Tag: foia

Trentadue To Trump, Bondi: Release The OKC Tapes

During last night’s ZeroHedge panel on the Oklahoma City bombing, attorney Jesse Trentadue (whose brother Kenneth Trentadue was murdered by the FBI then covered up in the wake of the OKC bombing) had two requests for the Trump administration: “[release] the videotape of the bombing and unseal John Matthews’ deposition, because the Department of Justice has it sealed, and President Trump’s Department of Justice is fighting to keep it sealed.”

Trentadue filed a FOIA lawsuit in 2008 to get the surveillance tapes — which the FBI is on record acknowledging exist — but the bureau has told him “they can’t find it”.

“You would think if you had a videotape showing who committed this horrific crime, wouldn’t that have been exhibit number one in McVeigh’s criminal trial? The reason it wasn’t because I believe that second person was an FBI operative who got out of that truck.”

Investigative reporter and author Peter Schweizer, who hosted the ZH panel, responded: “Let’s make sure that those two messages are delivered to Pam Bondi.” 

Well as our other guest, Margaret Roberts, pointed out… it already has been delivered… by Jesse.

“Those are the two critical calls to action. Jesse has a letter on Attorney General Bondi’s desk since March asking the Justice Department to stand down from its opposition to unsealing the John Matthews deposition.”

Roberts recently published her book Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing (available here).

She continued, “The other area here that needs addressing is the FOIA process. This is supposed to be the citizens’ last resort for obtaining records that belong to the American public. This story belongs to the public, not locked away in secret government vaults. The many exclusions available to the secret keepers inside these government agencies make it almost impossible.”

“Jesse has navigated this flawed process so masterfully, and yet this FOIA action to release the videotapes has just been sitting marooned for more than a decade. John Matthews told Jesse he had been pressured by the FBI not to tell his story… FOIA needs to be fixed.”

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Leopold Report: FBI FOIA Team Erased High-Profile Names from Epstein Records, Including Trump

President Donald Trump’s name was among those redacted from documents tied to the late Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Friday report by Bloomberg, which cited multiple sources familiar with the FBI’s final review process. The revelation has deepened the divide between federal transparency efforts and growing demands from Trump’s own base for full disclosure of the Epstein files.

The report, authored by veteran investigative journalist Jason Leopold, states that a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) review team inside the FBI combed through thousands of pages tied to the Epstein investigation. The team, according to Leopold, was tasked specifically with removing the names of private individuals, including “prominent public figures” such as Trump, before the documents were released to the public.

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Over 11,571 Epstein Documents Currently On Appeal in One FOIA Case with Maureen Comey Involved

The public was told that no more Epstein files would be forthcoming.

Officials implied the only Epstein-related documents left were “child porn” that could, of course, not be released. The Justice Department, in a memo released on Sunday, said, “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” about the Epstein case involving the sexual trafficking of children.

But one pending FOIA appeal by two litigants in New York, that the DOJ’s Maureen Comey is due to respond to later this month, has identified at least 11,571 more FBI documents alone related to the Epstein affair, almost all of them as-of-yet unreleased.

This is in addition to the estimated 3 million documents the government gave to Ghislaine Maxwell to prepare for her defense, and they are still active in that case.

The ongoing litigation relates to Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests filed by media entities to release Epstein-related documents. The litigation filed by Radar Online and James Robertson over a FOIA originally filed eight years ago involves over 11,571 documents that the FBI already admits are responsive to a search for Epstein documents.

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FOIA Crack Opens: ‘Mosul Orb’ UFO Video Finally Goes Public

A four-second clip of the ‘Mosul Orb’ Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) has finally surfaced after investigative journalist Dustin Slaughter won a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and its National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC).

In 2023, journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp released a still image from the four-second video, showing the UAP above the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in 2016, reportedly from a CIA spy plane.

The video was filmed at 9:47 am Coordinated Universal Time on 16 April 2016, according to its timestamp.

During an appearance on Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp’s WEAPONIZED podcast, Slaughter said his 2023 FOIA filing hadn’t singled out the Mosul Orb; instead, he’d submitted a broad request for any UAP-related videos.

After what he described as stonewalling by the USAF and NASIC, Slaughter and his legal team filed suit in 2024.

The footage captures a mysterious sphere gliding right-to-left above Mosul’s rooftops. 

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What Are They Hiding? Judicial Watch Fights Pam Bondi and Kash Patel for Records on Biden Regime’s Twitter Censorship

Judicial Watch has sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to unseal records from meetings between Twitter executives and the Biden FBI to censor the American people. 

The lawsuit was filed in 2023 after the FBI ignored a FOIA request for the records of meetings between June 2020 and December 2022.

For some reason, Trump’s DOJ is still fighting against Biden’s censorship efforts, which specifically targeted conservatives, including The Gateway Pundit’s reporting on election fraud, being exposed.

Via Judicial Watch:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a hearing is ordered by U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan for June 18 at 11 a.m. ET in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for “Twitter Files” records concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop and other censorship. The only issue remaining in the lawsuit is the FBI’s continued hiding of records documenting two meetings between Twitter and the Biden FBI.

Judicial Watch filed the April 2023 lawsuit against the Justice Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence after the FBI failed to respond to a December 2022 FOIA request for the records of any FBI official and key Twitter employees between June 2020 and December 2022 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice(No. 1:23-cv-01163)).

The lawsuit references Yoel Roth, Vijaya Gadde, and Jim Baker, who were prominent in internal discussions at Twitter about censoring the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, as journalist Matt Taibbi revealed in the December 2022 release of the “Twitter Files.”

“It is frustrating beyond belief for Judicial Watch to have to go to federal court for basic information on Biden’s abuse of the FBI, using Twitter to censor and monitor Americans,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Fitton said after the hearing that the DOJ was “arguing why the American people should not be able to see what the Biden FBI was planning with Twitter.”

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Former Dem ‘super mayor’ pleads the Fifth after failing to produce public records in court

A Chicago suburb’s former Democratic “super mayor” is facing yet another legal hurdle after failing to produce public records from her time in office after being held in contempt of court earlier this month.  

In a hearing on Friday, Tiffany Henyard’s attorney Beau Bridley pleaded the Fifth on his client’s behalf after she was ordered to hand over public records from her time in office.

“The smear campaign against Tiffany Henyard, which began while she was in office, continues even now that she is out of office,” Bridley said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Bridley conceded that the former mayor does not have the requested document, with an Illinois judge allowing Henyard’s legal team to submit an affidavit in its place. 

“The mayor has no document that the plaintiff seeks,” Bridley said. “This matter is going to be resolved with a simple affidavit. The whole hearing was much ado about nothing.”

The hearing stems from a lawsuit filed by the Edgar County Watchdogs Inc., after the organization sued Henyard and the Village of Dolton for failing to produce financial records after the documents were requested under the Freedom of Information Act. 

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US outpost not given proper air defenses before deadly attack

For three years the United States has been giving Ukraine everything it needs by way of offensive and defensive weapons in its war with Russia. Critically, this has included air defense systems, much of it taken from our own national stockpiles.

Now it turns out that our own troops may have been denied access to anti-drone air defense systems and more sophisticated radar detection months before a lethal attack on a small American outpost in Jordan on Jan. 18, 2024. The drone assault, reportedly launched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iranian-backed militia group, resulted in the deaths of three American Army soldiers.

According to the Washington Post, which obtained access to the massive Army internal investigation of the incident through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the small outpost was ill-prepared for the attack on a number of levels. But this is key:

The investigation’s findings appear to have some contradictions. For instance, investigators faulted Tower 22’s leaders for failing to “visualize risk” and not appreciating the likelihood of an attack.

Yet commanders above them also failed to envision the base’s vulnerability. Four months before the attack, Army Central, which oversees operations throughout the Middle East, denied a request for an air defense system capable of shooting down drones because, investigators found, only one such system was available and troops in the United States needed it to prepare for deployments. A request for a radar system that could better detect drones also was denied, the report said.

The only counter-drone defenses at Tower 22 were electronic warfare systems designed to disable the aircraft or disrupt their path to a target, according to the investigation and previous reporting by The Post.

A spokesperson for Army Central did not respond to repeated requests for additional information, including regarding who at Army Central denied Tower 22’s appeal for an air defense system.

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“Complete Corruption”: Michigan’s Far-Left Atty General Dana Nessel Accused of Illegal Prosecution Against her 2022 GOP Opponent Matt DePerno, Criminal Violations of FOIA

The Democrat who ran for re-election as Michigan’s Attorney General in 2022, far-left Dana Nessel, has been prosecuting her Republican opponent, Matt DePerno, because he tried to investigate voter fraud by getting access to a Dominion Voting machine.

“This is what lawfare looks like: an unconstitutional appointment of a political ally to persecute a political opponent. Illegal funding. All to attack your former opponent,” said Matt DePerno

Michigan’s far-left Attorney General Dana Nessel is currently still prosecuting the 2020 Trump electors, as well as also engaged in, critics say, another outrageous abuse of power to punish her former GOP opponent, Matt DePerno, through what many believe is a blatantly unlawful prosecution.

DePerno, who challenged Nessel in the 2022 election, is currently facing charges stemming from his involvement in the investigation of election equipment in the aftermath of the 2020 election. His investigation was authorized pursuant to a court order in the case of Bailey v Antrim County and Jocelyn Benson. But in legal filings DePerno’s legal team is asking the court to dismiss the charges outright—arguing that Nessel and her office have violated multiple statutes, constitutional provisions, and budgetary laws in orchestrating a political vendetta.

DePerno is specifically charged with “unauthorized access to voting machines.” This stems from the Bailey case where DePerno successfully proved vulnerabilities and susceptibility to election results and equipment being administered remotely and anonymously through an open VPN.

At the core of DePerno’s motion is Nessel’s unprecedented maneuver to hand-pick Muskegon County Prosecutor Dale “DJ” Hilson—a political ally and rumored successor—as “Special Prosecutor” to go after DePerno.

Hilson is the Prosecutor who has repeatedly refused to bring charges against GBI Strategies and the notorious Muskegon Voter Registration Fraud run by the far-left company. Nessel ‘took over’ the investigation from the City of Muskegon, only to quietly terminate and cancel the investigation, lying to the public when she said it had been handed off to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. DJ Hilson, who was also on the 2020 ballot to serve as Muskegon County Prosecutor which he won apparently did not want results of the election reviewed and therefore put the GBI fraud investigation on ice.

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Judicial Watch Files Suit Against DHS For Records On Trump Assassination Attempt In Butler, Pa.

Judicial Watch has announced a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records related to security provided during President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt. 

On Tuesday, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the DHS for records related to security provided for the July 13th, 2024, rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which there was an assassination attempt on Trump.

They stated that they have previously obtained records related to the event, including the Butler County District Attorney’s Office’s records on preparations for the rally and body-camera footage from the Butler Township police department. 

However, the group said that its efforts to obtain records and data from the federal government have gone unanswered.

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FOIA Requests Target Biden Administration’s Financial Surveillance

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has proceeded with filing a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Treasury Department, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The goal is to receive relevant information regarding the Biden administration’s alleged weaponization of government and censorship.

This is yet another attempt to shed light on how third-party groups and organizations were used to circumvent a number of constitutional prohibitions.

ADF’s focus this time is on the previous administration’s policy of using the issue of domestic extremism to, in fact, negatively affect its political opponents – in the cases brought up in these FOIA requests, via access to financial records of US conservatives.

An iteration of the Big Government-Big Tech collusion, which has been investigated by Congress, this one is about Big Governments and Big Banks suspected of having worked together to achieve political goals. But not always by collaborating directly – and this is one of the aspects ADF wants to understand better.

Namely – the involvement of private organizations and businesses hired (“outsourced”) in one way or another, to help banks identify what were designated to be purveyors of misinformation, and domestic extremism.

The FOIAs also aim to reveal the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) role in flagging what are said to be “conservative-coded” transactions (the keywords here are reported to be, “Trump,” “MAGA”, etc.)

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