Speaker 1: What the are you wearing? Okay, this is a little scary,
Speaker 1: isn't it obvious? I can't tell you that. What are
Speaker 1: you an elf?
Speaker 2: I'm an elf?
Speaker 1: Yes, you are wearing an health outfit? Why are you
Speaker 1: wearing an elf? Costa?
Speaker 2: Because, Jason, I have a very special holiday foyer story
Speaker 2: for you today, and I think you're gonna like it.
Speaker 2: Are you ready?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Can I do the thing this time?
Speaker 1: Do it? Brather, jingle them bells. I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold.
Speaker 1: I spend most of my days getting documents from the government.
Speaker 2: I'm attorney Matt Tabbit, and I fight them in court
Speaker 2: to open their files when they don't want to.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg and no smiling, This is Disclosure, a podcast
Speaker 1: about buying loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act,
Speaker 1: and the unexpected places that takes us.
Speaker 2: So I have a special story for you, Jason. I'm
Speaker 2: going to take you back to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: It up all right, So.
Speaker 2: Picture this Chicago, Matt's office, December eighth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Our law firm. We have a pretty big holiday party
Speaker 2: every year. A bunch of other lawyers come clients come
Speaker 2: and it's like an hour or so before our big
Speaker 2: annual holiday party is going to start. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: sitting around, I'm having a pregame whiskey. I'm listening to
Speaker 2: some Nat King Cole, a little bit of Santa Claus
Speaker 2: is coming to town. Just getting in the mood for
Speaker 2: holiday time, and I think to myself, I should make
Speaker 2: some kind of a holiday boyer requests. So this is
Speaker 2: what I saw on I decided to make a foyer
Speaker 2: request to our very good friends at the Federal Bureau
Speaker 2: of Investigation. And here is my request. Greetings, I request
Speaker 2: the first twenty five pages you locate from a CRS
Speaker 2: main file in cross reference, search for the term quote
Speaker 2: Santa Claus end quote.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, amazing.
Speaker 2: You like that?
Speaker 1: Amazing? So what's the CRS, Jason, Well, the CRS is
Speaker 1: the Central Record System, the database that holds one hundred
Speaker 1: million FBI files, investigative file.
Speaker 2: So investigative, right, It's not like communications with Congress or
Speaker 2: you know, kind of internal policy things. For the most part,
Speaker 2: like this is this is investigative records. This is the
Speaker 2: bread and butter. You know, FBI is investigating and they
Speaker 2: need a system and they keep it all in the CRS. Right,
Speaker 2: So tell us about main file and cross reference searches.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? A main file is the file
Speaker 1: on the subject. The subject would be Santa Claus, and
Speaker 1: a cross reference search would be where there are references
Speaker 1: to that subject in other investigative files that the FBI maintains.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like if the FBI were investigating Satan,
Speaker 1: and you know, Satan and Santa had some interactions and
Speaker 1: Santa ends up in Satan's file? Is that right?
Speaker 2: Are you breaking news here about a previously unknown relationship
Speaker 2: between Santa Claus and Citan.
Speaker 1: I mean their names are anagrams, all right, So back
Speaker 1: to the story.
Speaker 2: What I'm doing here is I'm saying, go to your
Speaker 2: fancy record keeping system and search that I want to
Speaker 2: see if you have any main files that hit on
Speaker 2: the search term Santa Claus and then a cross reference
Speaker 2: files that hit on the term Santa Claus. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, probably there's not going to be a main file,
Speaker 2: unless maybe Santa Claus is some alias for somebody, but
Speaker 2: there could be cross references. And what I'm thinking, as
Speaker 2: one example, might be if there were bank robberies and
Speaker 2: people were dressed up as Santa Claus. They might want
Speaker 2: to at some point be liketay, I need a list.
Speaker 2: I need a list of every bank robbery in which
Speaker 2: someone was dressed up with Santa Claus in that's what
Speaker 2: the cross reference searches in the cross referencing system would
Speaker 2: allow you to do. So I make my request, and
Speaker 2: I finished my whiskey, and I enjoy my colleagues and
Speaker 2: clients and friends at our holiday party, and I and
Speaker 2: I wait, I wait a little bit, and I don't
Speaker 2: have to wait that long because on December thirteenth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, five days after I make my request, I
Speaker 2: get a response from the FBI. And that's pretty fast, right,
Speaker 2: that is really fast. Would you care to venture a
Speaker 2: guess as to what the response was?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is twenty twenty three. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, if you filed this request in say twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen, I would have said that the FBI's
Speaker 1: response to you would have been they were unable to
Speaker 1: locate any responsive records. But since you filed it in
Speaker 1: tw twenty three, I'm going to say that the FBI glomar.
Speaker 2: Do you glomar? So that that would be Hey, wait
Speaker 2: a second. Now, we can't tell you if we're investigating
Speaker 2: Santa or not because we can't tip Santa off that
Speaker 2: we're onto them exactly right, that would be the glomar
Speaker 2: or or it would be Hey, Now, Santa Claus has
Speaker 2: got privacy rights, and we're not going to invade those
Speaker 2: privacy rights by telling you whether we investigated Santa Claus
Speaker 2: or not. That's my guess. That's a good guess. That
Speaker 2: is not actually what their response is. Oh what, here's
Speaker 2: a response Jason December thirteenth, twenty twenty three, Request number
Speaker 2: one six one two nine four five dash triple zero,
Speaker 2: subject Santa Claus. Dear mister topic. This is in response
Speaker 2: to your Freedom of Information Privacy Acts FOIPA requests to
Speaker 2: the FBI. Below you find information relevant to your request.
Speaker 2: Please read each item carefully. Your request did not contain
Speaker 2: enough identifying information for this off is to make a
Speaker 2: determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our central record system.
Speaker 2: We're not even getting a really good party.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Therefore, your request is being administratively closed. Please provide any
Speaker 2: additional information that would help locate the records with a
Speaker 2: reasonable amount of effort. This might include the subject's complete name,
Speaker 2: date of birth, prior addresses former employment in God, this
Speaker 2: is so good, or any incidents for which you believe
Speaker 2: the FBI may have investigated the subject. This office will
Speaker 2: conduct a new search upon receipt of the additional information.
Speaker 1: That's news right there by the way. The fact that
Speaker 1: the FBI I would have turned that immediately into a
Speaker 1: story the FBI does not know who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1: That would be the headline. If they do not know
Speaker 1: who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I kind of wonder if maybe this
Speaker 2: was like, oh, wait a second, the existence of Santa
Speaker 2: Claus or not is a subject that the FBI should
Speaker 2: not be taking a position on.
Speaker 1: It also seems to be like, is the FBI messing
Speaker 1: with you? Are they like, oh, okay, this is a
Speaker 1: good request. Now we want you to tell us what
Speaker 1: Santa Claus's real name is. They want you to say
Speaker 1: he lives at the North Pole. They want you to
Speaker 1: say his name's Chris Kringle. So I'm wonder born on
Speaker 1: December twenty fifth, right, is that right? I'm assuming I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: That's allegedly the birth date of Jesus, in which all right, right,
Speaker 2: my bad. I did wonder if they were like taking
Speaker 2: de bait a little bit, or the opposite would be
Speaker 2: like no human even really like read it. It was
Speaker 2: just all like automated, and no one actually thought for
Speaker 2: a second, are we seriously going to say this about
Speaker 2: Santa Claus. So what do you think, Jason, Am I
Speaker 2: gonna be like, oh, oh too bad?
Speaker 1: Nothing?
Speaker 2: There is that what I do? Uh?
Speaker 1: No, I assume you immediately appealed.
Speaker 2: Well, so they didn't deny it. They administratively closed it,
Speaker 2: which and they did not include language requiring me to appeal,
Speaker 2: so I did not appeal. Instead, I sent an email
Speaker 2: to the good folks at FOIPA questions at FBI dot
Speaker 2: gov and to the OGIS and to OJIS.
Speaker 1: The office of the Office of Government Information Services, that
Speaker 1: is sort of like the mediator. They mediate requests or
Speaker 1: try to get you some relief if an agency is
Speaker 1: not being responsive or turning over records, and maybe you
Speaker 1: don't want to go to litigation, but you want them
Speaker 1: to kind of step in exactly.
Speaker 2: They can kind of help to broker resolution and help
Speaker 2: clear up confusion. And I think especially with requesters who
Speaker 2: who don't who are new to it. They can be
Speaker 2: really helpful to help them understand how Stone works. So
Speaker 2: I send a two and a half page email addressing
Speaker 2: the things that the FBI tells me they need to
Speaker 2: know in order to process my request. All right, are
Speaker 2: you ready, Jason?
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Here we go. All right, dear FBI and ogis. I
Speaker 2: submitted the above reference to feuer request. The request sought
Speaker 2: the first twenty five pages resulting from CRS main file
Speaker 2: and cross reference searches for the term quote Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: FBI denied my request, stating that it quote did not
Speaker 2: contain enough identifying information for this office to make a
Speaker 2: determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our Central Record
Speaker 2: System end quote, and administratively closed the request. FBI also
Speaker 2: suggested that I provide the quote subject's complete name, date
Speaker 2: of birth, prior addresses former employment information or any incidents
Speaker 2: for which you believe the FBI may have investigated the subject.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: I write asking that FBI reconsidered.
Speaker 1: By the way, that is too nice.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Jason, this is the holiday, my friend,
Speaker 2: So I was I.
Speaker 1: Think the health suit is making you soft? Were you
Speaker 1: wearing the helf suit while you file.
Speaker 2: This I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, fair, okay, I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 2: So first though, I gotta kind of clear some things
Speaker 2: up because you might have picked up on this. But
Speaker 2: in addition to it being like, do you really need
Speaker 2: me to tell you who Santa Claus is, they're really
Speaker 2: not properly interpreting my request. And it is exactly what
Speaker 2: they do to people all the time. So while this
Speaker 2: is meant to be funny, this also illustrates the absurdity
Speaker 2: of how the FBI sometimes handles things. They don't really
Speaker 2: read their request and understand it. They just have this
Speaker 2: robotic way that they go about it. I must search
Speaker 2: the CRS, and I must see if this is here right.
Speaker 2: They're not really thinking about it. So first I'm gonna
Speaker 2: explain to them here why they're not interpreting my request.
Speaker 2: Records are response to my request if they result from
Speaker 2: the search that I specified. There is no separate responsiveness review.
Speaker 2: It does not matter what the record is or what
Speaker 2: or who it is about, and it is not necessary
Speaker 2: that Santa Claus be the subject of an FBI investigation
Speaker 2: for a record to be responsive to my request. If
Speaker 2: a record results from the search I specified.
Speaker 1: It is responsive.
Speaker 2: This should be the easiest way to make a request.
Speaker 2: Just give them the search terms, they run the search,
Speaker 2: and you get the results instead of like, I want
Speaker 2: records about this person. Right, it's This should have been
Speaker 2: very clean and simple, so I should not have even
Speaker 2: needed to explain to them who Santa Claus is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I go on, Well, the additional information FBI requested
Speaker 2: is not necessary because it is misunderstood the scope of
Speaker 2: the request to be records in which the FBI investigated
Speaker 2: Santa Claus. I'm happy to provide some additional information. Now,
Speaker 2: are you ready to go?
Speaker 1: Buddy?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I actually learned some things about Santa Claus
Speaker 2: that I hadn't really previously known. Santa Claus is completely
Speaker 2: miss Santa Claus, but he's also been known as far
Speaker 2: Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nicky, Chris Springle, or Santa
Speaker 2: Love it to provide some additional context about who Santa
Speaker 2: Claus is. According to legend, every Christmas Eve, I can't
Speaker 2: do this. At eleven every Christmas Eve, Santa delivers presence
Speaker 2: to children around the world, but only if they have
Speaker 2: been good. Santa Claus is said to have origins in
Speaker 2: Saint Nicholas of Mirra, who was born March fifteenth to it,
Speaker 2: who was born March fifteenth to seventy a d. And
Speaker 2: Father Christmas, who originated in sixteenth century England. But Santa
Speaker 2: Claus as we understand him in America is generally considered
Speaker 2: to have originated with the publication of the book in
Speaker 2: New Year's Present to the Little Ones from five to
Speaker 2: twelve in eighteen twenty one, and the poem A Visit
Speaker 2: from Saint Nicholas now known as The Night Before Christmas
Speaker 2: in eighteen twenty three.
Speaker 1: I love it, all.
Speaker 2: Right, So they've asked me, like, hey, who's this Santa
Speaker 2: Claus guy you're you're talking about? When was he born?
Speaker 2: There you go, I mean born. We don't really know.
Speaker 2: He's magical, but like, these are the origins of where
Speaker 2: Santa Claus behan fa.
Speaker 1: The Christmas give us some money. Oh it's good.
Speaker 2: The Kinks and you know what, now you mentioned that
Speaker 2: you could see that perhaps the FBI found that song
Speaker 2: to be subversive and began an investigation into the Kings. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Cross referenced Santa Claus. Not so crazy, right, this could happen,
Speaker 2: all right, continuing, to the best of my knowledge, Santa
Speaker 2: Claus has always resided at the North Pole, although it
Speaker 2: has been said that he spends time in tropical locations
Speaker 2: immediately after Christmas.
Speaker 1: I just love. I love to the best of my knowledge, Like, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm saying this under penalty of perjury. Right
Speaker 1: to the best of my knowledge, that's where he resort.
Speaker 2: We don't really know. There's a lot of mystery around
Speaker 2: Santa Claus. I'm attempting to clear it up to these
Speaker 2: people at the FBI who apparently have never heard of
Speaker 2: Santa Claus. I'm trying to get them enough to understand
Speaker 2: who Santa Claus is, even though again they didn't really
Speaker 2: All they needed to do is like type it into
Speaker 2: the search box and give me the results. Continuing on
Speaker 2: the subject of Santa's employment, Santa's employment has always been
Speaker 2: judging the perceived goodness or badness of children, manufacturing toys
Speaker 2: and other presents, and delivering the appropriate presence or coal
Speaker 2: for those judge to be bad, and more generally to
Speaker 2: the spreading of good cheer at Christmas. Santa also frequently
Speaker 2: appears in advertisements and in popular films and TV shows.
Speaker 2: A more cynical person, one we may commonly refer to
Speaker 2: as a quote Scrooge or quote Grinch may say that
Speaker 2: Santa's job has been to promote materialism, that Santa is
Speaker 2: a tool to make poor children feel bad about themselves
Speaker 2: as a result of the lesser volume of Christmas presents
Speaker 2: or even no presence.
Speaker 1: They often receive, Wow, you take this to another level,
Speaker 1: Oh dude, Like if I'm in it, I'm in it.
Speaker 2: You want me to tell you who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is a paper on Santa Claus. I
Speaker 1: love it.
Speaker 2: We're not even halfway through the letter yet, just so
Speaker 2: you have a frame of reference, right, all right, So
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Santa's jobs, and a cynical person may
Speaker 2: say that he's a tool to make poor children feel
Speaker 2: bad about themselves as a result of the lesser volume
Speaker 2: of Christmas presents or even no presents they often see
Speaker 2: ce eg Ruby SU's character in the film Christmas Vacation,
Speaker 2: or that Santa Claus normalizes Christianity in America and others
Speaker 2: people who do not celebrate Christmas, and that Santa Claus
Speaker 2: teaches children to accept the modern surveillance state God.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: Still, other people believe that Santa Claus is taken away
Speaker 2: from the quote true meaning of Christmas, which they could
Speaker 2: tend to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus
Speaker 2: Christ parentheses for your reference. Jesus Christ is a central
Speaker 2: figure in Christianity, believed by Christians to be the son
Speaker 2: of God who was born zero eight in Bethlehem.
Speaker 1: To say, the world, I will be making a request
Speaker 1: on Jesus Christ on December twenty fifth, please start processing that.
Speaker 2: I mean, if they did know who Santa Claus, it
Speaker 2: was fair for me to wonder if maybe they didn't
Speaker 2: never heard of Jesus and so I'm going to go
Speaker 2: in and just affirmatively address that now. Okay, Depending on
Speaker 2: one's perspective, any of these might be considered Santa Claus's
Speaker 2: quote unployment. FBI's letter also asked that identify incidents for
Speaker 2: which I believe Santa Claus may have been investigated by
Speaker 2: the FBI to my knowledge, despite what may be unauthorized
Speaker 2: violations of US airspace, violations of eavesdropping and privacy laws
Speaker 2: involving minor children, and the opportunity to use his annual
Speaker 2: delivery run to just appreciate, give me a second, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, and the opportunity to use his annual delivery
Speaker 2: run to distribute narcotics manufactured byselves. The FBI has never
Speaker 2: investigated Santa c Did you say that that's what that's
Speaker 2: in your letter? That's what I said. Yes, I'm reading
Speaker 2: you the letter.
Speaker 1: That is amazing.
Speaker 2: If I'm the FBI, I could think, hey, Santa Claus
Speaker 2: could be a great comic for like narcotics distribution. All right,
Speaker 2: we're coming to the end here. I hope this additional
Speaker 2: information is useful. But to reiterate again, my request simply
Speaker 2: seeks whatever records result from typing Santa Claus into whatever
Speaker 2: search tool in the CRS the FBI uses to conduct
Speaker 2: main file and cross reference searches. While there's been much
Speaker 2: debate about whether Santa Claus is real, please note that,
Speaker 2: because of the manner in which my request was phrased,
Speaker 2: responding to the request does not require the FBI to
Speaker 2: reach any conclusion or take any position on this controversial subject.
Speaker 2: I asked that you reconsider your decision to administratively close
Speaker 2: this request and run the searches. I requested happy holidays,
Speaker 2: Matt topic.
Speaker 1: Wow, you didn't say Merry Christmas. You said happy Holidays.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know what holidays they celebrate or not fair.
Speaker 2: I'm a happy holidays person, you know.
Speaker 1: I know I'm a happy holidays person.
Speaker 2: To let the hate mail go ahead and start flowing
Speaker 2: on in here. But like, I think, some people celebrate Christmas,
Speaker 2: some people celebrate other holidays, some people don't celebrate anything.
Speaker 2: So I think I prefer happy holities.
Speaker 1: This is well. First of all, the letter I mean
Speaker 1: needs to be framed. You gotta frame the FBI's response
Speaker 1: to your request and then your letter next to it,
Speaker 1: because it is not presented in any sarcastic way. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is serious. They're like, okay, you need more info.
Speaker 1: You got it, you asked, I answered, all right? Did
Speaker 1: they respond?
Speaker 2: So see what I'm doing here is instead of getting
Speaker 2: to them, right, I'm just like, I'm gonna kill them
Speaker 2: with kindness. Yeah, this is so to speak.
Speaker 1: Did they respond? Okay?
Speaker 2: December twenty second, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Oh, We'll getting up to the liar.
Speaker 2: It's a Christmas miracle. It is a Christmas miracle because
Speaker 2: they agree to reconsider. Oh my, I get a letter
Speaker 2: from them. It says, we're reopening your requests in light
Speaker 2: of the additional information that you have provide.
Speaker 1: But there's only three days so Christmas.
Speaker 2: I know, and I didn't get anything. I just got
Speaker 2: their commitment that they were going to reopen it, and
Speaker 2: they would see so apparently now that they've been properly
Speaker 2: educated on who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1: Oh you men, Santa Claus, Like like really a Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, wait, this is like, let's let's just stop
Speaker 1: for a second here. This is a big deal, right.
Speaker 1: Just getting the FBI to reconsider and saying, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna reopen your request, we'll process it is a big
Speaker 1: deal because they don't often do that unless a requester
Speaker 1: actually provides them with that kind of info that you
Speaker 1: that you sent them, right, And the reality is most
Speaker 1: requesters will just kind of throw their hands up at it, right,
Speaker 1: It's like too much work, not gonna do it. Yep.
Speaker 1: This is why it's important when you're following a request
Speaker 1: to just really follow it through to the end. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: even if the response is as ridiculous as please provide
Speaker 1: us with Santa's date of birth and previous places of
Speaker 1: employment and.
Speaker 2: Why we might have been investigating him. Right, So December
Speaker 2: twenty second, just a few days before Christmas, they tell
Speaker 2: me they're gonna reconsider. So late January twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: I get a CD in the main and usually I
Speaker 2: just get we get your CDs and then we load them.
Speaker 1: Up and give them to you.
Speaker 2: But like this one's to me, right, Like it's addressed
Speaker 2: to me, Matthew Vincent Topic and Foyer requests number subjects
Speaker 2: Santa Claus. And I get a letter and I get
Speaker 2: a CD. All right, now I'm gonna read you from
Speaker 2: the letter. Okay, dear Matthew Topic, The FBI has completed
Speaker 2: its search for records subject to the Freedom of Information
Speaker 2: Act that are responsive to your request. The enclosed twenty
Speaker 2: five pages of records were determined to be respect to
Speaker 2: your subject and were previously processed and released.
Speaker 1: Well whoa, whoa, uh huh previously processed. Uh huh. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm like I definitely feel my blood pot sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: starting to increase on this one there.
Speaker 2: Now they're taunting me.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, this is they're with you. First of all,
Speaker 1: they had previously processed records for Santa Claus. And they
Speaker 1: respond to you with we need more info when they
Speaker 1: actually previously processed records and they didn't even conduct a
Speaker 1: new search, right, That's not what I asked for.
Speaker 2: And I don't think there was a prior Santa Claus request.
Speaker 2: I think they just went to the database of records
Speaker 2: they previously released. They searched for Santa Claus, right, and
Speaker 2: they gave me the hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they.
Speaker 2: Did the right search in the wrong place. I didn't
Speaker 2: want preprocessed stuff. I wanted to see what did they
Speaker 2: tag in the CRS on the search term Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: This is exact, Athlete, what the FBI did to Attorney
Speaker 1: General Pam Bondi when she requested ESDN five.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: This is exactly what the FBI did. They gave her
Speaker 1: preprocessed records.
Speaker 2: I wonder I should tell her about this.
Speaker 1: She might be like, yeah, she might be sympathetic, but
Speaker 1: that's what the FBI does.
Speaker 2: There should really be an inspector general investigation into how
Speaker 2: they handled this request.
Speaker 1: In my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the letter goes on, in an effort to
Speaker 2: provide you with responsive records as expeditiously as possible, we
Speaker 2: are releasing documents from previous requests regarding your subject. We
Speaker 2: consider your requests fulfilled. And then they're saying, if I
Speaker 2: want something else, then I have to make a new request,
Speaker 2: which is just the classic. They're just they're going through
Speaker 2: the whole playbook man of like of how to be difficult,
Speaker 2: and then it's like you fight them on the first
Speaker 2: one and then now it's now it's the next one.
Speaker 2: But I did get some documents.
Speaker 1: Of all, what are these previously processed records?
Speaker 2: So I get these preprocessed documents and a lot of
Speaker 2: them have they have stamps on them that indicate certain
Speaker 2: lawsuits that they were released like during those lawsuits you
Speaker 2: probably never said on your documents that will have like
Speaker 2: the you know, twenty three CV. Twelve twenty two or
Speaker 2: whatever it is the case number.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Okay, So first item Chicago Sun Times Editorials, Thursday, December
Speaker 2: twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: Not oh man, wow.
Speaker 2: So this is a news clipping.
Speaker 1: Okay, they do love their news clippings.
Speaker 2: The headline is there's hope for Santa Claus, and then
Speaker 2: it explains we've gotten letters from children asking the old
Speaker 2: question is there a Santa Claus. It's tempting to give
Speaker 2: the old answer, but we've been uneasy about that. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's a little too unsophisticated. Anyway, they're sort of talking
Speaker 2: about how to respond to the question of whether there's
Speaker 2: Santa Claus in a Sun Times editorial, and they've only
Speaker 2: given us the first page, so I don't know what
Speaker 2: the rest of it says. But here is the super
Speaker 2: interesting part of that. There's a note, a handwritten little
Speaker 2: note that somebody puts in there. Okay, next to the
Speaker 2: headline there's hope for Santa Claus, it says, correct, but
Speaker 2: not for the Republican Party. Oh my god. Wow?
Speaker 1: Wait, well wait what so this is obviously during Nixon's
Speaker 1: tenure in office.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy five, No, this would have been I think
Speaker 2: Ford is wrapping up, right, So Nixon resigns in seventy four,
Speaker 2: so Ford is in office, and you know, at this
Speaker 2: point and somebody believes that, well there may be hope
Speaker 2: for Santa Claus, there's no hope for the republic all yeah. Five.
Speaker 1: We wait they added this to a file.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, we don't know where this document originated. We
Speaker 2: know that for some reason it was produced in this
Speaker 2: other lawsuit. Yeah, as it turns out I went and
Speaker 2: looked up the case number that stamped on it. It's
Speaker 2: one of my cases.
Speaker 1: Get out of here. Yeah yeah wait wait wait yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was already released to you or your FIAT.
Speaker 2: Well this, yeah, this had already been released to the
Speaker 2: in This is page three and fourteen of a production
Speaker 2: to a different client.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, voluminous records. They are Church Committee. I mean
Speaker 1: in seventy five. The Church Committee did issue their report
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: I think that's what it is. We did a case
Speaker 2: for Church Committee records, and I think that clipping for
Speaker 2: some reason must have been in there.
Speaker 1: And one of the revelations of the committee include Operation
Speaker 1: mk Ultra, which involved the drugging of US citizens as
Speaker 1: part of mind control human experiments.
Speaker 2: I mean you could see how potentially they would recruit
Speaker 2: Santa Claus into those kinds.
Speaker 1: Of efforts, right, I mean, what a perfect cover too, Right,
Speaker 1: I'm Santa Claus. You want to give children gifts and
Speaker 1: sent them installing bugs in people's houses? Right, exactly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's document number one. Document number two. This
Speaker 2: is it looks like a magazine article, So it's another
Speaker 2: press clipping and it's called the CIA and the Sheik.
Speaker 2: The agency coddled Omar abdel Rahman, allowing him to operate
Speaker 2: in the US. Now this unholy alliance has blown up
Speaker 2: in our faces. Now, this doesn't have a lawsuit number
Speaker 2: on it, but it must have been produced in response
Speaker 2: to somebody else's request. And it looks like the article
Speaker 2: was published according to the little note they put on
Speaker 2: here on March thirtieth, nineteen ninety three. So I did
Speaker 2: a little research, and it looks like this article is
Speaker 2: from the Village Voice and was written five weeks after
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety three World Trade Center bombing, and Omar
Speaker 2: abdel Rahman that they're writing about was later convicted and
Speaker 2: jailed for that. This article was thirteen pages long, which
Speaker 2: is more than half of the twenty five pages the
Speaker 2: FBI set me. Wow, so you're probably thinking, well, what
Speaker 2: does this have to do with Santa Claus?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? I was just going to say, what's the
Speaker 1: Santa reference in that one? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you gotta go way deep into the document and
Speaker 2: still going, still going here, we go, like, well into it,
Speaker 2: it says the Sheikh then moved entirely to the El
Speaker 2: Salam Mosque in Jersey City. The founder of the mosque
Speaker 2: is Sultan Ibrahim el Gowali, a wealthy fifty five year
Speaker 2: old Egyptian businessman who was convicted by a federal jury
Speaker 2: in July nineteen eighty six for conspiring to export one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty pounds of Sea four plastic explosives to
Speaker 2: Israel for use by the PLO in a Christmas bombing.
Speaker 2: Oh Man El Gwali, who sports a full white Santa
Speaker 2: Claus beer Ah, served eighteen months in prison before returning
Speaker 2: to Jersey City. So that's all we got is a
Speaker 2: reference to Santa Claus. So that's number two.
Speaker 1: So wait, I just need to ask, are these all
Speaker 1: news clippings? Is that what they essentially gave you.
Speaker 2: Yes, everything is news clippings, which I find old news
Speaker 2: clippings in government files to be really interesting, especially.
Speaker 1: The ones where they do leave notations on the clippings.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's great, and have these handwritten notations and.
Speaker 2: They think they're so funny. They just think they're so funny,
Speaker 2: all right. Next up is a website called the Ruckus Society.
Speaker 2: Well I like that, and it's an article from the
Speaker 2: Saint Petersburg Times. The headline is a boot Camp for Rebellion.
Speaker 2: It's from March of two thousand. It looks like it's
Speaker 2: been republished on the Ruckus Society website, and for some
Speaker 2: reason that we don't know, the FBI took some kind
Speaker 2: of interest in this and put it in a file.
Speaker 2: There's a line in here that I really like. These
Speaker 2: spring Breakers aren't working on their tans. They're gathered along
Speaker 2: the Peace River to learn how best to stage a protest.
Speaker 2: So here's the Santa Claus reference. I heard this was
Speaker 2: the place to be, said Sarah Austin, twenty one, who
Speaker 2: with four fellow American University students, spent nineteen hours driving
Speaker 2: a rattle trap van from Washington, DC. Austin had altered
Speaker 2: a Santa Claus shirt to say I believe in sabotage
Speaker 2: and plans to be part of the World Bank protest.
Speaker 1: Next. Oh man, I thought I was going to say
Speaker 1: I believe insane. I mean, if you're altering a Santa
Speaker 1: Claus shirt, seems that you just rearrange the letters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: So obviously those were interesting documents, but they still not
Speaker 2: what I asked for, And the FBI insisted that if
Speaker 2: I wanted something else, I had to make a new request,
Speaker 2: which I shouldn't have had to do, but I did
Speaker 2: it anyway, And at January thirtieth, twenty twenty four, I
Speaker 2: make a new request for the five most recently dated
Speaker 2: records resulting from a main file CRS index search for
Speaker 2: the term Santa Claus. May limit this to ten pages.
Speaker 2: The five most recently dated records resulting from a cross
Speaker 2: reference CRS index search for the term Santa Claus. You
Speaker 2: may limit this to thirty nine pages. So forty nine
Speaker 2: total pages. Jason, what does that make you think of?
Speaker 1: Oh, you're trying to keep it under fifty pages so
Speaker 1: you can stay in what you might call the simple track,
Speaker 1: which theoretically allows for faster processing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm like, let's keep the momentum going. Did
Speaker 1: you tell them that you did not want previously processed
Speaker 1: records or are you saying no?
Speaker 2: I just said I want the records resulting from the
Speaker 2: particular search that I asked for, which should be the
Speaker 2: easiest way to make a request, And I'm expecting like, oh,
Speaker 2: this should be pretty easy, right Nope. February twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. Please be advised that unusual circumstances apply
Speaker 2: to the processing of your request. Unusual circumstances include one
Speaker 2: or more of the following scenarios and then like stuff
Speaker 2: about searching and consulting. These unusual circumstances will delay our
Speaker 2: ability to make it a term on your request within
Speaker 2: twenty days. So they made this complicated. I indulged them
Speaker 2: and made a new request, and then they hit me
Speaker 2: with unusual circumstances.
Speaker 1: This totally reminds me of what Mike Sarah was saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mike was on the episode previous to this when
Speaker 2: he's a former FOY officer, and he talked a lot
Speaker 2: about how FOY officers, if they don't have enough experience
Speaker 2: or confidence, they're going to air on the side of
Speaker 2: withholding documents instead of producing, which is exactly the opposite
Speaker 2: of what the statue is supposed to make happen.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened here with your request to
Speaker 1: the FBI. I mean, how long would it have taken
Speaker 1: for them to do the search you outline.
Speaker 2: Like, go to the search query box, type in Santa Claus,
Speaker 2: press enter and look at the results. I mean, they
Speaker 2: could have been done in like a minute.
Speaker 1: The weird thing is that they went back and forth
Speaker 1: with you with like a series of letters needing more information.
Speaker 1: But that's why I also think or I made that comment, like,
Speaker 1: I think they were messing with you because they send
Speaker 1: you this letter. Maybe they didn't realize that you're an attorney.
Speaker 1: They ask you for more info. They then get a
Speaker 1: letter back providing them with more info. So they were
Speaker 1: spending more time communicating with you than actually doing a
Speaker 1: search and locating these documents.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, I mean just reading my email took longer
Speaker 2: than it would have taken to go just like run
Speaker 2: this search.
Speaker 1: The FBI did not respond to our request for comment.
Speaker 1: But Matt, is something we need to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of. I mean, what if you find out that
Speaker 1: the FBI has a pretty robust investigation into Chris Kringle
Speaker 1: aka Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe they wanted to know is he real?
Speaker 2: The FBI, for the benefit of our national security, may
Speaker 2: feel they need to know that, Yeah, or maybe they
Speaker 2: think he is some sort of a communist, you know,
Speaker 2: agitator given toys to everyone who's good. I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: that's just communism, Jason, it is, but it is a
Speaker 2: good request.
Speaker 1: It's worth it. I mean, if we sort of joke
Speaker 1: about this, when someone prominent passes away suddenly, and you know,
Speaker 1: my reaction is to immediately file request for their FBI file.
Speaker 1: And certainly in some instances there are records that may
Speaker 1: relate to an investigation or it's a cross reference file.
Speaker 1: But there's also evidence showing that they just have files
Speaker 1: on everyone, you know. Yes, yeah, and that's the reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's why I am really eager to see
Speaker 2: what do they have where they actually like we're focused
Speaker 2: on Santa Claus at least as a cross reference, because
Speaker 2: I mean, he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows
Speaker 2: when you're awake. You could see how maybe there's some
Speaker 2: Santa Claus FBI collaboration that they just don't want us
Speaker 2: to know about. I did eventually get a bounce back, Jason.
Speaker 2: Let me let me tell you about it. Dear Matthew topic.
Speaker 2: This is in response to your Freedom of Information Privacy
Speaker 2: Act FOIPA request. Based on the information you provided, we
Speaker 2: conducted a main and reference entity record search of the
Speaker 2: Central Record system per our standard search policy. However, we
Speaker 2: were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA that
Speaker 2: are responsive to the request. Therefore your request is being closed,
Speaker 2: and then some like additional verbiage after that.
Speaker 1: Okay, can I just stop you for a second. Here
Speaker 1: they said we conducted a main and cross reference search
Speaker 1: per our standard search policy. That is not usually their
Speaker 1: standard search policy. Sometimes they will say we've conducted a
Speaker 1: main file search, and if you want a cross reference search,
Speaker 1: you know you got to then request it all over again.
Speaker 2: Wait are you saying they might still be messing with
Speaker 2: me and that they never actually did a cross reference search.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would appeal this.
Speaker 2: So there's one other thing here though, too that it
Speaker 2: says they were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA,
Speaker 2: so subject to FOYA. So there is this quirky little
Speaker 2: provision that says if revealing the existence of records would
Speaker 2: jeopardize an investigation, they can just say that there are
Speaker 2: no records. They don't even have to do a regular
Speaker 2: glomar and say we can't admit or deny. They just
Speaker 2: can kind of treat them like they don't exist. So
Speaker 2: it could be that there are records about Santa but
Speaker 2: they're using that provision because they do not want Santa
Speaker 2: Claus to know that they're hot on his trail. We
Speaker 2: can't rule that possibility out, Like, we literally cannot rule
Speaker 2: that possibility yet.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are tumultuous times. Who knows what will
Speaker 1: happen uh this Christmas with Santa. You know, he may
Speaker 1: get busted for going into people's houses. This DOJ will.
Speaker 2: Not tolerate breaking an entering by people, by communists dressed
Speaker 2: in red delivering toys to people who didn't pay for that, Like,
Speaker 2: what is.
Speaker 1: This socialistic thing that's going on here? Also terriffs? Can
Speaker 1: we just like say that, like, you know, toys are expensive?
Speaker 1: Now is a tariff? I don't know how san is
Speaker 1: gonna do it?
Speaker 2: Get you go underneath the tree, there's a box, but
Speaker 2: then there's also like four thousand dollars tariff charge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry kids this year, you're gonna have to pay me.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Well, as always is the case with us, one thing
Speaker 2: leads to another thing leads to another thing. So we'll
Speaker 2: see what we turn up.
Speaker 1: All right. Happy holidays, brother, Happy holidays.
Speaker 2: See all in the new year.
Speaker 1: Watch this space from Bloomberg and no smiling. This is disclosure.
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Speaker 1: We'll see you again next Tuesday, Matt. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever received an invite to that holiday office party.
Speaker 2: You might be a little cold for you, but I
Speaker 2: would love to have you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I probably would decline, but you know, I
Speaker 1: would like the invite, so that's that's okay.
Speaker 2: You got it, buddy,