Judicial Watch: FBI Refuses to Release Trump Assassination Records

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) withheld information on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about its coordination with the U.S. Secret Service regarding the July 13 Butler, PA, rally at which former President Trump was shot.

In denying Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, the FBI cites FOIA exemption 7(A), which applies to information that “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings”

The Judicial Watch FOIA request on July 26 asked for:

All records of the FBI, including emails, email chains, email attachments, text messages, video or audio recordings, photographs, drawings, outlook calendars, meeting minutes, finished intelligence products, bulletins, raw intelligence, threat products, correspondence, statements, letters, memoranda, reports, briefings, presentations, notes, summaries, or other form of record, regarding preparation and coordination with the USSS for former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign rally that was held in Butler, PA, on July 13, 2024.  Please provide records from June 15, 2024, to present.

Judicial Watch is pursuing the next steps in preparation for litigation.

“Were there others involved in the assassination attempt on Trump? If not, then why would the FBI use the excuse of protecting someone’s right to a fair trial to hide records on the FBI’s and Secret Service’s inexcusable failures to protect Trump from being nearly assassinated,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The Biden-Harris administration is running a major league cover-up on the near assassination of former President Trump.”

The Secret Service also recently refused to honor FOIA requests for information on the shooting.

Judicial Watch has over 25 FOIA and open records requests currently pending on the shooting of Trump with the Biden administration, local and state officials, and agencies in Pennsylvania.

In July 2024, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for records relating to an incident at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland in which a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly got into a scuffle with colleagues.

In June 2024, Judicial Watch received 116 pages of United States Secret Service records from the Department of Homeland Security through the Freedom of Information Act that reveal the details about several incidents in which Secret Service personnel were bitten by President Biden’s dog Commander, sometimes requiring medical attention.

In October 2022, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Homeland Security for all communications of the U.S. Secret Service internally and with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the raid on President Trump’s home and for any video or audio recordings made during the raid on August 8, 2022.

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