Federal Judge Demands Answers on FBI ‘Burn Bag Room’ Records
Judicial Watch Seeks Release of Federal Reserve Grand Jury Subpoenas
Nonbinary Researcher Gets Grant to Study ‘Gender Minority Birthing People’
Federal Judge Demands Answers on FBI ‘Burn Bag Room’ Records
The FBI’s “burn bag room” case just got a lot more interesting. A federal judge is now demanding answers.
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to provide answers about nearly 2 million pages of FBI records, including whether the records have already been reviewed in response to other Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and whether the newly uncovered records had been stored in other government record systems:
Upon consideration of the parties’ Joint Status Report and as discussed at [the August 3, 2026] status conference, it is ORDERED that the parties shall file a joint status report on or before September 4, 2026. In addition to updating the Court on the parties’ progress in narrowing the issues, the joint status report shall include the government’s responses to the following: (1) Whether the legacy and/or recent records at issue in this FOIA request have previously been considered or reviewed in response to other FOIA requests; and (2) Whether the legacy and/or recent records at issue in this FOIA request are contained in any other systems of records or indices. The government shall also determine whether it can provide additional information regarding the nature of the two investigations it represents are reflected in the legacy files.
The order comes in our November 2025 FOIA lawsuit filed after the FBI failed to respond to a June 2025 request for all records stored in the room. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino disclosed in May 2025 that FBI officials had discovered a large volume of records in the room that had not been properly processed or digitized. The FBI subsequently told the court that the room contains 20 five-drawer filing cabinets holding an estimated 950,000 to 1.9 million pages of records (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice(No.1:25-cv-04047)).
In July 2026, the Justice Department told the court that, at a rate of 500 pages a month, processing records from the “hidden room” at FBI Headquarters would take approximately 158 years. The room — now dubbed the “burn bag room” — holds over 2 million pages of records, according to the FBI’s own filing. There is one safe, believed to contain “legacy files,” that is yet to be accessed.
Bongino said in May 2025 that some of the records were found stashed “in bags:”
There was a room [in FBI Headquarters], and we found stuff. A lot of stuff … hidden from us at least and not mentioned to us. And then found stuff in there. A lot is from the Comey era. We are working … right now to declassify. And just so you know, because I get the public—I totally understand people saying “well do it now.” The process is: not all of the information is ours to declassify. Some is other intelligence agencies’…. We literally can’t do it. Once that gets done … and you read some of the stuff we found—that, by the way, was not processed through the normal procedure, digitizing and putting in FBI records. We found it in bags, hiding under Jim Comey’s FBI. You’re going to be stunned.
We previously uncovered that the room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) containing several safes—now identified as 20 file cabinets—holding between roughly 950,000 and 1,900,000 pages of records, split into two categories: “legacy files,” older records mostly tied to two closed historical investigations and more recent files tied to active investigations and prior Special Counsel records, reportedly including material connected to Special Counsel Jack Smith.
More than a year after we submitted our FOIA request, the FBI has yet to begin processing the records sought. The parties must report to Judge Friedrich by September 4, 2026, on their progress and provide the specific information demanded by the court.
American citizens should be outraged that the FBI has told a federal judge it could take 158 years to process the records in its secret ‘burn bag’ room. Now the court is demanding answers about whether these records were previously searched, whether they are stored in records systems as federal law requires, and what two mysterious investigations are represented in the “legacy” files. It is urgent that the American people receive all the details on how the FBI was used as a political weapon against Donald Trump and other Americans. The Justice Department and FBI should stop the stonewalling and get these records out.
This is the latest in a series of Judicial Watch investigations targeting shady FBI weaponization and abuse of power.
In August 2025, we sued the Justice Department for all records regarding the FBI, under then-Director James Comey, initiating an investigation of then-2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In May 2020, we uncovered the FBI “EC”—the electronic communication that officially launched the counterintelligence investigation, termed “Crossfire Hurricane,” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The document was written by former FBI official Peter Strzok and was obtained as the result of a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit for: “The Electronic Communication that initiated the counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.”
In August 2019, we uncovered “302” report material from FBI interviews with Bruce Ohr, who was removed from his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General in December 2017.
In March 2019, we received heavily redacted records from the Justice Department that reveal that Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant.
In December 2018, we uncovered U.S. State Department documents showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN). Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a FOIA lawsuit for records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Cardin.
In August 2018, we announced that in response to a our FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.
Also in August, we forced the release of heavily redacted records about Christopher Steele, the former British spy, hired with Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds, who authored the infamous dossier targeting Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. The documents show that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” (CHS) after he disclosed his relationship with the FBI to a third party. The documents also show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016 and document that he was admonished for unknown reasons in February 2016.
In July 2018, we released documents about FISA warrants targeting Carter Page, who had been a Trump campaign adviser.
Judicial Watch Seeks Release of Federal Reserve Grand Jury Subpoenas
The Federal Reserve wants to keep grand jury subpoenas about a criminal investigation involving Chairman Jerome Powell and the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters under wraps. We are asking a federal court to make the Fed turn them over.
We asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order the Federal Reserve to release two grand jury subpoenas issued in connection with a criminal investigation involving Chairman Powell and his $2.5 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters.
We filed an April 2026 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit after the Federal Reserve failed to comply with our January 2026 FOIA request seeking access to the subpoenas issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (No. 1:26-cv-01113)).
The Federal Reserve is asking the court to grant it summary judgment and uphold its withholding of the subpoenas under FOIA Exemption 5, which covers privileged interagency or intra-agency memoranda or letters.
In a memorandum filed August 17, we opposed the Board’s motion and filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that Exemption 5 does not apply because the records are not internal Federal Reserve deliberations but grand jury subpoenas that the Board received and possesses. We are asking the court to reject the Board’s position and order the release of the records.
We argue:
Grand jury subpoenas are compulsory process, not inter-agency or intra-agency communications.
***
The Board’s own conduct defeats its position. The Board did not request these subpoenas, did not consult with the prosecutors who served them, and received them in no advisory capacity whatsoever. It retained outside counsel and moved to quash them.
The Board’s own words remove any doubt. It told the Chief Judge that the purpose of the subpoenas was “to harass, pressure, and punish” the Federal Reserve and Chair Powell until they set monetary policy as the President wished, and that the United States Attorney’s Office had proceeded by “abuse of the criminal process.” … As described by the Board, the subpoenas were not created to assist it in any way whatsoever.
In a public statement in January 2026, Powell disclosed that the Justice Department had served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas “threatening a criminal indictment” related to his June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. That testimony addressed, in part, the multi-year renovation of the historic Marriner S. Eccles Building and the adjacent Federal Reserve East Building.
During his testimony, Powell denied the existence of luxury features such as private dining rooms, special elevators, rooftop gardens, and other high-end elements. The renovation project, originally estimated at approximately $1.9 billion, ballooned to $2.5 billion amid questions about cost overruns.
In July 2025, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) sent a formal oversight letter to Powell highlighting discrepancies between the testimony and approved renovation plans, raising concerns about transparency and accountability for the multi-billion-dollar project. The letter points out that previously approved plans by the National Capital Planning Commission appear to reference some of the luxury features—raising questions about whether the plans changed, the features were removed, or the testimony was incomplete.
Trump administration officials, including then-Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, sharply criticized the renovation project. Vought sent a letter to Powell on July 10, 2025, questioning the project’s management and compliance with federal standards. Vought publicly compared aspects of the renovation to elements that belong in France’s “Palace of Versailles.”
The Federal Reserve is hiding grand jury subpoenas about potential crimes and public corruption from the American people. These are not internal deliberations—they are legal process served on the Fed. The Board should stop stonewalling and release the records.
Nonbinary Researcher Gets Grant to Study ‘Gender Minority Birthing People’
Sometimes the government’s grant-making machinery seems to have a mind of its own, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
In the latest violation of President Trump’s order banning federal funding to promote gender ideology, the government is giving a nonbinary graduate student dedicated to studying “transmasculine individuals who give birth” thousands of dollars to research “gender minority birthing people.” The money is being disbursed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s medical research agency charged with making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. Every year the NIH, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awards tens of billions of dollars in grants and contracts to thousands of universities and research institutions across the United States. The stated goal is to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.
It is difficult to see how that applies to this particular grant, which is funding an absurd initiative at the University of Maryland, College Park, one of the nation’s top ranked public universities. A doctoral student in the school’s Family Science department will use the $35,832 NIH grant to analyze the risk and protective factors influencing psychological distress in what the document describes as sexual and gender minority birthing people. “Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, including lesbian, bisexual, and queer women as well as transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, face increasing social stigma, animosity, and conflicts,” according to the NIH grant document. “Preliminary data suggests that these negative societal factors contribute to significant disparities in mental health outcomes among SGM birthing people.” Access to quality healthcare and social support are crucial for reducing the risk of pregnancy-related complications, the announcement further states, as well as mitigating adverse mental health effects.
The problem is, according to the nation’s medical research agency, that SGM individuals often encounter “unaffirming and inappropriate care,” leading to elevated stress levels, non-compliance, and delays in seeking essential healthcare services. Adding to the issue is that the nature of support needed by SGM individuals often differs from that required by heterosexual and cisgender women. “Therefore, there is a pressing need for a deeper examination of SGM birthing people’s experiences with medical care and social support to inform culturally sensitive interventions tailored specifically for SGM people, alongside comprehensive training for healthcare providers to deliver appropriate care,” the NIH writes in the grant document. Pond Ezra, the grant recipient described by the government as Mx., a gender-neutral title of courtesy, will elucidate how social support and specialized medical care contribute to the mental health trajectories of SGM birthing people throughout the perinatal period. Ezra will emerge as an “expert on SGM reproductive health equity,” according to the NIH. The agency uses the gender neutral pronoun “they” when referring to the doctoral student, who appears to be a biological woman in the biography published by the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health.
Ezra specializes in researching gender minorities in families with a specific focus on the experiences of “Seahorse dads,” a term created by the left to describe biological women who identify as men and are therefore known as “transmasculine individuals who give birth.” The graduate student who just received thousands of taxpayer dollars plans to explore how transgender parents, specifically “seahorse dads,” navigate parenting roles after birth, according to the college biography. This includes in what contexts does gender dysphoria show up in transmasculine parenthood and what socialization messages are transgender parents sending to their children about gender. Last fall Ezra and a fellow researcher published an academic paper on so-called “seahorse dads” that concludes they resist being labeled as mothers. The paper claims to account for the experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people who become parents. “Drawing from queer, gender, and life course perspectives, we introduce theoretical expansions that center the reciprocal, time-sensitive relationship between gender expression and parenthood,” the published academic paper states, adding that it explores how seahorse dads disrupt “normative assumptions,” and reshape family relationships.
Until next week,
