The acknowledgement that Hunter Biden was under FBI investigation for his foreign business deals may have overshadowed another formerly-buried, potentially-campaign-disrupting scandal—from four years prior.
The FBI finally got around to confirming Wednesday that it had tens of thousands of pages on Seth Rich, as well as possessing his personal laptop, according to Lawflog.com.
, the attorney representing Texas resident Brian Huddleston in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI, said the agency had completed an initial search of records and identified over 20,000 pages worth of material pertaining to the slain former Democratic National Committee staffer.
The “FBI has also located leads that indicate additional potential records that require further searching,” said an email from the FBI, according to Clevenger.
“At this time, FBI anticipates processing only the pages where Seth Rich is mentioned, along with perhaps another page or two in each situation to provide context,” said the email.
Some theorists have suggested that Rich may have been killed in 2016 for leaking sensitive documents related to Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign.
Rich, who had been a Bernie Sanders backer, was shot in cold blood outside his apartment. Although Washington, DC, police declared it a robbery, none of his personal effects or valuables appeared to have been taken.
The timing of Rich’s death also corresponded with Wikileaks‘ release of hacked DNC emails that painted the Democrat political machine in a negative light, revealing its collusion with media and other partisan operatives to ensure Clinton received the nomination.
It was in response to the DNC hacking that Clinton devised a plan to smear her GOP opponent, Donald Trump, by attempting to link him with Russian collusion, even though evidence may have pointed to an inside job.
The Obama FBI then used Russian disinformation—along with now-debunked opposition-research from Clinton, and traps planted by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies—to launch its own sting operation and spy on the Trump campaign.
That, in turn, became the Mueller investigation, spanning the first two years of Trump’s presidency with an estimated cost exceeding $30 million.
But throughout it all, the FBI refused to acknowledge even the possibility that it had investigated Rich’s murder in connection with the hacking.
According to the email that the FBI sent Clevenger, the reason for the delay was mainly the amount of time required for reviewing materials and culling them down to what was relevant.
“The issue right now with this batch of documents is the amount of labor required to ingest all of the material so that the responsive pages will, first, be in a page format, secondly, can be identified from among the thousands of non-responsive pages, and finally, be processed,” said the FBI representative.
The email also said that the agency’s FOIA staff had been reduced by 50% in light of the coronavirus.
But Clevenger said other inconsistencies suggest the agency may have intentionally stonewalled.
In an email to HeadlineUSA, he said the FBI’s foot-dragging didn’t pass the smell test, even when considering the normal bureaucratic red tape.
The acknowledgement, for example, that it had taken ownership of Rich’s laptop raised red flags since previously the FBI had testified that the DC police department was solely responsible for the investigation.
Clevenger, an ex-police officer himself, said he found it implausible that both the FBI and DC police would conduct overlapping probes without coordinating.
“We suspect the FBI may be right that the Metropolitan Police Dept. in D.C. was responsible for investigating Seth’s murder,” he wrote, “so that leaves a couple of likely explanations for the FBI’s role: it was investigating a counterintelligence matter or a computer crime. Either scenario would be consistent with Seth transmitting DNC emails to Wikileaks.”
The timing of the admission also seemed curious. Many in the media already have declared President Trump the loser of the Nov. 3 election against Joe Biden, despite ongoing investigations of vote fraud.
Recent denials by Attorney General William Barr and others concerning the widespread vote fraud would seem to follow a similar pattern of using selective leaks and omissions to sway the political outcome.
For instance, Thursday’s announcement by Hunter Biden that he was under investigation followed roughly two months in which media outlets actively worked to suppress, downplay and discredit the scandals surrounding his abandoned laptop.
However, the Justice Department and FBI remained silent about the investigation into the Biden family, only acknowledging it five days before the election—after ex-Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski came forward as a whistleblower.
We’re FIVE DAYS out from an election. Why are we JUST NOW finding out that Hunter Biden and possibly even Joe Biden are under criminal investigation by the FBI?
This is outrageous and someone needs to be held accountable.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 29, 2020
Likewise, the contents of Rich’s laptop and other documents may have had a profound effect on the Trump presidency if they were to dispel further the Clinton–Obama Russia hoax.
Clevenger said he had been in communication with FBI Director Chris Wray related to another client’s case, which involved a retracted Fox News story about Rich’s role in the DNC leaks.
“I warned Wray that we would sue him personally for civil rights violations if he allowed his agents to continue the cover up,” Clevenger said.
Despite the lingering intrigue surrounding the murder and apparent cover-up, he said the reason for the FBI’s decision to comply with the FOIA request now, of all times, was fairly self-evident.
“The more likely explanation, in my opinion, is that FBI brass is comfortable that Joe Biden will take over on January 20, therefore they don’t have to worry about accountability anymore,” Clevenger wrote. “In other words, they got away with it, so they no longer have a reason to hide it.”
