ACLJ Files Lawsuit Against Biden FBI for "Clos[ing] the File" and Ignoring Our FOIA Request for Information on FBI Election Interference and Collusion With Facebook and Twitter Exposed by Twitter Files
This August, the ACLJ began an investigation of the FBI’s election interference. We sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI regarding Mark Zuckerberg’s statement in an interview with Joe Rogan, where Zuckerberg said:
The FBI, I think, basically came to us - some folks on our team - and was like, “Hey, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert. . . . We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that, basically, there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that. So just be vigilant.”
Our FOIA request stated:
To summarize, this Request seeks records pertaining to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) interactions with and requests to social media and news platforms, including Facebook, to censor or “be on high alert for” information in connection with the then-upcoming election, which according to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, resulted in censorship (or reduced “distribution” which was “meaningful”) of information, including the Hunter Biden-related stories, on Facebook.
We also specifically requested information regarding the FBI’s interactions with Twitter during the same period (before Elon Musk even bought the social media site), something that has become much more relevant now as Musk’s release of the Twitter Files has shown.
The FBI responded on the last possible day with a Glomar Response (a response refusing to admit or deny the existence of responsive records).
As we told you, on November 3, we filed an appeal, as required by FOIA, and awaited the response.
The FBI has ignored our administrative appeal. Under the FOIA statute, they had 20 business days in which to rule on the appeal, so until December 7, 2022 (the extra days are because of Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday). The Biden FBI completely ignored the appeal. Zip, zero, zilch, nada, no response has been forthcoming.
So we just filed a lawsuit in federal court to get the truth. Read our entire complaint here, but the paragraphs below show the tone, in relevant part:
15. On October 3, 2022, the Defendant responded to Plaintiff’s Request (Exhibit A), denied the entire FOIA request (including all other parts not pertaining to Hunter Biden’s privacy), closed the file, and stated in relevant part: “The mere acknowledgement of the existence of FBI records on third party individuals could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” See FBI Response attached as Exhibit D.
16. The ACLJ’s FOIA Request contained 9 other subparts seeking various records which could not reasonably be construed as privacy invasion of Hunter Biden, yet the FBI’s Response did not address those, e.g., communications to the personnel of Facebook, Twitter or other news media about being on “high alert” for “information in connection with an election” that does not include Hunter Biden.
The FBI will have 30 days in which to file an Answer (where it admits facts or asserts a defense) or a FRCP 12(b)6 Motion to Dismiss (for defenses on technical grounds). In our other FOIA cases, they have done both. We’re ready to defeat whatever legal tactic the Biden FBI tries to throw at us. We’re on the cusp of something big and we won’t back down.
We anticipate a vigorous attempt to thwart our efforts by the Biden FBI and DOJ (which will be defending them in court), even though, because of the Twitter Files, we know the truth. The FBI did tell social media what to censor but it doesn’t want its dirty acts out to be seen.
This lawsuit is the first step to proving the FBI’s interference in the election and to showing the accuracy of the Twitter Files. We will persevere until the end. We will expose the truth. We will defeat the corruption.