Attorney Ty Clevenger has filed a motion in federal court to hold the FBI in contempt for what he calls a “deliberate and willful defiance” of a court order mandating the release of key information related to murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich.
The filing, made on behalf of Texas plaintiff Brian Huddleston, alleges the FBI has systematically concealed records from Rich’s personal and work laptops, obstructing transparency and ignoring clear directives from the court.
“This afternoon we asked the U.S. District Court in Sherman, Texas to hold the FBI in contempt of court for systematically violating the court’s orders to produce records about Seth Rich,” said attorney Ty Clevenger on Tuesday.
“If there is nothing to hide, and Seth died in a “botched robbery,” then why has the FBI gone so far as to commit crimes in order to conceal the evidence? After all, the FBI already has admitted that there is a link between Seth’s work laptop and the 2016 “hack” of the DNC, purportedly by Russian intelligence agents.
“If Mueller and Durham told us the whole story about the Russia hoax, then why is the FBI still fighting so hard to hide the facts? The URL below links to our motion. It speaks for itself,” he concluded.
This afternoon we asked the U.S. District Court in Sherman, Texas to hold the @FBI in contempt of court for systematically violating the court’s orders to produce records about Seth Rich. If there is nothing to hide, and Seth died in a “botched robbery,” then why has the FBI gone…
— Ty Clevenger (@Ty_Clevenger) April 8, 2025
According to the motion filed on April 8 in the Eastern District of Texas, the FBI failed to comply with Judge Amos Mazzant’s August 2024 order which required the agency to conduct a full “document-by-document review” of devices in its possession. Instead, the FBI is accused of providing incomplete and misleading Vaughn indexes — legally required inventories explaining why documents are withheld — that omitted key files, metadata, and even entire sets of records.
Worse, Clevenger argues, the FBI knowingly reasserted privacy exemptions for Seth Rich that Judge Mazzant had explicitly rejected in 2022.
These exemptions were rubber-stamped across every single record in an apparent effort to stonewall the court and the public from learning what really happened to Rich — whose 2016 murder remains unsolved and has long been the subject of intense scrutiny due to his alleged connections to leaked DNC emails published by WikiLeaks.
“The FBI’s defiance, obfuscations, and delays will continue unabated so long as its senior FBI personnel think they can get away with it,” Clevenger warns in the filing.
Among the most damning revelations is the agency’s refusal to confirm whether it actually reviewed Seth Rich’s physical work laptop — as ordered — or merely examined an image created by an “outside entity,” believed to be affiliated with the Democratic National Committee or its law firm, Perkins Coie.
Moreover, metadata — crucial digital fingerprints that could potentially show if Rich was the source of the 2016 WikiLeaks leaks — was neither produced nor accounted for. That’s despite a court order demanding its disclosure and repeated warnings from Clevenger that metadata could settle the issue once and for all.
The filing also reveals that while the FBI previously estimated there would be roughly 400,000 records on Rich’s personal laptop, it accounted for only 1,297. A technical expert supporting Huddleston noted that even a brand-new Windows laptop would have more than 100,000 files — meaning the FBI’s production was “laughably incomplete.”
In some cases, documents were bizarrely described as “Editorial Cartoons,” “Video Game Notes,” “Groupon Certificates,” and even a “Birthday Party Menu” — all flagged as law enforcement-sensitive or privacy-invading, despite dating years before Rich’s death.
This is not the first time the FBI has tried to bury the Seth Rich story. The agency initially denied having any records at all before being forced to admit otherwise. Now, Clevenger is demanding an evidentiary hearing, the appointment of a special master to oversee the review, and even contempt charges against top FBI FOIA official Michael Seidel and others who may have participated in the agency’s disobedience.
Clevenger has requested the court order the FBI to turn over all internal emails, chats, and notes related to its handling of the Seth Rich FOIA request, particularly any discussion surrounding compliance with the judge’s order. He’s also seeking full reimbursement of legal fees and costs.
Read the filing below:
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