On Monday night, Texas attorney Ty Clevenger posted online the latest responses he has received in litigation related to files held by Seth Rich.
I just received the Vaughn indexes for Seth Rich’s personal and work laptops. Downloads may be slow because of limited bandwidth, but I’m distributing to other sources. I have not reviewed the files yet. More comments later.
Personal laptop: https://t.co/QtooiPxb0G
Work…
— Ty Clevenger (@Ty_Clevenger) March 11, 2025
As The Gateway Pundit has reported, Clevenger has been fighting the FBI to release these documents for years. The FBI has previously refused to turn over Rich’s laptops despite court orders to do so. At one point the FBI said they needed 66 years to turn over all the documents.
Getting to the bottom of the Seth Rich murder has been a challenge, and it leads many to wonder who or what the FBI is protecting.
Thankfully, Clevenger is known for his aggressive litigation style and focus on government transparency, election integrity, and corruption cases. These “Vaughn Indexes” are related to the personal and work laptops held by the FBI since Rich’s 2016 murder. The indexes contain a list of the files the government refuses to turn over and their argued justification for the files being withheld.
Many documents are being withheld under Exemption 7(A), indicating “potential interference with ongoing investigations if disclosed.” The FBI has denied involvement in investigating Seth Rich’s murder, stating it was a matter for local law enforcement. It is not clear which ongoing investigation the FBI is citing to, if any.
In recent years, the federal government has become notorious for abusing FOIA laws to deny records to American citizens.
- The Vaughn Index for the personal laptop of Seth Rich is here.
- The Vaughn Index for the work laptop of Seth Rich is here.
Seth Rich, a 27-year-old staffer for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was fatally shot in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2016, in what police initially described as a botched robbery, despite his valuables remaining untouched. His death quickly became the subject of widespread speculation, particularly due to his potential connection to the 2016 DNC email leak published by Wikileaks.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has strongly hinted that Rich was the source of the leak, but has not confirmed it outright. Kim Dotcom from Mega has claimed personal knowledge that Rich was the leaker to Assange.
The DNC email leak, published by WikiLeaks in July 2016, exposed thousands of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, revealing favoritism toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary, despite the DNC’s supposed neutrality. The emails led to the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and fueled claims that the primary process had been rigged against Sanders. The leak also exposed collusion between the DNC and mainstream media outlets, with journalists providing Clinton’s team with debate questions in advance and coordinating coverage to benefit her campaign. Additionally, the emails revealed DNC efforts to manipulate public perception, including discussing ways to exploit Sanders’ religious beliefs to weaken his support. The leak significantly damaged the DNC’s credibility, deepened divisions within the Democratic Party.
The DNC email leak in July was separate from the Podesta email leak on October 7, 2016, which spawned the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
The U.S. government has always maintained – without proof – that the DNC email leak was perpetrated by the Russian government.
The FBI’s handling of Seth Rich’s laptop has been a point of controversy and speculation, primarily because the agency initially denied possessing it, only to later admit in court filings that it had been in their custody. For years, the FBI claimed it had no involvement in investigating Rich’s murder, reinforcing the official narrative that his death was a random street crime. However, in 2020, during a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the FBI was forced to acknowledge that it had thousands of pages of documents related to Rich, including his laptop and emails. This revelation directly contradicted prior statements and raised questions about why the bureau concealed its possession of these materials.
Clevenger also shared the analysis of his consultant Yaacov Apelbaum of XRVision, who has also been a source for the Gateway Pundit in the past. You can read Apelbaum’s analysis of the Seth Rich Vaughn Indexes here.
In sum, Apelbaum says there are patterns of concern in the government’s objections to releasing Rich’s files, including frequent redaction of names and contact information, withholding of communication logs and schedules, withholding Rich’s involvement of financial transactions, and the presence of atypical objections. Additional technical observations by Apelbaum point to possible data obfuscation, redacted key information, and unreadable files, suggesting deliberate concealment efforts by the FBI.
Overall, the analysis implies that the redacted documents may conceal significant information related to communication networks, financial dealings, and political affiliations.
Commenters also noted that the FBI’s claims to privilege were outlandish, for example arguing that a college poem by Rich should be withheld.
How about commenting on why a poem from 2006 on his computer when he was 17 could be labeled by the FBI as “reasonably interfering with an on going investigation” while they continue to proclaim it was just a botched robbery.
— Mccabes Porsche on Blocks (@Larry_Beech) March 11, 2025
A Vaughn Index is a document used in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation to justify the withholding of documents or portions of documents by a government agency. It is named after the case Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C. Cir. 1973), which established the requirement.
When an agency withholds records under one of FOIA’s exemptions, it must provide a detailed explanation for each redaction or withheld document. The Vaughn Index serves as a structured way to justify these decisions without revealing the withheld information itself.
A Vaughn Index typically includes a descriptor of each separate withheld document, identifying details such as dates, authors, recipients, and subject matter where possible. It also lists out the specific FOIA exemptions being claimed, such as Exemption 1 for classified information or Exemption 5 for deliberative process privilege. Additionally, it provides a detailed explanation justifying the exemption, outlining the potential harm disclosure could cause.
The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law on July 4, 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson. FOIA was designed to ensure public access to federal records, allowing citizens, journalists, and researchers to request information from government agencies. Despite the law, agencies frequently delay or heavily redact documents, leading to lawsuits that challenge government secrecy and uphold the public’s right to information.
The post Govt Releases List of Withheld Docs in Seth Rich Investigation, Indicates case from 2016 is still an “Ongoing Law Enforcement Investigation” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.