FBI Seeks Another Delay in Seth Rich Case as Plaintiff Urges Production Before 2024 Election

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee in Washington on Nov. 15, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The FBI is asking a federal court for another delay after being ordered for the second time to produce information from Seth Rich’s computer to a Texas resident who sued the bureau.

The resident, meanwhile, says the court should make the FBI hand over the information before the upcoming presidential election because it might show that Mr. Rich, not Russians, leaked emails from Democrats to Wikileaks. Mr. Rich is a former Democratic National Committee (DNC) aide who was found dead in Washington in 2016.

In a Jan. 11 filing, the FBI asked U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant to hear another round of arguments against producing records. Mr. Rich’s work computer, for instance, should be able to be withheld under exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the bureau said it plans to argue.

The filing was in response to Judge Mazzant’s November 2023 order that the FBI must hand over images of Mr. Rich’s personal computer and an index of Mr. Rich’s work computer, among other materials. Judge Mazzant, appointed under President Barack Obama, said at the time that the FBI failed to show the materials could be withheld under FOIA exceptions.

He was ruling for the second time in favor of Brian Huddleston, the Texas resident. Mr. Huddleston sued the FBI in 2020 after the bureau did not respond to a FOIA request for records on Mr. Rich.

The FBI later claimed it did not have any such records, but has since admitted it is in possession of Mr. Rich’s personal and work computers, as well as additional items relating to Mr. Rich.

Judge Mazzant’s recent order did not explicitly lay out a timeline for production. He directed the parties to submit proposed timelines.

Ty Clevenger, an attorney representing Mr. Huddleston, told the judge that he should shoot down the FBI’s latest bid for a production delay, particularly in light of the November 2024 presidential election.

“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,” Mr. Clevenger wrote.

Seth Rich is pictured on a poster created by police officials to urge people with information about his murder to come forward. Metropolitan Police Department

“It is bad enough that FBI personnel took opposition research from the Hillary Clinton campaign and used it to open a bad-faith investigation of Mr. Trump, thereby sabotaging him for more than two years,” he added. “It would be considerably worse and considerably more scandalous, however, if FBI personnel knew all along that Seth Rich—not Russian hackers—was responsible for leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks.”

The FBI and Department of Justice’s current position is that Russians hacked the DNC and provided files to Wikileaks, though some evidence undercuts that position. Shawn Henry, founder of CrowdStrike, the firm tapped by the DNC to probe the hack, for instance, told members of Congress that the firm “did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has suggested Mr. Rich was the group’s source.

Mr. Rich was murdered in Washington in 2016 in a killing that remains unsolved by the Metropolitan Police Department. Files released in 2021 indicate someone could have paid for Mr. Rich to be killed.

Washington police officials provided images of Mr. Rich’s personal computer to the FBI, according to court filings. A third party also gave the bureau Mr. Rich’s work computer and a forensic report of the machine.

The FBI should be ordered to produce the documents at least 120 days before the election, Mr. Clevenger said. That would give the court enough time to rule on redactions and withholdings before voters head to the polls.