(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI wants roughly 158 years to produce nearly 1 million records from a secret room in the bureau’s headquarters, according to the transparency group Judicial Watch, which is suing for the records.
The secret room at FBI headquarters was revealed by FBI Director Kashyap Patel and then-Deputy Director Dan Bongino last year, shortly after they took office. Patel and Bongino said they found a trove of classified Russiagate records and other damning documents inside “burn bags” in a secret bureau room, which isn’t even in the blueprints of FBI HQ.
“There was a room [in FBI Headquarters], and we found stuff. A lot of stuff … hidden from us at least and not mentioned to us. And then found stuff in there. A lot is from the Comey era. We are working … right now to declassify,” Bongino said on Fox News in May 2025.
Incredible: FBI today told a federal court it will take as long as 158 years to process 2 million hidden room lawfare and weaponization records (only 500 a month!)! https://t.co/dKbAKd5CxY
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) July 31, 2026
Upon Bongino’s disclosure, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the records in the previously hidden room. According to a status report filed last Thursday by Judicial Watch, the FBI wants to disclose 949,931 records at a rate of 500 per month—meaning it would take about 158 years to produce of all of them.
Judicial Watch and the FBI are scheduled to file a joint status report on Sept. 4 as they continue to dispute how the bureau is handling the group’s FOIA request.
The “burn bag” FOIA case is just one of a plethora in which the FBI is producing records at a rate that would take many years for complete disclosure.
In the 31-year-old Oklahoma City bombing case, for instance, the FBI was producing 500 pages of records per month in response to a 2024 FOIA lawsuit from Jesse Trentadue, who has been suing for documents about a CIA asset involved in the attack. In that case, a judge ordered the FBI to pick up its pace and start producing 2,000 pages per month.
In another case, the July 2024 Trump assassination attempt, the FBI revealed earlier this year that it has some 75,000 pages of documents about the alleged shooter, Thomas Crooks. Thus far, the FBI has made six productions of a few dozen records apiece—about 200 pages in total.
The FBI initially said it had 45K pages of records related to Thomas Crooks.
That number has since increased to 75,000.
And yet, Patel and Bongino say they've disclosed everything. https://t.co/k1qwzH0c9y pic.twitter.com/LDsmvhBi8o— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 16, 2026
Meanwhile, the FBI continues to conceal records about sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and a slew of other cases.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
