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There aren’t many political mysteries from 2016 that still have the power to set the internet on fire like the unsolved murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
The official theory is that the 27-year-old was shot near his D.C. home during a botched robbery. His family has rejected all claims that he was somehow connected to WikiLeaks or murdered because of his work at the DNC, and they’ve asked people not to politicize their son’s death.
But the questions never went away, mostly because so many details surrounding the case are sketchy and make no sense.
Seth was killed less than two weeks before WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of internal DNC emails that literally rocked the 2016 election and exposed the Dems’ bitter and ugly internal battle over Hillary and Bernie. As a result, a theory emerged that the emails WikiLeaks released hadn’t come from Russia but came from someone inside the DNC. Instantly, Seth’s name was tied to that theory. Many believe, to this day, that he was the insider who leaked the emails after his guy, Bernie, was ousted by Hillary. Now, there’s never been public proof of that claim, and some people who knew Seth claim he wasn’t some disgruntled Bernie Bro.
But then Julian Assange entered the chat, and things got a lot more curious…
Assange did something he never does. He spoke out about a source. He publicly denied that the Russian government or another state actor was his source. Then, during a 2016 interview about the dangers faced by WikiLeaks sources, Assange unexpectedly brought up Seth’s murder. When the interviewer asked whether Rich had been a source, Assange fell back on WikiLeaks’ policy of refusing to identify its sources. WikiLeaks later offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in Rich’s murder, which only ignited the theories ten-fold.
Now, nearly a decade later, a new claim has surfaced, and if it’s confirmed, the FBI will have some very serious explaining to do.
Attorney and former journalist Ty Clevenger has spent much of the past decade fighting the federal government for records related to Seth Rich.
Clevenger took to X with a bombshell post. He says a government attorney has told him that several hundred pages connected to Rich might’ve been discovered inside a hidden room at FBI headquarters. This story is pretty explosive, especially because last year Fox News reported that Kash Patel and his team had located a secret secure room inside the Hoover Building. They found computer drives and thousands of pages stored in “burn bags,” which are used for classified material that’s supposed to be destroyed. Some of the records were reportedly connected to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Maybe Seth was part of that mission.
Clevenger is honest about what he knows and what he doesn’t know. This isn’t a done deal, by any stretch, but it could be something big. He hasn’t received the documents, he doesn’t know what they contain, and he doesn’t know if the FBI will release any of them. As it stands right now, he’s just reporting what he says a government attorney told him.
However, there’s a bigger fight going on about records related to the Seth Rich case. At first, the FBI told Clevenger that it couldn’t find any records related to Rich. But later, court proceedings proved the bureau had records and assorted material connected to Seth’s work laptop, an image of his personal laptop, a DVD, and a tape drive.
Later, a federal court ruled that the FBI improperly withheld that material and ordered the bureau to provide additional information about what it had.
Here’s the full update.
Ty Clevenger:
SETH RICH UPDATE: Today an attorney for the government told me that I would soon be getting confirmation that several hundred pages of documents related to Seth Rich were found in a previously-hidden room at FBI headquarters. You may recall that on July 30, 2025, Fox News Digital reported that newly-installed FBI Director Kash Patel and his leadership team had located an unmapped / sealed area within the J. Edgar Hoover Building’s SCIF.
Last year’s Fox report described “burn bags” that contained thousands of pages of classified files intended for destruction, and those files were linked back to the 2016 “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. Now it appears the Seth Rich records were among the files designated for destruction.
Mind you, I don’t have anything in hand yet. I don’t even know whether the FBI will agree to release a single page of what it found. Nonetheless, any confirmation that the files were in the secret SCIF raises a lot of questions. At the very least, some very high-level people had something to hide.
The FBI originally told me in 2017 that it had no records whatsoever about Seth Rich because it was not involved in the investigation of his death. We were told he died in a “botched robbery” and only the local police were investigating it.
Since that time, the FBI has gradually admitted to possession of several thousand pages of documents about Seth, his work laptop, an image of his personal laptop, and another DVD. Nonetheless, on June 15, 2026, I had to file yet another motion (http://lawflog.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.06.15-Plaintiff-MSJ-stamped.pdf) explaining how the FBI is withholding records in violation of court orders.
If the FBI is still fighting transparency so hard on other fronts (and it is), then why would it acknowledge that records about Seth had been hidden in the SCIF? I don’t know. Maybe Joe DiGenova’s grand jury investigation in Miami is putting some heat on the players in DC?
I can tell you this much for sure: nobody on Capitol Hill has been willing to touch this subject with a ten-foot pole. The murder of Seth Rich – and the resulting cover-up – is as radioactive as any topic I’ve ever seen. I hope that changes soon, and I’ll post updates as soon as I know more.
BTW, I’m not suicidal. I feel great.
SETH RICH UPDATE: Today an attorney for the government told me that I would soon be getting confirmation that several hundred pages of documents related to Seth Rich were found in a previously-hidden room at FBI headquarters. You may recall that on July 30, 2025, Fox News Digital… pic.twitter.com/rgS7XIwt8r
— Ty Clevenger (@Ty_Clevenger) July 6, 2026
Clevenger has dropped a serious allegation, but not a stack of documents, so we wait to see if the next shoe drops.
But one thing is for sure at this point. The FBI’s handling of the records is no longer a conspiracy theory. The bureau once said it couldn’t find anything related to Rich. Court proceedings proved that was a lie.
Now, it’s time for Trump’s FBI to set the record straight and be as transparent as humanly possible.
Because the mystery surrounding the Seth Rich case has gone on for about a decade. His killer was never caught, Julian Assange raised a lot of questions he never answered, and the government has never been remotely truthful about the records it had.
This latest update may lead somewhere, or it may become one more dead end. But there’s only one honest way to find out…
Release the files, and let the American people see what’s actually there.
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