VICE News is suing the FBI, demanding the bureau release records related to its curious disclosures, behind-the-scenes actions, and apparent leaks in the days leading up to the U.S. presidential election.
The wide-ranging Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was filed Tuesday morning in conjunction with Ryan Shapiro, a doctoral candidate at MIT and research affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Earlier this month, VICE News and Shapiro filed more than 50 FOIA requests with the FBI seeking documents about the bureau’s discussions regarding Donald Trump, along with other documents that would shed light on the FBI’s decision a week before the election to tweet newly posted records from a long-dormant Twitter account about Bill Clinton’s 2000 pardon of financier Marc Rich.
The pardon, a controversial decision by the former president, was investigated at the time by current FBI director James Comey while he was U.S. attorney.
Our FOIA lawsuit notes that the FBI failed to respond to our requests for expedited processing. We argued that we urgently needed the documents to immediately inform the public. Among the FBI records we seek to compel the FBI to disclose:
• ŸŸAllegations of the FBI violating the Hatch Act by allegedly using its authority to influence the course of the 2016 U.S. presidential election • ŸŸInternal discontent at the FBI regarding the bureau’s Hillary Clinton investigations
• ŸŸAll leaks of information by the FBI to the media and political operatives about FBI investigations of Clinton
• ŸŸAll FBI communications with Breitbart News; Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon, who Trump named his chief strategist and White House counselor after Bannon served as his campaign CEO; former Trump campaign manager Corey R. Lewandowski, Fox News, and Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Sean Hannity; former New York City mayor and Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani; and Republican strategist and Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone
• ŸŸWhite nationalist Richard Spencer, his National Policy Institute, and the “alt-right.”
I am not sure how successful this lawsuit will be, but I am pretty stoked to read about any records they might get from it.
Especially the ones about the Clinton e-mail investigation as well as anything to do with Bretibart or Fox News.
Yeah, I would really like to see those.
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