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Federal Judge Orders FBI To Finally Release Seth Rich's Laptop

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by blueapples
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2023 - 23:35

The murder of Seth Rich has long been one of the stones left unturned since the fall out following the 2016 presidential election. Rich, a 27-year old staffer for the Democratic National Committee was murdered on July 10th, 2016 while walking back to his home in Washington DC. Although his murder would occur months before the election of Donald Trump, Rich's name would become inextricably tied to the build up that culminated in that populist victory.

Rich has been theorized to have been a whistleblower who outed the democratic establishment following primaries in which it became evident were rigged by the DNC in favor of Hillary Clinton, upending the ascent of Bernie Sanders as a candidate for the party's presidential nomination. Troves of emails were published by Wikileaks giving insight into the corrupt inner machination of the Democratic National Committee. While Rich was never officially revealed as the source of the leaked emails, it has been heavily suggested. Julian Assange was one key figure who made that suggestion when he highlighted Rich's murder during a 2016 interview in which he was asked about the risks that come with operating WikiLeaks. Megavideo founder and entrepeneur Kim Dotcom went as far to confirm he worked with Rich to connect him with Assange.

Following Rich's murder, law enforcement took possession of the deceased staffer's personal and work laptops in addition to other possessions found on his person at the scene of the crime. However, the information in that evidence has long been kept under lock and key, furthering speculation of a cover-up of his murder as a move for power consolidation by those with vested interests in the democratic establishment. After years, it finally appears that they will not remain a secret much longer.

On Tuesday, Federal Judge Amose Mazzant of the United States District Court For The Eastern District of Texas issued a memorandum opinion and order dictating that the FBI must release the information contained in Rich's laptops. The order comes from the lawsuit Huddleston v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation. Brian Huddleston, the plaintiff in the civil case, filed FOIA requests in 2017 and 2020 compelling the FBI and DOJ to release the information contained in Rich's laptops.

After filing those FOIA requests, the FBI and DOJ spent years manipulating the legal system in order to avoid disclosing that evidence. It has repeatedly filed motions to stay the scheduling orders advancing Huddleston's case in the aim of bringing the evidence to light. In 2022, the plaintiff achieved a major victory when Judge Mazzant ruled the FBI improperly withheld the evidence from Huddleston's FOIA request. The order issued Tuesday dictates that the FBI finally must agree to a timeline for the disclosure of the information with Huddleston.

Mazzant's order to release the information in response to Huddleston's FOIA request may prove to be a watershed moment in the pursuit of revealing what information Rich had that could have prove to be the motive behind his murder. To this day, no arrests have ever made following his shooting. Despite police characterizing the murder as an attempted robbery, Rich's wallet, watch, and other valuables were not taken from him after being fatally shot twice in the back.

Suspicions spawned by the nature of the supposed "robbery" have fueled speculation about the real motive behind Rich's murder to this day. Like anything else that didn't conform to the mainstream narrative surrounding the 2016 election, suggestions that Rich's murder was politically motivated have since been "debunked" as conspiracy theories. However, with the forthcoming release of the information contained in Seth Rich's laptops, it appears that a fact-checker who is actually determined to uncover the truth has finally emerged.

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