AssangeRich
© UnknownJulian Assange • Seth Rich
The National Security Agency is hiding records about murdered Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich, according to one of my sources, who informed me yesterday that the records are classified as a special access program (the highest level of classification) because they include intercepted communications between Mr. Rich and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Meanwhile, I've been authorized to release the transcript of a July 15, 2020 deposition of Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Sy Hersh, wherein Mr. Hersh is forced to admit that he did speak with a senior intelligence official about an FBI report about Mr. Rich and Wikileaks. That contradicts much of what Mr. Hersh has said publicly since early 2017 (more on that below).

As my regular readers know, Mr. Rich was murdered in Washington, D.C. on July 10, 2016, and shortly thereafter Wikileaks published thousands of DNC emails that were very embarrassing to then-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. On August 9, 2016, Mr. Assange intimated that the DNC emails were obtained from Mr. Rich, not Russian hackers.

If you doubt my source, recall that three weeks ago — after three years of denials — the FBI was finally forced to admit that it had thousands of records about Mr. Rich, as well as his laptop. Meanwhile, virtually no one in official Washington has lifted a finger to help.

On May 7, 2020, for example, I sent a letter to Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell asking him to de-classify the NSA's records about Mr. Rich, and I copied the letter to Republican Senators Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, and Ron Johnson, as well as Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Grenell left office shortly thereafter, so I sent it with a cover letter to current Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on June 2, 2020.

To date, no one has responded to the letter. Absolutely no one. And for reasons that I do not yet fully understand, none of the Republicans in Congress (or even in the Trump Administration) are willing to go anywhere near the subject of Seth Rich. It's like the last bus stop before Pizzagate (maybe I need to start looking into that, too).

Sy Hersh finally comes clean

In a conversation recorded in 2017, Mr. Hersh told my client Ed Butowsky about an FBI investigation concerning Seth Rich and Wikileaks, but he then spent the next three years trying to disavow what he told Mr. Butowsky. See, e.g., Andy Kroll, "Killing The Truth," August 16, 2020 Rolling Stone (ironically, few have spent more time "killing the truth" than Andy Kroll and Rolling Stone). In the July 15, 2020 deposition, however, he reluctantly admitted that he did discuss the FBI investigation with a senior intelligence official whom he had known for more than 30 years. See, e.g., pp. 198-199 of the transcript.

It's a long deposition, and I find it disappointing that Mr. Hersh was so evasive when questioned. I'm a former journalist, as my readers know, and I understand the need to protect sources, but it is almost as if Mr. Hersh ran away from the story because it was so radioactive. Even at the time of the July deposition, he seemed to believe what his source told him, yet he had zero interest in pursuing the story.

I sought permission to release the deposition because I wanted to use it as an exhibit in Huddleston v. FBI, Case No. 4:20-cv-447-ALM (E.D. Tex.), the case where the FBI reluctantly admitted that it has thousands of records about Seth Rich. According to the court's October 23, 2020 scheduling order, the FBI was supposed to produce the records two days ago. On December 16, 2020, however, the FBI asked the court for what amounts to an indefinite delay.

This morning I filed an opposition to the FBI's request, and I attached the deposition of Mr. Hersh. Below I've posted links to all of the exhibits. As I explained to the Huddleston court, the FBI has a long history of deception and delay, and it perpetrated a fraud on at least two federal courts while hiding the Seth Rich records.
Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3
Exhibit 4
Exhibit 5
Exhibit 6
Exhibit 7
Exhibit 8
Exhibit 9