Posted on 04/29/2018 7:50:29 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Bureau relied on the firm for information about the DNC's hacked servers
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has pushed back the estimated completion date of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to its communications with the security firm that examined the Democratic National Committee's hacked servers to October.
The Washington Free Beacon submitted the FOIA request in July 2017 with the FBI seeking all communication between the bureau and CrowdStrike, Inc., the California-based cyber security firm that examined the DNC's servers following the infiltration that led to the release of John Podesta's emails. The FBI said in December the documents should be available by March.
The FBI, which was never granted access to the DNC's servers for inspection, instead relied on the third-party firm that was brought in by the DNC for information regarding the compromised network who concluded that Russia was behind the hack.
The FBI previously awarded an unrelated $150,000 contract to CrowdStrike in July 2015. Details and communications between the firm and the bureau regarding that past contract were requested as part of the FOIA.
The request additionally sought all communications spanning from April 1, 2016—one month before the firm was brought in by the DNC to analyze the servers—and July 7, 2017, the day the FOIA request was submitted to the FBI.
After inquiring about the estimated completion date for the documents in early December, an FBI public information officer said requests are divided into two processing tracks: Simple, which are under 50 pages of potentially responsive documents, and complex, which are more than 50 pages of potentially responsive documents. Complex requests are further divided into medium, large, and extra-large sub-tracks based upon the request size.
Simple track requests are averaging approximately 80 days from the date of receipt for processing, the officer said. Requests in the large complex processing track are averaging 774 days for processing.
The Free Beacon request falls into the complex medium processing track and was given an estimated completion date of March 2018.
However, the documents were not made available in March. The Free Beacon again reached out to the records office.
A public information officer later left a message saying the estimated completion date is now October, seven months after the initial completion date.
"Our prior estimated date of completion was based on the best data we had at the time and represented the median processing time for the size of the track that request was being processed in," another officer said after inquiring about why the date had been pushed back to October. "Please remember that the FBI receives a voluminous amount of requests on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis."
As part of the initial FOIA request, the Free Beacon also sought an expedited delivery of the documents noting its "widespread and exceptional media interest," but was denied.
The DNC previously claimed that the FBI had never asked for access to its servers. However, former FBI Director James Comey testified that the bureau had sought access to the servers numerous times.
"Ultimately, what was agreed to is the private company would share with us what they saw," Comey said last year in reference to CrowdStrike.
CrowdStrike was first paid by the DNC on May 5, 2016 and was given more than $400,000 up to the end of the year, filings show. In early 2017, the firm was paid an additional $121,000 for its services.
Give us what you have as you get it. We will take 10 or 50 or 100 pages at a time. 776 days for any request is ridiculous.
The FBI continues its efforts to IMPEDE & RESTRICT American citizens’ right to know the TRUTH. As an institution, it is showing itself to be corrupt to the core.
Cloudstrike should go bankrupt.
Very shady.
I always thought the U.S. Attorney General was the boss of the FBI and could give them a direct order to comply.
I guess I was mistaken.
sessions is hiding under a blanket in a backroom closet.
Complex requests
The new you will never see them.
Obviously grounds for obstruction of Justice charges. If someone does not spend hard time for this, justice will have to be served with pitchforks and torches.
Obviously there is stage four cancer at the core of our government. Surgery may be the only option left.
ironic isn’t it, in the end the FBI turns out to be Public Enemy Number One!
The FBI is DIRTY and playing CYA.
And Sessions is playing so much 456-D chess he is spent!
Just out of curiosity how many FOIA requests does the FBI actually received?
I do not believe it is that enormous
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The disclosure that Victoria Nuland started the process is contained in “Russian Roulette,” a book released Tuesday by Yahoo News report Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones magazine’s David Corn. […]snip Mr. Steele, who was excited over his findings about Mr. Trump supposed dalliance with Russian prostitutes and purported collusion with the Kremlin, pressed his handler, Glenn Simpson, of Fusion GPS, to let him go to the FBI. Mr. Simpson agreed. Mr. Steele telephoned Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent with whom he worked on soccer corruption who was then stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Rome.“I can’t discuss it over the phone. You have to come here. Believe me, Mike, you have to come to London,” Mr. Steele told him.
Says “Russian Roulette,” “There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria Nuland’s office at the State Department: Do you support this meeting? Nuland, having found Steele’s reports on Ukraine to have been generally credible, gave the green light.”
“Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele’s office near Victoria station. Steele handed him a copy of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read. He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing. Then he remarked, ‘I have to report this to headquarters.’”
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my question for FResearchers is: Can anyone find any connections between Michael Gaeta and CrowdStrike???
Why is it like pulling teeth to get anything from this damned agency? It’s not like they are on top of things preventing crimes and are too busy.
Jeff Sessions has been AG for 1 year, 2 months, 20 days.
The FBI could be purposely delaying the release because the documents are central pieces of evidence in a criminal investigation.
Bureau relied on the firm for information about the DNC’s hacked servers
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There was no hack, it was a leak.
His name was Seth Rich.
They plugged him.
The FBI is completely corrupted and should be disbanded as it is a danger to America.
This continues to annoy me. It was the Democrats who alleged Russia interfered in the election. And it is the DNC who claimed that Russia is behind a hack of their servers. So what is the reason that Mueller hasn’t even glanced at a Democrat or the DNC?
I am not a police detective, but it seems pretty rudimentary that if you are tasked with investigating whether Russia meddled in our elections that you would go first to interview the people who claimed they were hacked by Russians! You would want to see their evidence. And you would want to make sure that it wasn’t an inside job, make sure there are no spies or Russian moles working in the DNC.
Their stonewalling is just more evidence showing this whole thing to be not a farce, but a continuing criminal conspiracy. They broke all kinds of laws and pulled all kinds of dirty tricks in the effort to prevent Trump from winning. They lost, and now they are deflecting. Every day I am more and more convinced that Mueller is a co-conspirator working a mop up operation.
I agree. The FBI can no longer be trusted. I cannot see how anybody sitting on a jury could convict anyone if the evidence comes from FBI sources (or really almost any government source). They are themselves perjurers. They paid foreign spies to manufacture evidence to present in court. They are no longer credible and should be disbanded in the interest of justice.
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