Not surprisingly, our media have ignored the Rich story. As I sat at Starbucks, I showed twelve random people a recent news photograph of FBI Director Christopher Wray. Most were under thirty and primarily female. None could identify Wray by name or position. I blame our media for the absence of objective reporting, censoring information, and publishing propaganda without question, i.e., false war porn and casualty counts of Hamas. Small wonder, then, that so many people don’t know about Seth Rich and his sad death, yet continuous trickles of new information make it increasingly clear that the FBI is hiding something.
Most American Thinker readers are familiar with the fact that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee employee, was murdered on D.C.’s streets in 2016. Inconsistencies in reports about his death, combined with its timing vis-à-vis the Russia Hoax, have made it easy to believe that this was no mere street crime. What’s been most suspicious is the FBI’s desperate efforts to keep secret information about its investigation into Rich’s death, and it’s the FBI’s conduct that is the subject of this post.
(For those new to this story, please read the earlier AT article, “Who is Seth Rich? Who Murdered Him? And What’s The Deep State Hiding?”)
The FBI apparently obtained Rich’s laptop after his murder. However, the FBI has refused to comply with FOIA requests asking for it to release the laptop’s contents. This refusal continues even though a federal district court twice ordered it to do so. The first court order was on September 29, 2022 (Order and Opinion), and, more recently, on November 28, 2023 (Memorandum Opinion and Order). See Epoch Times, “FBI Seeks Another Delay in Seth Rich Case as Plaintiff Urges Production Before 2024 Election.” See the FBI response dated January 11, 2024 (Response to Nov 28, 2023, Memorandum and Opinion).
I’ve read the most recent filings in the FOIA case, Brian Huddleston vs. Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Department of Justice (PACER Case 4:20-cv-00447-ALM), and can share their contents here. Huddleston has tried to get information from Rich’s computer since 2017. The FBI initially claimed it had no responsive records but, “little by little the FBI was forced to admit that it had thousands of pages of responsive documents…[including] his [Rich’s] work laptop, a copy of his personal laptop contents.”
Image: Seth Rich by AI.
In the past, the FBI has argued, among other things, that the information on the laptop was not an agency record, was personal, and or other creative exceptions to FOIA. At one point, the FBI said it would produce the contents and then estimated that it would take approximately sixty-six years to do so!
In the latest round, the FBI gave a several-paragraph response requesting reconsideration. It then insisted that Huddleston’s position “is irrelevant to this FOIA case,” an Orwellian-Alice in Wonderland wormhole. After all, as long as the FBI refuses to release the information, there’s no way to know what is or is not relevant. The DOJ and FBI are playing games with the court.
As Huddleston argued in his brief,
After more than six years of delays and denials, it is time for the FBI to come clean. A Presidential election is fast approaching, and voters have the right to know (1)whether the FBI knowingly framed one of the frontrunners, i.e., former President Trump, and (2) whether the FBI is still trying to cover up its partisan political activities” Ibid.
If you’re wondering why this matters, those looking at the government’s continuing efforts to bury the case and the information connected with it believe that Rich’s laptop might expose that the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies were involved in creating the Russian Collusion narrative. The Russia Hoax disinformation operation began before the 2016 election and continued through the 2020 election. Special Counsel John Durham debunked this narrative during Attorney Michael Sussman’s trial. The Russian Collusion narrative “was created, paid for, and leaked to the media at the behest of Hillary Clinton…aided by the FBI and CIA.”
Given the FBI’s deliberately created information vacuum, it’s reasonable to ask whether Rich murdered to conceal the actual source of the DNC server hack, which harmed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Did Rich remove these emails from the DNC server and deliver them to Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who subsequently published them? The FBI and others wove the DNC hack into the Russian narrative and blamed the Russians. If Rich was the source of the DNC leak, he could expose and destroy the Russian narrative. See the previous AT article and Tucker Carlson’s short piece on Assange and Rich.
Having worked for years as an investigator, my experience tells me that the FBI doth protest too much! With the FBI’s outright lies and other egregious criminal violations, I no longer give the FBI any credibility. (See AT article.) The DOJ and the FBI played a game of cat and mouse by deep-sixing Hunter’s laptop before the 2020 election. Fifty-one retired intelligence officials signed a letter attesting that Hunter’s laptop had all the earmarkings of Russian disinformation. The media echoed this lie as well as President Biden. The DOJ recently admitted, on Jan 16, 2024, in court filings, that Hunter Biden’s laptop content was genuine.
The FBI and the others seem to be using the same MO to bury Rich’s computer as we approach the 2024 election cycle. With the DOJ, FBI, and CIA going full Stasi, it is getting increasingly easier to believe that Rich was assassinated (See AT article).
In my professional opinion, the FBI’s stonewalling of the release of Rich’s laptop warrants an immediate investigation that will follow the evidence wherever it leads. The DOJ and the FBI are incapable of doing such an investigation. I would encourage all who are outraged by this furtiveness from the FBI to contact the House Oversight Committees doing the impeachment inquiries of President Biden
Demand that the Committees seize Rich’s laptop and other related items from the FBI and do the complete and thorough investigation that is warranted. The contents will either prove that there is nothing there…or that there is something there. What’s important is that an investigation will shred the veil of secrecy these agencies use to shield what we’re increasingly recognizing as illegal and unconstitutional acts. Moreover, the media will be forced to report the Rich story. (Contacts for the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee are at the bottom of the page.)
What the hell is on Seth’s computer? The right of the people to know far outweighs the DOJ’s and FBI’s right to withhold this information from the voters before the 2024 election.
We, the People, are incapable of holding our government and its agents accountable without an informed public.
Ron Wright is a retired detective, having served thirty-five years with Riverside PD, Calif. Ron earned a BA in political science from Cal State University, Fullerton, and a Master of Administration from the University of California, Riverside. Facebook at Ron T. Cop.
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