transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] What the f*** are you wearing? Okay, this is a little scary.
Speaker 2:
[00:06] Isn't it, I can't tell.
Speaker 1:
[00:08] What, are you an elf?
Speaker 2:
[00:09] I'm an elf, yes.
Speaker 1:
[00:11] You are wearing an elf outfit. Why are you wearing an elf costume?
Speaker 2:
[00:16] Because Jason, I have a very special holiday FOIA story for you today. And I think you're gonna like it. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:
[00:23] Oh my god, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:
[00:25] Can I do the thing this time? Do it, brother. Jingle them bells.
Speaker 1:
[00:29] I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold. I spend most of my days getting documents from the government.
Speaker 2:
[00:34] I'm attorney Matt Topic, and I fight them in court to open their files when they don't want to.
Speaker 1:
[00:38] From Bloomberg & No Smiling, this is Disclosure, a podcast about buying loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act, and the unexpected places that takes us.
Speaker 2:
[00:54] So I have a special story for you, Jason. And I'm going to take you back to 2023.
Speaker 1:
[00:59] Set it up.
Speaker 2:
[01:00] All right. So picture this. Chicago, Matt's office, December 8th, 2023. Our law firm, we have a pretty big holiday party every year. A bunch of other lawyers come, clients come. And it's like an hour or so before our big annual holiday party is going to start. You know, I'm sitting around. I'm having a pregame whiskey. I'm listening to some Nat King Cole, a little bit of Santa Claus is coming to town. Just getting in the mood for the holiday time. And I think to myself, I should make some kind of a holiday FOIA request. So this is what I sell on. I decided to make a FOIA request to our very good friends at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And here is my request. Greetings, I request the first 25 pages you locate from a CRS main file in cross-reference search for the term, quote, Santa Claus, end quote.
Speaker 1:
[02:05] Oh my god, amazing.
Speaker 2:
[02:07] You like that?
Speaker 1:
[02:09] Amazing.
Speaker 2:
[02:10] So what's the CRS, Jason?
Speaker 1:
[02:13] Well, the CRS is the Central Record System, the database that holds 100 million FBI files in an investigative file.
Speaker 2:
[02:23] So investigative, right? It's not like communications with Congress or kind of internal policy things for the most part. Like this is investigative records. This is the bread and butter FBI is investigating and they need a system and they keep it all in the CRS. So tell us about main file in cross-reference searches. What does that mean?
Speaker 1:
[02:48] A main file is the file on the subject, right? The subject would be Santa Claus. And a cross-reference search would be where there are references to that subject in other investigative files that the FBI maintains. It's sort of like if the FBI were investigating Satan and, you know, Satan and Santa had some interactions and Santa ends up in Satan's file. Is that right?
Speaker 2:
[03:21] Are you breaking news here about a previously unknown relationship between Santa Claus and Satan?
Speaker 1:
[03:26] I mean, their names are anagrams.
Speaker 2:
[03:30] All right. So back to the story. What I'm doing here is I'm saying, go to your fancy record-keeping system and search the, I want to see if you have any main files that hit on the search term Santa Claus and any cross-reference files that hit on the term Santa Claus. I'm thinking probably there's not going to be a main file, unless maybe Santa Claus is some alias for somebody. But there could be cross-references. What I'm thinking as one example might be, if there were bank robberies and people were dressed up as Santa Claus, they might want to at some point be like, hey, I need a list of every bank robbery in which someone was dressed up as Santa Claus. And that's what the cross-reference search is, and the cross-referencing system would allow you to do. So I make my request and I finish my whiskey, and I enjoy my colleagues and clients and friends at our holiday party. And I wait, I wait a little bit. And I don't have to wait that long because on December 13th, 2023, five days after I make my request, I get a response from the FBI. And that's pretty fast, right?
Speaker 1:
[04:35] That is really fast.
Speaker 2:
[04:37] Would you care to venture a guess as to what the response was?
Speaker 1:
[04:41] Yeah, so this is 2023. I was gonna say, if you filed this request in say 2015 or 16, I would have said that the FBI's response to you would have been they were unable to locate any responsive records. But since you filed it in 2023, I'm gonna say that the FBI glommard you.
Speaker 2:
[05:05] Glommard, so that would be, hey, wait a second now. We can't tell you if we're investigating Santa or not, because we can't tip Santa off that we're on to them.
Speaker 1:
[05:14] Exactly.
Speaker 2:
[05:14] Right? That would be the glommard. Or it would be, hey now, Santa Claus has got privacy rights, and we're not gonna invade those privacy rights by telling you whether we investigated Santa Claus or not.
Speaker 1:
[05:26] That's my guess.
Speaker 2:
[05:27] That's a good guess. That is not actually what their response is.
Speaker 1:
[05:31] Oh, what?
Speaker 2:
[05:32] Here's the response, Jason. December 13th, 2023. Request number 1612945-000, subject Santa Claus. Dear Mr. Topic, this is in response to your Freedom of Information Privacy Act's FOIPA request to the FBI. Below you find information relevant to your request. Please read each item carefully. Your request did not contain enough identifying information for this office to make a determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our central record system. We're not even getting to the really good part. Oh my gosh. Therefore, your request is being administratively closed. Please provide any additional information that would help locate the records with a reasonable amount of effort. This might include the subject's complete name, date of birth, prior addresses, former employment information, Oh my god, this is so good. or any incidents for which you believe the FBI may have investigated the subject. This office will conduct a new search upon receipt of the additional information.
Speaker 1:
[06:41] That's news right there, by the way. The fact that the FBI, I would have turned that immediately into a story. The FBI does not know who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 2:
[06:52] That would be the headline.
Speaker 1:
[06:53] They do not know who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 2:
[06:58] Yeah, exactly. And I kind of wondered if maybe this was like, oh, wait a second, the existence of Santa Claus or not is a subject that the FBI should not be taking a position on.
Speaker 1:
[07:07] It also seems to be like, is the FBI messing with you? Are they like, oh, okay, this is a good request. Now we want you to tell us what Santa Claus' real name is. They want you to say he lives at the North Pole. They want you to say his name is Chris Kringle. Born on December 25th, right? Is that right? I'm assuming. I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[07:33] That's allegedly the birthdate of Jesus, in which we saw him. My bad. I did wonder if they were taking the bait a little bit. Or the opposite would be like, no human even really read it. It was just all automated. And no one actually thought for a second, are we seriously going to say this about Santa Claus? So, what do you think, Jason? Am I gonna be like, oh, oh, too bad. Nothing there. Is that what I do?
Speaker 1:
[08:01] No. I assume you immediately appealed.
Speaker 2:
[08:04] Well, so they didn't deny it. They administratively closed it. And they did not include language requiring me to appeal. So I did not appeal. Instead, I sent an email to the good folks at foipaquestions.fbi.gov and to OGIS.
Speaker 1:
[08:25] The Office of Government Information Services, that is sort of like the mediator. They mediate requests or try to get you some relief if an agency is not being responsive or turning over records, and maybe you don't want to go to litigation, but you want them to kind of step in.
Speaker 2:
[08:45] Exactly. They can kind of help to broker a resolution and help clear up confusion. I think especially with requesters who are new to it, it can be really helpful to help them understand how stuff works. So I send a two and a half page email addressing the things that the FBI tells me they need to know in order to process my request. All right. Are you ready, Jason?
Speaker 1:
[09:13] I'm ready.
Speaker 2:
[09:14] Here we go. All right. Dear FBI and OGIS, I submitted the above referenced FOIA request. The request sought the first 25 pages resulting from CRS main file and cross-reference searches for the term Santa Claus. FBI denied my request, stating that it did not contain enough identifying information for this office to make a determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our central record system, and administratively closed the request. FBI also suggested that I provide the quote, subject's complete name, date of birth, prior addresses, former employment information, or any incidents for which you believe the FBI may have investigated the subject, end quote. I write asking that FBI reconsider.
Speaker 1:
[09:55] By the way, that is too nice.
Speaker 2:
[09:57] Well, Jason, this is the holidays, my friend. So, I was.
Speaker 1:
[10:03] I think the elf suit is making you soft. Were you wearing the elf suit while you filed this?
Speaker 2:
[10:09] I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 1:
[10:10] Okay. Fair.
Speaker 2:
[10:12] Okay. I was not wearing the elf suit. So, first though, I got to clear some things up, because you might have picked up on this. But in addition to it being like, do you really need me to tell you who Santa Claus is? They're really not properly interpreting my request. And it is exactly what they do to people all the time. So, while this is meant to be funny, this also illustrates the absurdity of how the FBI sometimes handles things. They don't really read the request and understand it. They just have this robotic way that they go about it. I must search the CRS and I must see if this is here. They're not really thinking about it. So, first, I'm going to explain to them here why they're not interpreting my request. Records are responsive to my request if they result from the search that I specified. There is no separate responsiveness review. It does not matter what the record is or what or who it is about, and it is not necessary that Santa Claus be the subject of an FBI investigation for a record to be responsive to my request. If a record results from the search I specified, it is responsive. This should be the easiest way to make a request. Just give them the search terms, they run the search and you get the results. Instead of like, I want records about this person, right? This should have been very clean and simple, so I should not have even needed to explain to them who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1:
[11:34] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[11:34] So I go on, well, the additional information FBI requested is not necessary because it is misunderstood the scope of the request to be records in which the FBI investigated Santa Claus. I'm happy to provide some additional information. Now, are you ready to go, buddy?
Speaker 1:
[11:49] Oh, man.
Speaker 2:
[11:51] I actually learned some things about Santa Claus that I hadn't really previously known. Santa Claus is completely Santa Claus, but he's also been known as Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, St. Nick, Chris Pringle, or Santa.
Speaker 1:
[12:04] Love it.
Speaker 2:
[12:04] To provide some additional context about who Santa Claus is, according to legend, every Christmas Eve, I can't do this without laughing. Every Christmas Eve, Santa delivers presents to children around the world, but only if they have been good. Santa Claus is said to have origins in St. Nicholas of Meara, who was born March 15th, I can't do it. Who was born March 15th, 270 AD. And Father Christmas, who originated in 16th century England. But Santa Claus, as we understand him in America, is generally considered to have originated with the publication of the book In New Year's Present to the Little Ones from 5 to 12 in 1821, and the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, now known as The Night Before Christmas in 1823.
Speaker 1:
[12:54] I love it.
Speaker 2:
[12:55] All right. So they've asked me like, hey, who's this Santa Claus guy you're talking about? When was he born? There you go. I mean, born? We don't really know. He's magical. But like, these are the origins of where Santa Claus began.
Speaker 1:
[13:08] Father Christmas, give us some money.
Speaker 2:
[13:11] Oh, it's good.
Speaker 1:
[13:12] The Kinks.
Speaker 2:
[13:13] And you know what? Now that you mentioned that, you could see that perhaps the FBI found that song to be subversive and began an investigation into the Kinks and cross-referenced Santa Claus. Not so crazy, right? This could happen. All right. Continuing. To the best of my knowledge, Santa Claus has always resided at the North Pole, although it has been said that he spends time in tropical locations immediately after Christmas.
Speaker 1:
[13:38] I just love, I love, to the best of my knowledge. Like, like, hey, you know, I'm saying this under penalty of perjury, right? To the best of my knowledge, that's where he resides.
Speaker 2:
[13:51] We don't really know. There's a lot of mystery around Santa Claus. I'm attempting to clear it up to these people at the FBI who apparently have never heard of Santa Claus. I'm trying to give them enough to understand who Santa Claus is, even though, again, they didn't really, all they needed to do was type it into the search box and give me their results. Continuing on the subject of Santa's employment. Santa's employment has always been judging the perceived goodness or badness of children, manufacturing toys and other presents, and delivering the appropriate presents, or coal for those judged to be bad, and more generally, to the spreading of good cheer at Christmas. Santa also frequently appears in advertisements and in popular films and TV shows. A more cynical person, one we may commonly refer to as a quote, Scrooge or quote, Grinch, may say that Santa's job has been to promote materialism. That Santa is a tool to make poor children feel bad about themselves as a result of the lesser volume of Christmas presents, or even no presents they often receive.
Speaker 1:
[14:54] Wow, you took this to another level.
Speaker 2:
[14:56] Oh dude, like if I'm in it, I'm in it. You want me to tell you who Santa Claus is?
Speaker 1:
[15:04] Oh man, this is a paper on Santa Claus. I love it.
Speaker 2:
[15:07] We're not even halfway through the letter yet, just so you have a frame of reference. All right, so I'm talking about Santa's jobs, and a cynical person may say that he's a tool to make poor children feel bad about themselves as a result of the lesser volume of Christmas presents, or even no presents they often receive. CEG. Ruby Sue's character in the film Christmas Vacation. Or that Santa Claus normalizes Christmas as Christianity in America and others people who do not celebrate Christmas, and that Santa Claus teaches children to accept the modern surveillance state.
Speaker 1:
[15:38] Oh my God, that's good.
Speaker 2:
[15:42] Still other people believe that Santa Claus is taken away from the quote, true meaning of Christmas, which they could tend to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Parentheses, for your reference, Jesus Christ is a central figure in Christianity believed by Christians to be the son of God who was born 0 AD in Bethlehem to save the world.
Speaker 1:
[16:00] I will be making a request on Jesus Christ on December 25th. Please start processing that.
Speaker 2:
[16:08] I mean, if they did know who Santa was, it was fair for me to wonder if maybe they'd never heard of Jesus, and so I'm gonna go ahead and just affirmatively address that now. Okay, depending on one's perspective, any of these might be considered Santa Claus's quote, employment. FBI's letter also asked that I identify incidents for which I believe Santa Claus may have been investigated by the FBI. To my knowledge, despite what may be unauthorized violations of US airspace, violations of eavesdropping and privacy laws involving minor children, and the opportunity to use his annual delivery run to dispro- Give me a second.
Speaker 1:
[16:47] Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[16:49] And the opportunity to use his annual delivery run to distribute narcotics manufactured by his elves, the FBI has never investigated Santa Claus.
Speaker 1:
[16:57] Did you say that? That's what that's in your letter?
Speaker 2:
[17:01] That's what I said. Yes, I'm reading you the letter.
Speaker 1:
[17:04] That is amazing.
Speaker 2:
[17:05] If I'm the FBI, I could think, hey, Santa Claus could be a great cover for like narcotics distribution. All right, we're coming to the end here. I hope this additional information is useful, but to reiterate again, my request simply seeks whatever records result from typing Santa Claus into whatever search tool in the CRS the FBI uses to conduct mainfile and cross-reference searches. While there has been much debate about whether Santa Claus is real, please note that because of the manner in which my request was phrased, responding to the request does not require the FBI to reach any conclusion or take any position on this controversial subject. I ask that you reconsider your decision to administratively close this request and run the searches I requested. Happy holidays, Matt Topic.
Speaker 1:
[17:48] Wow, you didn't say Merry Christmas. You said Happy Holidays.
Speaker 2:
[17:52] Well, I don't know what holidays they celebrate or not.
Speaker 1:
[17:55] Fair.
Speaker 2:
[17:55] I'm a Happy Holidays person. You know, I...
Speaker 1:
[17:58] No, I'm a Happy Holidays person too.
Speaker 2:
[18:00] We'll have to hate mail go ahead and start flowing on in here. But like, I think some people celebrate Christmas, some people celebrate other holidays, some people don't celebrate anything. So I think I prefer Happy Holidays.
Speaker 1:
[18:12] This is... Well, first of all, the letter, I mean, needs to be framed. You gotta frame the FBI's response to your request and then your letter next to it. Cause it is not presented in any sarcastic way. I mean, it is serious. Like, okay, you need more info, you got it.
Speaker 2:
[18:33] You asked, I answered.
Speaker 1:
[18:35] All right, did they respond?
Speaker 2:
[18:36] So see, what I'm doing here is, instead of getting to them, I'm just like, I'm going to kill them with kindness. This is so to speak.
Speaker 1:
[18:44] Did they respond?
Speaker 2:
[18:45] Okay. December 22nd, 2023.
Speaker 1:
[18:49] Oh, we're getting up to the liar.
Speaker 2:
[18:52] It's a Christmas miracle. It is a Christmas miracle because they agree to reconsider.
Speaker 1:
[18:59] Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[19:00] I get a letter from them that says, we're reopening your request in light of the additional information that you have provided.
Speaker 1:
[19:06] But there's only three days till Christmas.
Speaker 2:
[19:09] I know. And I didn't get anything. I just got their commitment that they were going to reopen it and they would see. So apparently now that they've been properly educated on who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1:
[19:20] Oh, you meant Santa Claus. Like, like really Santa Claus. Oh, okay. Wait. This is like, let's, let's just stop for a second here. This is a big deal, right? Just getting the FBI to reconsider and saying, okay, we're going to reopen your request, we'll process it, is a big deal because they don't often do that, unless a requester actually provides them with that kind of info that you sent them. Right. And the reality is most requesters will just kind of throw their hands up at it, right? It's like too much work, not going to do it. But this is why it's important when you're filing a request to just really follow it through to the end.
Speaker 2:
[20:06] Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[20:07] Even if the response is as ridiculous as, please provide us with Santa's date of birth and previous places of employment and.
Speaker 2:
[20:16] And why we might have been investigating him.
Speaker 1:
[20:18] Right.
Speaker 2:
[20:19] So December 22nd, just a few days before Christmas, they tell me they're going to reconsider. So late January 2024, I get a CD in the mail.
Speaker 1:
[20:29] No.
Speaker 2:
[20:30] No. Usually, I just get, we get your CDs and then we load them up and give them to you. But like this one's to me, right? Like it's addressed to me, Matthew Vincent Topic, FOIA request number, subject Santa Claus. And I get a letter and I get a CD. All right. Now I'm going to read you from the letter.
Speaker 1:
[20:48] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[20:48] Dear Matthew Topic, the FBI has completed its search for records subject to the Freedom of Information Act that are responsive to your request. The enclosed 25 pages of records were determined to be responsive to your subject and were previously processed and released. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:
[21:07] Previously processed?
Speaker 2:
[21:09] Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:
[21:10] All right. I'm like, I definitely feel my blood pressure starting to increase on this one.
Speaker 2:
[21:18] Now, they're taunting me.
Speaker 1:
[21:19] Yeah. They're f***ing with you. First of all, they had previously processed records for Santa Claus, and they respond to you with, we need more info when they actually previously processed records, and they didn't even conduct a new search.
Speaker 2:
[21:35] Right. That's not what I asked for. And I don't think there was a prior Santa Claus request. I think they just went to the database of records they previously released. They searched for Santa Claus, and they gave me the hit. So they did the right search in the wrong place. I didn't want pre-processed stuff. I wanted to see what did they tag in the CRS on the search term Santa Claus.
Speaker 1:
[21:59] This is exactly what the FBI did to Attorney General Pam Bondi when she requested the SDN files.
Speaker 2:
[22:06] That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:
[22:09] This is exactly what the FBI did. They gave her pre-processed records.
Speaker 2:
[22:14] I wonder, I should tell her about this. She might be like, she might be sympathetic.
Speaker 1:
[22:18] But that's what the FBI does.
Speaker 2:
[22:20] There should really be an Inspector General investigation into how they handled this request, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:
[22:25] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[22:25] So the letter goes on, in an effort to provide you with responsive records as expeditiously as possible, we are releasing documents from previous requests regarding your subject. We consider your requests fulfilled. And then they're saying, if I want something else, then I have to make a new request, which is just the classic, they're just going through the whole playbook of how to be difficult. And then it's like, you fight them on the first one, and then now it's the next one. But I did get some documents.
Speaker 1:
[22:59] First of all, what are these previously processed records?
Speaker 2:
[23:02] So I get these pre-processed documents. And a lot of them have, they have stamps on them that indicate certain lawsuits that they were released during those lawsuits. You probably noticed it on your documents. It'll have the 23CV1222 or whatever is the case number, right? Okay, so first item, Chicago Sun Times Editorials, Thursday, December 25th, 1975.
Speaker 1:
[23:32] Oh man, wow.
Speaker 2:
[23:34] So this is a news clipping, okay?
Speaker 1:
[23:37] They do love their news clippings.
Speaker 2:
[23:38] The headline is, There's Hope for Santa Claus. And then it explains we've gotten letters from children asking the old question, is there a Santa Claus? It's tempting to give the old answer, but we've been uneasy about that. Maybe it's a little too unsophisticated. Anyway, they're sort of talking about how to respond to the question of whether there's a Santa Claus in a Sun Times editorial. And they've only given us the first page, so I don't know what the rest of it says. But here is the super interesting part of that. There's a note, a handwritten little note, that somebody puts in there, okay? Next to the headline, there's hope for Santa Claus. It says, correct, but not for the Republican Party.
Speaker 1:
[24:19] Oh my God, wow. Wait, wait, wait. So this is obviously during Nixon's tenure in office.
Speaker 2:
[24:29] 1975. No, this would have been, I think, Ford is wrapping up.
Speaker 1:
[24:36] Right, so Nixon resigns in 74. So Ford is in office at this point.
Speaker 2:
[24:42] And somebody believes that while there may be hope for Santa Claus, there's no hope for the Republican Party in 1975.
Speaker 1:
[24:49] But wait, they added this to a file?
Speaker 2:
[24:52] Yeah, like we don't know where this document originated. We know that for some reason it was produced in this other lawsuit. And as it turns out, I went and looked up the case number that's stamped on it. It's one of my cases.
Speaker 1:
[25:06] Get out of here.
Speaker 2:
[25:08] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[25:09] Wait, wait, wait. So this was already released to you or your client?
Speaker 2:
[25:14] Well, this, yeah, this had already been released to the, and this is page 3114 of a production to a different client.
Speaker 1:
[25:22] Yeah. Okay. Voluminous records there. Church committee. I mean, in 75, the church committee did issue their report in 1975.
Speaker 2:
[25:30] I think that's what it is. We did a case for church committee records, and I think that clipping for some reason must have been in there.
Speaker 1:
[25:37] One of the revelations of the committee include Operation MKUltra, which involved the drugging of US citizens as part of mind control human experiments.
Speaker 2:
[25:47] I mean, you could see how potentially they would recruit Santa Claus into those kinds of efforts.
Speaker 1:
[25:51] Right. I mean, what a perfect cover too, right? I'm Santa Claus.
Speaker 2:
[25:56] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[25:56] I want to give children gifts.
Speaker 2:
[25:59] Instead, I'm installing bugs in people's houses.
Speaker 1:
[26:01] Right. Exactly.
Speaker 2:
[26:02] Yeah. That's document number one. Document number two, this is, it looks like a magazine article. It's another press clipping and it's called The CIA and the Shake. The agency coddled Omar Abdel Rahman, allowing him to operate in the US. Now this unholy alliance has blown up in our faces. Now this doesn't have a lawsuit number on it, but it must have been produced in response to somebody else's request. And it looks like the article was published, according to the little note they put on here, on March 30th, 1993. So I did a little research and it looks like this article is from the Village Voice. It was written five weeks after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And Omar Abdel Rahman, that they're writing about, was later convicted and jailed for that. This article was 13 pages long, which is more than half of the 25 pages the FBI sent me. Wow. So you're probably thinking, well, what does this have to do with Santa Claus, right?
Speaker 1:
[27:05] Yeah, I was just going to say, what's the Santa reference in that one?
Speaker 2:
[27:09] Yeah, so you got to go way deep into the document, and still going, still going. Here we go, well into it. It says, the Sheik then moved entirely to the El Salam Mosque in Jersey City. The founder of the mosque is Sultan Ibrahim el-Ghwali, a wealthy 55-year-old Egyptian businessman who was convicted by a federal jury in July 1986 for conspiring to export 150 pounds of C4 plastic explosives to Israel for use by the PLO in a Christmas bombing.
Speaker 1:
[27:46] Oh, man.
Speaker 2:
[27:48] El-Ghwali, who sports a full white Santa Claus beard, served 18 months in prison before returning to Jersey City. So that's all we got is a reference to Santa Claus. So that's number two.
Speaker 1:
[28:04] So, wait, I just need to ask, are these all news clippings? Is that what they essentially gave you?
Speaker 2:
[28:10] Yes, everything is news clippings, which I find old news clippings in government files to be really interesting.
Speaker 1:
[28:16] Oh, so do I, especially the ones where they do leave notations on the clippings.
Speaker 2:
[28:21] Oh, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:
[28:23] And these handwritten notations.
Speaker 2:
[28:25] And they think they're so funny. They just think they're so funny. All right, next up is a website called the Ruckus Society.
Speaker 1:
[28:35] Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2:
[28:36] And it's an article from the St. Petersburg Times. The headline is A Boot Camp for Rebellion. It's from March of 2000. It looks like it's been republished on the Ruckus Society website. And for some reason that we don't know, the FBI took some kind of interest in this and put it in a file. There's a line in here that I really like. These spring breakers aren't working on their tans. They're gathered along the Peace River to learn how best to stage a protest. So here's the Santa Claus relevance. I heard this was the place to be, said Sarah Austin, 21, who with four fellow American university students spent 19 hours driving a rattletrap van from Washington, DC. Austin had altered a Santa Claus shirt to say, I believe in sabotage, and plans to be part of the World Bank protest.
Speaker 1:
[29:25] Oh man, I thought I was gonna say, I believe in Satan. I mean, if you're altering a Santa Claus shirt, seems that you just rearranged the letters.
Speaker 2:
[29:34] Yeah. All right. So obviously, those were interesting documents, but they still are not what I asked for. And the FBI insisted that if I wanted something else, I had to make a new request, which I shouldn't have had to do, but I did it anyway. And at January 30th, 2024, I make a new request for the five most recently dated records resulting from a main file CRS index search for the term Santa Claus. You may limit this to 10 pages. The five most recently dated records resulting from a cross-reference CRS index search for the term Santa Claus. You may limit this to 39 pages. So 49 total pages, Jason, what does that make you think of?
Speaker 1:
[30:13] Oh, you're trying to keep it under 50 pages so you can stay in what you might call the simple track, which theoretically allows for faster processing.
Speaker 2:
[30:23] Yeah, exactly. You know, like, let's keep the momentum going.
Speaker 1:
[30:26] Did you tell them that you did not want previously processed records, or are you saying...
Speaker 2:
[30:31] No, I just said I want the records resulting from the particular search that I asked for, which should be the easiest way to make a request. And I'm expecting, like, oh, this should be pretty easy, right? Nope. February 27th, 2024. Please be advised that unusual circumstances apply to the processing of your request. Unusual circumstances include one or more of the following scenarios, and then like stuff about searching and consulting. These unusual circumstances will delay our ability to make a determination on your request within 20 days. So they made this complicated. I indulged them and made a new request, and then they hit me with unusual circumstances.
Speaker 1:
[31:11] This totally reminds me of what Mike Sarich was saying.
Speaker 2:
[31:14] Yeah, Mike was on the episode previous to this, when he's a former FOIA officer, and he talked a lot about how FOIA officers, if they don't have enough experience or confidence, they're gonna err on the side of withholding documents instead of producing, which is exactly the opposite of what the statute is supposed to make happen.
Speaker 1:
[31:29] And that's exactly what happened here with your request to the FBI. I mean, how long would it have taken for them to do the search you outlined?
Speaker 2:
[31:36] Like go to the search query box, type in Santa Claus, press enter, and look at the results. I mean, it could have been done in like a minute.
Speaker 1:
[31:44] The weird thing is that they went back and forth with you with like a series of letters, needing more information. But that's why I also think, or I made that comment, like I think they were messing with you because they send you this letter. Maybe they didn't realize that you're an attorney. They ask you for more info. They then get a letter back providing them with more info. So they were spending more time communicating with you than actually doing a search and locating these documents.
Speaker 2:
[32:18] Oh, absolutely. I mean, just reading my email took longer than it would have taken to go just like run this search.
Speaker 1:
[32:27] The FBI did not respond to our request for comment. But Matt, there's something we need to get to the bottom of. I mean, what if you find out that the FBI has a pretty robust investigation into Chris Kringle, aka Santa Claus?
Speaker 2:
[32:43] I mean, maybe they wanted to know, is he real? The FBI, for the benefit of our national security, may feel they need to know that.
Speaker 1:
[32:51] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[32:52] Or maybe they think he's some sort of a communist agitator, giving toys to everyone who's good. I mean, come on. That's just communism, Jason.
Speaker 1:
[33:01] It is. But it is a good request. It's worth it. I mean, we sort of joke about this when someone prominent passes away suddenly, and my reaction is to immediately file a request for their FBI file. Certainly, in some instances, there are records that may relate to an investigation, or it's a cross-reference file. But there's also evidence showing that they just have files on everyone, you know?
Speaker 2:
[33:34] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[33:35] Yeah. And that's the reality.
Speaker 2:
[33:38] Yeah. And that's why I'm really eager to see what do they have, where they actually, like, were focused on Santa Claus, at least as a cross-reference. Because, I mean, he sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. You could see how maybe there's some Santa Claus FBI collaboration that they just don't want us to know about. I did eventually get a response back, Jason, and let me tell you about it. Dear Matthew Topic, This is in response to your Freedom of Information Privacy Act FOIPA request. Based on the information you provided, we conducted a main and reference entity record search of the central record system per our standard search policy. However, we were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA that are responsive to the request. Therefore, your request is being closed. And then some like additional verbiage after that.
Speaker 1:
[34:31] Okay, can I just stop you for a second here? They said we conducted a main and cross-reference search per our standard search policy. That is not usually their standard search policy. Sometimes they will say, we've conducted a main file search. And if you want a cross-reference search, you know, you gotta then request it all over again.
Speaker 2:
[34:53] Wait, are you saying they might still be messing with me and that they never actually did a cross-reference search?
Speaker 1:
[34:58] Yeah. So I would appeal this.
Speaker 2:
[35:01] So there's one other thing here, though, too, that it says they were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA, so subject to FOIA. So there is this quirky little provision that says, if revealing the existence of records would jeopardize an investigation, they can just say that there are no records. They don't even have to do a regular glomar and say we can't admit or deny. They just can kind of treat them like they don't exist. So it could be that there are records about Santa, but they're using that provision because they do not want Santa Claus to know that they're hot on his trail. We can't rule that possibility out. Like we literally cannot rule that possibility out.
Speaker 1:
[35:43] I mean, these are tumultuous times. Who knows what will happen this Christmas with Santa? You know, he may get busted for going into people's houses.
Speaker 2:
[35:54] This DOJ will not tolerate breaking and entering by people, by communists dressed in red delivering toys to people who didn't pay for them.
Speaker 1:
[36:02] Like what is this socialistic thing that's going on here? Also, tariffs. Can we just like say that like, you know, toys are expensive now because of tariff. I don't know how Santa's going to do it this year.
Speaker 2:
[36:15] You go underneath the tree, there's a box, but then there's also like $4,000 tariff charge.
Speaker 1:
[36:22] Yeah, sorry kids, this year you're going to have to pay me.
Speaker 2:
[36:25] All right, well, as always is the case with us, one thing leads to another thing leads to another thing. So we'll see what we turn up. All right, happy holidays, brother.
Speaker 1:
[36:35] Happy holidays.
Speaker 2:
[36:36] See y'all in the new year.
Speaker 1:
[36:38] Watch this space. From Bloomberg & No Smiling, this is Disclosure. The show is hosted by Matt Topic and me, Jason Leopold. It's produced by Heather Schroering and Sean Cannon for No Smiling. Our editor for Bloomberg is Jeff Brokaw. Our executive producers for Bloomberg are Sage Bauman and me, Jason Leopold. And our executive producers for No Smiling are Sean Cannon, Heather Schroering and Matt Topic. The Disclosure theme song is by Nick, with additional music by Nick and Epidemic Sound. Sound design and mixing is by Sean Cannon. For more transparency news and important document dumps, you can subscribe to my weekly FOIA Files newsletter at bloomberg.com/foiafiles. That's F-O-I-A files. To get every episode early on Apple podcasts, become a bloomberg.com subscriber today. Check out our special intro offer right now at bloomberg.com/podcastoffer, or click the link in the show notes. You'll also unlock deep reporting, data, and analysis from reporters around the world. We'll see you again next Tuesday. Matt, I don't think I've ever received an invite to that holiday office party.
Speaker 2:
[38:02] You might be a little cold for you, but I would love to have you.
Speaker 1:
[38:04] I mean, I probably would decline, but I would like the invite.
Speaker 2:
[38:09] So, that's, okay, you got it, buddy.