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Jason Leopold Profile picture
Jason Leopold
@JasonLeopold
Investigative Reporter @business. 'FOIA terrorist.' Band Tshirt hoarder. Subscribe to my newsletter FOIA Files jasonleopold@protonmail.com Signal 213-270-4334.
SocialMediaWarriorForABlueAmerica Profile picture Bill Jackson III (Taylor’s Version🧣🕛💃🏼💜) 🖥 Profile picture Ken Tancrous Ⓥ 🌱 Hecate's Crossroad #QVArmy Profile picture BlueGlowAgave 🌻 Profile picture 30 subscribed
Apr 7 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
A little backstory on this week's FOIA Files newsletter 🧵

Not long after Russia launched airstrikes in Ukraine in 2022, I started seeing tweets that said some of Russia’s targets were labs where Ukraine had secretly been developing bio weapons w/the help of the US govt
1/ The allegations seemed to be an obvious attempt to justify the invasion. They garnered thousands of retweets. Soon Fox News was amplifying the claims.

2/
Apr 5 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out with a SCOOP based on 2500 pages of docunents about how a Defense Dept office struggled to fend off a "Russian lie" related to biolabs in Ukraine after the February 2022 invasion

Read & subscribe!
🧵
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
Image The documents provide a rare behind-the-scenes look into an escalating disinformation war during a critical two-month period after the Ukraine invasion

It took me more than a year to liberate these records from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the division that was targeted by Russia's disinformation campaign

2/
Mar 15 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
SCOOP: 2nd edition of my weekly newsletter, FOIA Files, is out (SUBSCRIBE!), based on FBI docs related to the classified docs Trump took to MAL & how the Aug 2022 search roiled some of FBI's rank & file

"Did this really just happen? Am I dreaming?
🧵
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
Image The FBI employee sent that email to the FBI ombudsman shortly after the MAL search. “If he took documents, give him a call and ask for them back. Like ...Seriously? My own agency .... A bunch of democrat political hacks up top…I've lost just about all faith in our leadership”
2/
Dec 29, 2023 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
#FOIAFriday 2023 year in review 🧵

Fighting for records continues to be painstaking, difficult work but my @business colleagues & I still managed to overcome the culture of secrecy & pry loose 1000s of pages of docs from state & federal agencies this year

The greatest hits
1/ The ultimate META FOIA: I FOIA'd Trump's FOIA to the IRS & then in Jan @laurapdavison & I landed this scoop: Trump used the FOIA to try and hinder IRS release of his tax returns

2/
 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Nov 13, 2023 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
NEW: I obtained via #FOIA from Secret Service 100+ pages of the cocaine found inside a cubby near the West Wing of the WH this summer.

Good stuff!

Here's the full cache of docs
documentcloud.org/documents/2416…



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Image I refiled my request for these docs after Secret Service initially denied my request back in July citing an ongoing investigation

Sep 1, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
🧵 For the past decade, DOD has been ignoring a handful of my #FOIA requests, the ones I didn't sue over

This week, I have received 9 letters from the agency asking me if I am still interested in receiving docs in response to requests I filed in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018 & 2020

1/
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Image These requests related to documents I sought about Guantanamo, Afghanistan, drone strikes and pressing policy issues. DOD just blatantly violated the law and didn't process a single one.

2/
Aug 25, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
#FOIAFriday SCOOP: US Fish & Wildlife Service turned over more than 1K pages of emails, pics & other docs abt the aftermath of the SpaceX rocket that exploded shortly after takeoff in April. Incredible look behind the scenes

@danahull @lorengrush & me
1/
 bloomberg.com/news/features/…


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Image The Fish and Wildlife Service officials privately expressed disbelief at the extent of the aftermath.

“The explosion was so extensive it sent concrete chunks flying into the surf,” said one email from Chris Perez of the FWS to colleagues.

2/
Aug 5, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
FLASHBACK to this exclusive I reported back in 2017 based on FBI docs and a police report from the 80s and 90s I obtained via #FOIA w/@_rshapiro

"If You Keep Fucking With Mr. Trump, We Know Where You Live”
buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl… Image
Jul 14, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
NEW for #FOIAFriday: According to docs obtained by @business/me, Trump’s criminal indictments in NY & Miami sparked a barrage of threats from his extremist supporters & alleged Russian hackers including bomb threats, protest plans & other forms of violence
https://t.co/nI6vCtBS3Kbloomberg.com/news/articles/…


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Image None of the threats materialized, but the 85 pages obtained from the Federal Protective Service via #FOIA provide a behind-the-scenes look at how federal agents responded to the threats.

2/ Image
Jun 29, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: 🚨@business & I defeated ODNI & DOJ's use of a GLOMAR in our FOIA case (HUGE) for a copy of Trump's declassification standing order

Surprise! Now the agencies have officially confirmed to us they have no record of Trump's standing order

1/
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… The disclosure by the agencies was made in response to a FOIA lawsuit @business & I filed last August by against ODNI and the Justice Department’s national security division for a copy of Trump’s so-called standing order — if one existed.

2/
Mar 27, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, was under an FBI counterintelligence inquiry into allegations about her connections in her home country of Czechoslovakia in the 1990s, according to excerpts from her FBI file obtained by Bloomberg News.

w/@ryanbeckwith & @MikeDorning

1/ The inquiry spanned several countries, with US legal attaches in Canada & Europe instructed to inquire abt the circumstances of her emigration from then-Communist Czechoslovakia to Austria & later to Canada & to look into her association w/individuals whose names are redacted

2/
Mar 23, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Incredible, hard-hitting investigation by @GavinFinchBBG @jasongrotto
@_ToddGillespie

Consumers Foot the Bill for Traders ‘Manipulating’ UK Power Market

Some of UK’s biggest energy cos have rec'd £525M from a practice regulators say drives prices higher
bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-… An analysis of more than 100M market records shows that firms rang up more than £525M in inflated revenue using this practice between 2018 and 2022. Nearly 90% of that came in just the last two years. Plants controlled by VPI and Uniper together accounted for £321M of the total
Mar 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: Darkness during this #SunshineWeek celebration

In court filings, DOJ & FBI refuse to say -one way or another- in response to my/@business #FOIA lawsuit whether Trump had a "standing order" to instadeclassify docs that he removed from Oval Office🧵
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… “The existence or non-existence of the alleged ‘Standing Order’ would bear on whether records with apparent classification markings were in fact classified - a key fact in the investigation,” wrote Joseph Bender, one of the FBI’s top FOIA officials, in a declaration
Mar 2, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Here's a crazy detail from Kim Kardashian's FBI intv

“Kardashian put the trash bag full of cash in her carry-on bag and boarded a Southwest Airlines flight back to Los Angeles.” She collected the other $100K, again in a trash bag, during a later trip to party w/ Low in Las Vegas Kim Kardashian told the FBI in February 2019 how she’d met Low and partied with him. Low offered her a work by Basquiat, prompting her then husband, Kanye West, to ask for a Monet...
Mar 2, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
NEW investigative stories related to the $4.5B 1MDB scandal & accused mastermind Jho Low w/lots of new info

We have LEONARDO DICAPRIO & KIM KARDASHIAN'S FBI intv summaries where they recount to agents the bags of cash, artwork & more they got from Low
1/
 tinyurl.com/ubn28mfn NEW: A wild tale of celebrity & political intrigue based, in part, on undisclosed FBI & DOJ docs that reveals for 1st time how Pras Michél of the Fugees got caught up in the 1MDB scandal & also negotiated the release of an American citizen held in China
2/
 tinyurl.com/4ktxrcad
Feb 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
SCOOP: FAA released 321 pages of emails in response to my #FOIA request for docs on the Southwest Airlines meltdown at the end of Dec

Heavily redacted docs show top DOT atty planned trip to Southwest HQ, WH involvement & DOT/FAA comms plan bloomberg.com/news/articles/… DOT General Counsel John Putnam detailed a proposed agenda for the trip in a Jan. 1 email to members of Buttigieg’s staff. He called for 2 days of meetings with various employee groups, including crew scheduling, system operations and customer relations workers

W/@Schlangenstein
Feb 11, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
NEW/#FOIAFriday: NARA released 74 pages of emails that show agency officials working with a personal lawyer for President Joe Biden to recover documents discovered at Biden’s think tank.

STORY bloomberg.com/news/articles/… The emails indicate that Biden’s legal team was in close communication with Gary Stern, the National Archives’ general counsel, and other Archives officials about the records and fielded numerous questions about whether any were stored in other locations.
Jan 30, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
SCOOP: Trump filed #FOIA requests w/IRS on June 14 & 28, 2019 seeking a wide-range of docs about IRS's behind-the-scenes deliberations over releasing his taxes to Congress

He said he was willing to pay up to $30K

I FOIA'd Trump's FOIAs

w/@laurapdavison
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… ImageImageImageImage Trump filed two FOIAs in June 2019, a few months after Democrats first sought the documents, and a few weeks before then-House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal sued the Treasury Department and the IRS for the tax returns. ImageImageImage
Jan 18, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
UPDATE: A rep for Morrissey -- his tour manager --reached out to me after @nypost @PageSix pubed a story based on this response to my #FOIA request I got from Secret Service, which said the agency could not find docs re: a 2017 intv with the singer about his Trump comments

1/ Morrissey's tour manager shared emails with me showing a Secret Service official from the Protective Intelligence Division reached out in November 2017 to arrange an intv with the singer after he said he'd kill Donald Trump "for the safety of humanity"

2/
 google.com/amp/s/conseque…
Jan 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Last week, I read an article about the latest Morrissey drama. He claimed he was investigated by US Secret Service in 2017 over his Trump comments. (I missed it when it was first reported that year)

So I FOIA'd the agency for docs

Secret Service says it doesn't have any records I have a pretty good track record of prying loose these types of records from Secret Service if they exist

buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…
Dec 23, 2022 • 20 tweets • 10 min read
#FOIA 2022 Wrap-up 🧵: It was another year where federal govt agencies delayed, stonewalled and tried to thwart my efforts to obtain docs about a wide-range of issues to share w/the public. But I still managed to pry records loose and shine a light. Here are the greatest hits

1/ In January, I obtained emails & the never before seen photographs from DOJ of Wu Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which the agency seized from Martin Shkreli.

DOJ withheld details about how much they auctioned off the album for. I'm appealing.

buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…