https://uncoverdc.com/2021/05/13/more-seth-rich-foia-docs-re-mueller-crossfire-hurricane-investigation/
The DC Patriot reports that the FBI has released a new batch of documents to attorney Ty Clevenger from his client’s FOIA request for documents concerning Seth Rich and brother Aaron Rich. These 121 pages follow the 68 released on April 23; Clevenger has yet to comment on his blog.
The 123-page PDF includes a two-page cover sheet on United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Information Policy (OIP) letterhead and 121 pages of declassified documents. The cover letter indicates it is a final response to the FOIA request and that 58 additional pages were not released based on standard exemptions, including information the OIP says is either protected by attorney privilege, pertains to privileged law enforcement investigations, or the release of which would invade personal privacy or identify a confidential source.
A portion of the famous interview of former FBI director James Comey during the Executive Session Committee on the Judiciary, Joint with the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight (GRO) at the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, December 7, 2018, which was already available in its near-entirety. The complete and lengthy interview covers topics that include WikiLeaks, the Podesta emails, and hacking of DNC servers, but only four pages were considered “responsive,” or within the scope of the FOIA inquiry by the DOJ OIP.
Justice.gov explains the process by which it is determined whether records are responsive:
Sometimes a requester seeks information on a particular topic and in the course of conducting their search for records on that topic, the agency may locate documents that discuss a number of different subjects, only some of which relate to the topic of the FOIA request. If only a portion of a document concerned the topic of a request, a common practice has been for an agency to process only the responsive portion and redact the other portions as “non-responsive” or “outside the scope” of the request. Given that the processing of FOIA requests can be very labor-intensive and time-consuming, it is in both the requesters’ interests and the agencies’ that time and resources not be expended unnecessarily by reviewing material that was not requested. While many district courts had approved the practice of agencies redacting “non-responsive” material from records processed for release under the FOIA, in July 2016, the issue was addressed by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in American Immigration Lawyers Association v. EOIR, 830 F.3d 667 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
OIP’s guidance summarizes the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia’s holding that the FOIA “does not provide for . . . redacting non-exempt information within responsive records.” As declared by the court, “once an agency identifies a record it deems responsive to a FOIA request, the statute compels disclosure of the responsive record—i.e., as a unit—except insofar as the agency may redact information falling within a statutory exemption.”
The responsive portion of the newly released documents contains a question of Comey from Democratic Representative from Tennessee, Steve Cohen, and Comey’s response:
[Cohen] “When you were at the FBI, did you have any reason to investigate the people who propagated stories that Seth Rich was murdered by folks within the DNC or other democratic operatives or any of the people that talked about this pizza operation, the pizzagate thing? Did you ever investigate the people that started those conspiratorial stories?”
[Comey] “I don’t remember. I don’t remember investigations on those topics. I remember at one point receiving an email from someone, a private citizen, to my personal account, raising issues about the—is it Ping Pong? Whatever the pizza place was that was involved in some conspiracy theories. I remember sending it to my staff saying, make sure this gets to the appropriate place, but I don’t know whether there were investigations.”
Saturday’s release also includes 20 pages of emails among officials involved in the Mueller Investigation, which came to be known as Crossfire Hurricane. The emails involve the identity of Guccifer 2.0, who claimed responsibility for hacking the DNC, and related articles in the press. UncoverDC reported on Assange and Guccifer 2 related to Seth Rich in July 2019 and further details on the Crowdstrike forensic analysis that concluded the culprit was Russian exfiltration of data in a remote cybersecurity breach, as well as evidence to the contrary. UncoverDC Editor-In-Chief, Tracy Beanz, breaks down the DNC Leak in this Dark to Light podcast episode.
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