This was originally published on 10/31.

At one time, the FBI insisted they possessed no records relating to Seth Rich's murder. Now they’re asking a federal court for an order to seal the records that they said they didn’t have –- they have them, all right –- for 66 years.

Recall that Seth Rich was the young staffer for the Democratic National Committee who was murdered on a Washington DC street as he walked home in the early AM on July 10, 2016, in what was said to be a botched robbery. Rich was shot in the back twice and apparently left for dead; his wallet, phone and other valuables were not taken; and, as far as has been made public, there were no witnesses to the shooting. He died at the hospital.

After the homicide, there was, as described by the news outlet SLAY, “a vacuum of information” that continues to this day, along with an active suppression of reporting on Rich’s case. Since his shooting occurred soon after then-DNC chair John Podesta’s emails --- quite damaging to the DNC and Hillary --- were leaked to WikiLeaks, there was speculation that Rich, reportedly a Bernie Sanders supporter, might’ve been the real source of those leaks. Gee, it might not have been a Russian hack at all; we certainly have never seen proof that it was. Didn't matter; the “Russian DNC hack” narrative was the wellspring for the whole Russia Hoax.  Take away the "Russian hack," and it all falls apart.

If the DOJ wants to stop such a “crazy conspiracy theory” in its tracks, all they have to do is release what they have on Seth Rich. It should be easy to set the record straight if this is indeed nothing more than a botched robbery. Perhaps Rick’s death really was just one of those random, senseless murders. After all, robberies and shootings happen frequently in DC, and the “cold case” files are full of them.

But that’s not the way the FBI is reacting to requests for information. They want a court to reverse an order to comply or, failing that, to have the information sealed for 66 years. The FBI made this latest filing in response to a court order made September 29 by U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant for the Eastern District of Texas that it “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop” in response to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Mazzant gave them 14 days; that deadline passed on October 13.

Apparently that’s not all the FBI is withholding. They’ve got three reports from CrowdStrike dating from 2016 regarding the alleged “Russian hack” on the DNC servers. Recall that Crowdstrike never turned over copies of the DNC hard drives to the FBI and that, amazingly, the Bureau did not press them for these, opting simply to go with the CrowdStrike report.

https://slaynews.com/news/fbi-asks-court-seal-seth-rich-laptop-evidence-66-years/

As reported in a “premium” story by THE EPOCH TIMES, “The FBI’s assertion that the privacy interest Rich’s family members hold outweighed the public interest was rejected by Mazzant, who noted the Bureau cited no relevant case law supporting the argument.”

Previous rulings in other cases have found that loved ones of dead people have a substantial privacy interest in preventing the disclosures of autopsies, death scene photographs, and other materials from a person’s final moments, but those considerations don’t apply in this case, Judge Mazzant said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-asks-court-for-66-years-to-release-information-from-seth-richs-computer

A dead person has no right to privacy, but isn’t it thoughtful of the FBI to be so concerned with the privacy of Seth Rich’s family after all this time? Those people at the Bureau are so nice! One thing we have to give the FBI --- they are nothing if not considerate.

Recall that Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the “Russian government” was responsible for publicly releasing the DNC emails online and that “Seth Rich played no role in this scheme.” He decided this even though an executive for CrowdStrike, in a sworn deposition, said they had no evidence of Russian hacking, only an opinion.

Here’s Judge Mazzant’s 53-page order, which in its first few pages offers some background on the case as well --- very interesting reading.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23107237-order-on-seth-rich-files

When plaintiff Brian Huddleston, through attorney Ty Clenenger, first requested information from the FBI, they told him they didn’t have any. But emails disclosed in a separate case told a different story, and in 2020 the FBI had to admit they possessed thousands of documents. The Bureau then identified about 20,000 files that were potentially responsive to the request, later narrowing that down to 1,563 pages. To date, they have produced...75 pages.

The FBI argued that they had no way of knowing if the information they have that purportedly was “extracted from Seth Rich’s personal laptop” and provided to them by “a source” was real, but Clevenger and Huddleston countered that their cyber expert can determine that. The “source” apparently gave them a compact disc with information contained on Seth's laptop. “The FBI did not open an investigation into the murder of Seth Rich,” they said, “nor did it provide investigative or technical assistance to any investigation into the murder of Seth Rich. As a result, the FBI has never extracted the data from the compact disc and never processed the information contained on the disc.” Well, then, how do they know it needs to be squirreled away for 66 years?

Oh, they have an answer to that! To produce the information, the FBI would have to convert the information on the disc into pages and then review the pages to redact information “per FOIA.” They request time to do this at 500 pages a month, which adds up to almost 67 years. Attorney Ty Clevenger told THE EPOCH TIMES, “After dealing with the FBI for five years, I now assume that the FBI is lying to me unless and until it proves otherwise. The FBI is desperately trying to hide records about Seth Rich, and that begs the question of why.”

TechnoFog, on Substack, says the FBI is claiming documents must be withheld on “national security grounds” because “disclosure of the information would threaten intelligence-gathering efforts.” Some of the information they have on the case, they say, was “provided by foreign government agencies under an implied assurance of confidentiality.” It may –- or may not –- include whether the FBI used a “code name” associated with Seth Rich. (Now, why would they do that?) They say their information includes “details of intelligence activities, sources, and methods relating to national security.” Ah, the intel community’s ever-reliable “sources and methods” line. But it worked –- the order from Mazzant, an Obama appointee, still does not require the production of any of that.

https://technofog.substack.com/p/court-orders-production-of-seth-rich

Sorry to have to say it, but the FBI’s own arguments are building the case for a “conspiracy theory.” And that seems odd, when with a little transparency and cooperation they could so easily put it to rest, right? If they were using a code, they can redact it. If they were using confidential sources, they can redact those names. The more they try to withhold thousands of pages information, especially with “national security” arguments such as this, the less Rich’s death sounds like a random homicide.

The revelation of who really leaked those emails --- which might just thaw out the cold case into Seth Rich’s death --- will likely have to be answered by Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. But even though he long ago offered $20,000 for information leading to Rich’s killer, he has so far lived up to his promise to NEVER reveals a source. I wish he’d make an exception this one time. More to come.

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San Francisco DA decides Pelosi attack "politically motivated"

David Depape, the man who has confessed to law enforcement that he entered the home of Paul and Nancy Pelosi and assaulted Paul with a hammer, is “a homeless, mentally ill drug addict with a fondness for BLM,” as Tucker Carlson quipped accurately Monday night. That description applies to a lot of folks in San Francisco, but he’s also an illegal alien, A Canadian who has long overstayed his visa. So, for a more complete description, David Depapae is “a mentally ill, drug addicted illegal alien nudist who takes hallucinogens and lives in a hippie school bus in Berkeley with a BLM banner and a pride flag out front.”

But earlier on Monday, San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins gave a press conference in which she stated flatly that they believe Depape’s crime to be “politically motivated” –- and this being San Francisco, one may safely assume which politics she means. This remark came in the context of her repeatedly stressing that answers would have to wait because the investigation is in its early stages.

So, which is it? If the investigation is just beginning and so many questions can’t yet be answered, how is this DA able to say with such certainty that the attack was politically motivated?

Leftists waste no time; in fact, they were already blaming the right the day of the attack.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/28/liberals-blame-republicans-assault-paul-pelosi/

But a very different picture is emerging –- that of an assailant who is simply crazy as a bedbug, and perhaps infested with them, too, from his living arrangements involving a dilapidated, garbage-strewn old school bus. He just lets his freak flag fly, whether that flag is a rainbow flag, a BLM flag and/or (hypothetically) a MAGA flag. I say hypothetically because I’ve heard no actual reports of a MAGA flag.

But this close to the midterm election, a MAGA flag it will be! Attorney Laurence Tribe, who is just as deranged in his own way as this nudist weirdo is in his, tweeted: “...The far right has normalized the use of violence even against the families of public officials with whom somebody might disagree.”

Far right? Since when is this hammer-wielding fruitcake a member of the far right? And if we’re going to get political about who is “normalizing” the use of violence, how’s about we ask Steve Scalise (who was almost killed by a shooter targeting Republicans), Lee Zeldin and Rand Paul? For starters.

Let’s just look at what we know to be true, and also who might be trying to hide or shade the truth. Beege Welborn at HOT AIR expresses it well, saying on Sunday, “Events and reports from the scene are shifting rapidly. The possibility the cynical Democratic card is being played more as a distraction from the true situation, [versus] an accusation of fault, looks stronger every passing hour.”

Local news seemed protective of Paul Pelosi’s image. One reporter, caught on a hot mic talking to his producer on the phone about what he could include in his broadcast, was heard saying this: “Hey, so is this the dude that is a former nudist dude?”… “Yeah, okay, is it okay to say any of that stuff?”… “Nope?”

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2022/10/30/on-pelosi-were-not-falling-for-the-right-wing-terrorist-in-the-tailpipe-joke-n506708

President Biden tried to have it both ways (as usual), condemning “too much hatred, too much vitriol” in political speech while repeatedly indulging in it himself. Biden’s speeches lately have been as divisive and poisonous –- particularly in their race-baiting –- as any we’ve ever heard from anyone. And so-called news organizations were quick to link this incident with “domestic extremists,” sometimes piggy-backing on what the Biden administration is saying. CBS News reported, “On the same day as the attack on Paul Pelosi, the U.S. warned of a ‘heightened threat’ to the midterm contests, fueled in part by a rise in domestic violent extremism (DVE) and driven by ideological grievances and access to potential targets, according to a joint intelligence bulletin obtained by CBS News.”

Ah, another joint intelligence bulletin. We know how much to trust the intelligence community when they get together to issue a report, which is to say not at all. Any bulletin issued by them has as much credibility as their letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop. (Note: so-called “fact”-checkers are similarly unworthy.) On the bright side, their bulletin gives those of us with ideological grievances an acronym all our own: DVE. If it’s going to apply to us in today’s political climate, though, we should say it really stands for “Doubt Virtually Everything.”

Better to hear from people with real knowledge to share, as opposed to a campaign narrative. Attorney Harmeet Dillon, whose firm once served Pelosi with legal papers, said security was very high at their San Francisco home even when the Pelosis weren’t home. “Break-in is odd given this level of security,” she tweeted. And security cameras are everywhere in this very affluent neighborhood.

As Welborn notes, REUTERS was quick to blame President Trump for what this cuckoo-bird did: “An internet user with the same name as the man arrested at the scene...expressed support for former President Donald Trump and embraced the cult-like conspiracy theory QAnon in online posts...”

Welborn praises Michael Shellenberger for doing some real journalism, going out and talking to people who knew Depape firsthand. Apparently, the guy was mad as a hatter, living in a storage shed and doing hard drugs long before Trump entered politics. “Depape’s politics have little rhyme or or reason,” Shellenberger reports. If you’d like to know about the real person instead of the left’s convenient creation, his piece is a must-read…

https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/pelosi-attack-suspect-was-a-psychotic

Shellenberger likens this obvious sicko to John Hinckley, Jr., the mentally ill man who shot President Ronald Reagan. Back in the '80s, politics hadn’t yet tainted everything –- not quite –- and, if memory serves, most of us on both sides of the aisle could take a breath, think reasonably about it, and agree that, yes, Hinckley REALLY HAD shot Reagan because he wanted to impress Jody Foster, not because he fanatically supported Walter Mondale.

But today, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have their own story to write, and few among them care if it veers from reality. In 2022, they tell “their truth,” which is that Trump and Trump-supporters are to blame for EVERYTHING. As Shellenberger notes, “Wrapped up in their own obsession with Trump Republicans, most journalists missed the real story. David Depape is not a microcosm of the political psychosis gripping America in general. Rather, he’s a microcosm of the drug-induced psychosis gripping the West Coast in particular.”

So I come back to my question for the San Francisco DA: If the investigation is so young that you can’t answer many questions about it, how can you already believe this attack on Paul Pelosi was politically motivated? Why would you say that? Perhaps you haven’t had the inclination to talk with a woman named Linda Schneider, who got to know him in 2014 and said she didn’t “think he had the courage to be part of any political or terrorist group.” She said of him, “His drug use began again and he went off his rocker.”

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