Jason Leopold Profile picture
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 III (Taylor’s Version💛🧣🕛 💃🏼 💜) 🖥 Profile picture Ken Tancrous Ⓥ 🌱 Hecate's Crossroad #QVArmy Profile picture BlueGlowAgave 🌻 Profile picture 31 subscribed
Aug 23 21 tweets 6 min read
NEW FOIA Files newsletter:

I obtained damning internal reports that show USAID probed allegations of bribery, child labor & child sexual abuse at humanitarian orgs it funds, Twitter threats posted from its own employee & the outing of a CIA officer
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bloomberg.com/news/newslette…

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In February, I filed a #FOIA request with the agency’s internal watchdog – the Office of Inspector General – for all of its final reports on closed investigations in 2023 and 2024. That’s generally a pretty good way to find out if there's been any accountability for wrongdoing related to an agency's work.
Aug 2 10 tweets 5 min read
FOIA Files EXCLUSIVE: It took 11 yrs & 3 separate #FOIA requests but I finally obtained docs from DOJ about the agency's legal analysis of the trillion-dollar platinum coin, which #MintTheCoin advocates view as a way to circumvent the cycle of debt crises
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bloomberg.com/news/newslette…Image
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The docs show that a “large denomination platinum coin” was indeed discussed at the highest levels of govt. But there’s a huge caveat. The records are pretty heavily redacted. Still, there's useful details to glean, many of which will be of interest to all you trillion dollar coin aficionados.Image
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Jul 17 9 tweets 3 min read
NEW FOIA Files SPECIAL EDITION: 2 yrs ago, I filed a #FOIA request w/Secret Service for records of threats to Trump & security breaches at MAL between 2017& 2024. Last Wed, Secret Service finally turned over the documents. They're wild.

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bloomberg.com/news/newslette…



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Long before the assassination attempt on Trump on Saturday, I spent years using the #FOIA to look into the way the Secret Service responded to threats against all of its protectees & political violence in general.
Jun 13 12 tweets 3 min read
BIG SCOOP: I obtained the 266-page transcript of the intv Special Counsel Robert Hur's team conducted with Biden's ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, during their probe into Biden's handling of classified records

A FOIA Files special edition (please subscribe)
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
Image Portions of Zwonitzer’s testimony were briefly mentioned in Hur’s final report, but the transcript fleshes out the narrative of how he ended up entangled in the high-profile investigation and reveals what he told Hur's team Image
May 31 10 tweets 3 min read
NEW in this week's FOIA Files newsletter: I just obtained docs from NARA and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s about the discovery of ... wait for it... a stolen document that’s been missing for two decades! Plus, another internal report I obtained shows how NARA’s internal watchdog investigated a series of disturbing threats sent to former President Barack Obama at his presidential library
bloomberg.com/news/newslette… I’ve never made it a habit of requesting documents that pertain to the inner workings of NARA itself, which is how I wield the FOIA when I’m looking to open up a government agency. But my approach changed after news broke about the agency’s yearlong effort to recover boxes of presidential records that Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. Since then, I’ve filed dozens of requests and have liberated some really interesting records about what took place behind the scenes.
May 26 7 tweets 2 min read
From my #FOIA archives

A couple of years ago, I obtained a transcript of an off the record discussion Obama had with progressive journalists about Trump as he was leaving office.

This is what he told them. 21 page transcript linked in the story.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… “I think that four years is okay,” Obama said. “Take on some water, but we can kind of bail fast enough to be okay. Eight years would be a problem. I would be concerned about a sustained period in which some of these norms have broken down and started to corrode.”
May 10 7 tweets 3 min read
NEW FOIA Files🧵: The FBI just sent me a set of docs that’s directly related to Trump’s hush money trial. They're business records from First Republic Bank, where Trump’s former atty Michael Cohen opened an account to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels.

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bloomberg.com/news/newslette…Image
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The details around the bank activity have been widely reported, but many of the underlying financial documents haven’t surfaced. And since cameras aren’t allowed in the courtroom, the public largely hasn’t seen the evidence at the center of the trial

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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.

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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!
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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

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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?
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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”
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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
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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

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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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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

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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.

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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
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bloomberg.com/news/features/…


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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.

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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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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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...