI is protecting” or “indicates repeated efforts to hide individuals connected to a case,” Apelbaum said.
Clevenger tweeted, somewhat sarcastically it seems: “A lot to sort through here. They’re withholding his job offer letter from the DNC, for example, ‘to protect information, that if disclosed, could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings or investigations.’ So the DNC is a suspect in his murder?”
Clevenger told Consortium News in an email: “We will definitely challenge the indexes. The small number of files in the indexes indicates one of two things: files have been deleted or files have not yet been accounted for. Even the files listed in the indexes have been redacted excessively.”
Binney went further in his reaction to the released index, telling an email group:
“Where’s the index of all the email? Further, where are the emails? … They only show an index of a few email from November and December of 2012. Guess they don’t want to show any connection to Wikileaks. This is a major issue for KP [F.B.I. Director Kash Patel] – coverup of criminal activity.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
“An empty sack cannot stand!”
….. “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.” Harold Pinter.
JOE LAURIA, “These words of British dramatist Harold Pinter upon his acceptance of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature inspire the continuing mission of Consortium News.” @ hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/01/10/it-is-happening-while-its-happening/
AND, #47, Trump-Vance, et al., have been “gifted” w/the same power, Presidents, #42-#46, owned. The “power” to use, abuse, abandon plant, animal & human life, in a heartbeat!!! AND, walk away, from accountability; AND, “We,” the people, must pay attention to what is being done in our name.”
…… “Death” (Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953)
“Where was the body found? Who found the dead body? Was the dead body dead when found? How was the dead body found? Who was the dead body? Who was the father or daughter or brother; Or, uncle or sister or mother or son of the dead and abandoned body?”
“Was the body dead when abandoned? Was the body abandoned? By whom had it been abandoned? Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey? What made you declare the dead body dead? Did you declare the dead body dead? How well did you know the dead body? How did you know the body was dead?”
“Did you wash the dead body? Did you close both its eyes? “Did you bury the body? Did you leave it abandoned? Did you kiss the dead body.” The Poem, “Death,” (1997), by Harold Pinter.
W/o a doubt, “We,” the people, [MUST] pay attention to what is being done in our name,” i.e., “No Propaganda on Earth Can Hide the Wound that is Palestine,” Arundhati Roy’s PEN Pinter Prize 2024 Speech hxxps://pentransmissions.com/2024/10/15/no-propaganda-on-earth-can-hide-the-wound-that-is-palestine-arundhati-roys-pen-pinter-prize-2024-speech/
TY, Joe Lauria for rock’n the truth. TY, for keeping U.S., in the know!!! “Keep It Lit!”
Why kill they guy when the media could discredit him as they so often do, and do successfully? Also, if this guy did download Hillary’s email and released them to Assange or whomever, why bother offing him? why not make it a suicide like they did with J Clifford Baxter (Enron) course, they ( the press) have been very useful to discredit pilots like John jr. and Wellstone’s pilot. I am pretty sure Dick Cheney ordered their murders or simply let it be known that killing them would be useful… anyway, I’m sure that Russia had nothing to do w/ the emails but if they aren’t messing in our elections, they’d be pretty stupid since we have definitely messed with theirs. I’d be surprised if they Russians didn’t actually give the NRA millions to spend on Trump’s campaign.
Redactions On Seth Rich, JFK, RFK, MLKing, Epstein, Diddy, Weinstein, Franklin, UFO’s, RussiaGate, Jan6 PSYOP,
COVID Plandemic, Never Ending War$$$ – Leave No Answers – Everything Hidden Under ‘National Security’.
USAID – About Propaganda – Coups – Color Revolutions – Regime Change – BioWeapons
How much more obvious could a cover-up be? The CIA’s obvious cover-up of its involvement in the JFK assassination is no more obvious than this cover-up. I sure hope Judge Mazzant has the integrity and backbone to order the FBI to stop immediately its insulting game-playing. In order to deflect attention from the rigging of the Democratic Presidential primary in 2016 as revealed in the Wikileaks emails, Hillary and the DNC resorted to somehow blaming the Russians. The fraudulent and dangerous Russiagate (which in many ways persists to the present) could not have been perpetrated without first murdering Seth Rich (undoubtedly the Wikileaks source).
Thank You Joe
The murder was a warning to future whistle blowers: you leak information and we murder you. We don’t bother with courts we don’t bother with laws.
I have always thought someone from the intelligence community or one of their contractors likely learned Seth Rich had down loaded files with a thumb drive. Files known to be sensitive and they needed them they for some reason, a pretty serious reason would be needed for them to kill him. We are looking for something that makes some damned sense.
Could be they knew exactly what he had and he could rebut the Russian story exposing something being seriously strange happening inside the DNC, whoever, NSA most likely maybe. This is motive, means and opportunity. Motive for murder seems to be problematic
just for a robbery – especially when noting of obvious value is taken,
Given his position at DNC he likely knew a few folks there. The only reason to kill a robbery victim with shots from behind is if the victim might recognize recognize the shooter. A person wanting to cover for official claims the Russians were doing the hacking who knew what Seth had would have wanted to kill him even if all that person wanted was the thumb drive. Had Seth lived he might have sung like a bird. Can’t shoot him in the head because then it would have looked too much like a professional hit. Paralyzing spine shots will kill someone just as dead as head shots. I’d like to know exactly where those shots were located.
What make no sense is , if it was a robbery why shoot him twice and not rob him, even more compelling is if the shooter just wanted it to look like a robbery, that person must take his valuables. A true pro might have decided to make it the way it looks, very confusing.
FYI I checked and the time for sun up on July 10, 2016, given differently at two sites independent of each other. The days in July are the longest of the year, total daylight hours, June 21, being the longest day of the year. Sunday July 10, 2016 sun up, not to be confused with day break, was at 05:52 EDT. Eastern (Daylight )Savings Time and would be one hour ahead of 04:20 EST. Eastern Standard Time. Light conditions at 04:20 EST / 05:52 light conditions would be with in one half hour of each other and would much bright enough to see without much problem, is skies were clear or broken with clouds.
The moon phase was waxing crescent,( fairly bright) but the moon did not rise until 9Am.
Knee bruises – depending what he got shot with and the type of projectile he would likely have have similar bruises on. both knees from the force of being thrown forward from the impact of two shots forcing him down in that direction.
I’m really interested in when the shots were fired, that data is there from the shot detection system, the notification to police. How long it was after he was shot before EMS was called, then what time did they arrive and the time he got to the trauma center.
We know that if the shots paralyzed him immediately and he could not breath he would not have lived an hour.
Having a time line for these events would tell us much and does exist or should! Who was where, when and why!
However at this particular point in time I have to say I don’t think we have much of chance of getting this stuff unless the King of the Dumpster Fires can be paid off somehow for the info.
If the the Imperial Orange is trying to curry favor with the intelligence community, he might not want the truth out which would be doing the Intell community a big favor. The same is likely true of the Deep State.
Yaacov Apelbaum’s statement enters into the realm of my time line thoughts so I’m thinking like others here Mr. Rich got caught up in something that turned very deadly for him and it was not money in his wallet, his watch or his jewelry.
One last thing the wiki page on this event still claims Russians did the hacking. Something I find very telling. I know damned well different. Besides the Clinton’s can’t suicide us all.
I had a state trooper tell me one time, “Deny, deny, deny.” Even if your are innocent, then let the lawyers take care of it.
Dang Joe I didn’t get my hat trick!
“The only reason to kill a robbery victim with shots from behind is if the victim might recognize recognize the shooter.”
He knew the shooter, turned around and ran?
May have had a conversation as well?
His name was Seth Rich but everyone knew him as Russia Russia Russia.
At least the dnc named a bike rack after Seth in DC.
Federal Bureau of Interference. The nation’s top law enforcement agency is the nation’s largest coverup agency. I think we’ve known this for a long time.
Redacting 300 pages constitutes confession, albeit vague. What can we conclude, conservatively?
—- The DNC or some associated element or elements had Rich killed
—- The FBI is involved, at least in the coverup
—- The information released or possibly to-be-released was judged worth killing over–this almost certainly means that felonies are involved
—- The DOJ was enough involved to dismiss prosecution recommended by the FBI
As to the rest, does anybody have a viable theory that does *not* involve conspiracy?
The DNC’s definition of conspiracy is something that never happens. (So if it’s a conspiracy, it did not happen, because people don’t conspire). It’s a good defense?
Hillary was trying to grab the over-concentrated power that comes with the Presidency. She was willing to do anything to get it. We know this, because we know that destroying relations with a nuclear super-power by blaming them to try to distract from Democrat rigging and collusion of their fake-democracy was something that Hillary was very willing to do to grab that power for herself.
Yes, in America, people will kill for that sort of power. People are willing to push the world to the brink of World War III for that sort of power.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so naturally we just had to have an America where the President holds absolute power. While the revolutionaries who founded this country turn in their graves at America becoming the thing that they absolutely wanted to avoid.
“As to the rest, does anybody have a viable theory that does *not* involve conspiracy?”
No.
This is what this regime is — what they stand for. Lies, lies and more lies. While they asset-strip our country, foreign counties and destroy our liberties.
Had enough yet?
The volumes of evidence provided by the FBI to the Warren Commission are famously chaotic, incomplete, lacking any chronology, often contradictory.
Sixty years have passed, and the FBI still can’t create an index?
Blacking out documents is a violation of discovery.
9-5.001 – Policy Regarding Disclosure of Exculpatory and Impeachment Information
Purpose. Consistent with applicable federal statutes, rules, and case law, the policy set forth here is intended to promote regularity in disclosure practices, through the reasoned and guided exercise of prosecutorial judgment and discretion by attorneys for the government, with respect to the government’s obligation both to disclose exculpatory and impeachment information to criminal defendants and to seek a just result in every case. The policy is intended to ensure timely disclosure of an appropriate scope of exculpatory and impeachment information so as to ensure that trials are fair…
Is basically the same as pleading the 5th!
Why has Sy Hersh stepped back?
Probably because he doesn’t want to end up in a Soros-funded law suit.
Ah, Truth, Justice and the American Way.
… an oligarch using aggressive suits against people who can’t afford the legal fees to defend comes under the category of “The American Way.” Notice that this is the last instruction of the sequence, so it overrides any notions of Truth and Justice. Oligarchs getting what they wanted has been The American Way ever since railroad oligarch Jay Gould famously said that “he could pay half the working class to kill the other half.” The American Way.
Can you provide info on whom Soros has supported in law suites and specifically what the cases where about?
Thanks for covering this. [You have a typo in paragraph 3: ‘July 10, 2106’]
Excellent synopsis here. This is what CN is all about. Thank you for this.