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“Capturing value and fixed income is not easy.”
Bond markets are massive, murky, and let's be real. Lots of firms throw a couple flashy funds your way and call it a day. But on Vanguard, a Vanguard institutional quality isn't a tagline. It's a commitment to your clients. We're talking top grade products across the board of over 80 bond funds,
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That's Vanguard.com/audio, all investing in subject-to-risk Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. Donald Trump is re-rising the Washington rule book and reshaping the global economy. If you're trying to connect the dots behind the headlines,
Bloomberg's Tromponomics podcast is here to help. I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg. Every week I'll bring you a smart, focused conversation with reporters and experts from Washington, Wall Street and beyond. Listen to new episodes every Wednesday and follow Trumponomics wherever you listen.
People who didn't do what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared. John of God was once Brazil's most famous spiritual healer, but in this limited series podcast, we uncover the darker truth behind his global empire of faith and fear. From exactly right and a lonely media, this is too fast, John of God.
Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What? The f***. Are you wearing? Okay, this is a little scary. Isn't it obvious? Can't tell you what? Are you an elf? I'm an elf. Yes, you are wearing an elf outfit.
Why are you wearing an elf costume? Because Jason, I have a very special holiday foyer story for you today.
“And I think you're gonna like it. Are you ready?”
Oh my god, I'm ready. Can I do the thing this time? Do it, brother? Jingle them bells. I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold. I spend most of my days getting documents from the government. I'm attorney Matt Tappin, and I fight them in court to open their files when they don't want to.
From Bloomberg and no smile, this is disclosure. A podcast about fine loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act, and the unexpected places that takes us. So, I have a special story for you, Jason. I'm gonna take you back to 2023. Is that it up?
Alright, 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 gonna start. You know, I'm sitting around. I'm having a pregame, whiskey. I'm listening to some, some net king coal.
A little bit of Santa Claus is coming to town. Just getting in the mood for that for holiday time.
“And I think of myself, I should make some kind of a holiday”
boy or request. So, this is what I saw. I decided to make a boy or 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 and quote.
Oh my god, amazing. You like that?
I'm amazing. So, what's the CRS, Jason? Well, the CRS is a central record system. The database that holds 100 million FBI files investigative file. So, investigative, right? It's not like communications with Congress or, you know, kind of internal policy things for the most part. Like this is this is investigative records. This is the bread and butter, you know, FBI's investigating. And they need a system and they keep it all
in the CRS. Right. So, tell us about main file and cross-reference searches. What does that mean? A main file is the file on the subject. The subject would be Santa Claus. And a cross-reference search would be where there are references to that subject in other investigative files at the FBI
Main tent.
had some interactions and Santa ends up in Satan's file. Is that right? Are you breaking news here
about a previously unknown relationship between Santa Claus and Satan? I mean, their names are anagrams. All right. So, back to the story. Yeah. What I'm doing here is I'm saying go to your fancy record-keeping system and search that 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. And I'm thinking, you know, 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. And what I'm thinking, if 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. 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 in 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 that are holiday party and I, 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? That is really fast. Would you care to venture a guess as to what the response was?
Yeah, so this is 2023. I was going to 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 response of records. But since you filed it in 2023, I'm going to say that the FBI
Glomarge. Glomarge, so that would be, hey, wait a second now. We can't tell you for investigating
Santa or not, because we can't tip Santa off that we're on to them. Exactly. Right? That would be the Glomarge, or it would be, hey, now Santa Claus has got privacy rights. And we're not going to invade those privacy rights by telling you whether we investigated Santa Claus or not.
“That's my guess. That's a good guess that is not actually what their response is. Oh, what?”
Here's a response Jason, December 13th, 2023. Request number 161-2945-Triple0 subject Santa Claus. Dear Mr. Topic, this is in response to your freedom of information, privacy acts FLIP8 requests to the FBI. Below you find information relevant to your request, please read each item carefully. Your request did not contain enough identifying information. This office is to make it a termination, regarding the responsiveness of records in our
central record system. We're not even getting the really good part. Oh, my God. 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 in my”
time. 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. 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. That would be the headline. If they do not know who Santa Claus is. 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. 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's real name is. They want you to say he lives at the North Pole. They want you to say his name's Chris Kringle. So I'm born on December 25th, right? Is that right? I'm assuming? I don't know. That's allegedly the birth date of Jesus. Oh, right. My bad. I did wonder if they were like
taking the bait a little bit. Or the opposite would be like, no human even really like read it. It was just all like automated. And no one actually thought for a second, are we seriously going to say this about Santa Claus? So what do you think, Chase? And am I going to be like, oh, oh, too bad. Nothing there. Is that what I do? No. I assume you immediately appealed. Well, so they didn't deny it. They administratively closed it, which, and they did not include language requiring
Me to appeal.
and to the office of 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. Exactly. They can kind of help to broker a resolution and help clear up confusion.
“And I think especially with requesters who don't who are new to it, they can be really helpful”
to help them understand how stuff works. So I send a 2.5 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? I'm ready. Here we go. All right. Dear FBI and Ojas, I submitted the above referenced FOIA request.
The requests sought the first 25 pages resulting from CRS, main file, and cross-reference searches
for the term quote Santa Claus. FBI denied my request stating that it, quote, did not contain enough identifying information for this office to make a determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our central record system and quote, and it administratively reclose the request. FBI also suggested that I provide the quote, "subjects complete name, date of birth, prior addresses, former employment information, or any incidents for which you believe the
FBI may have investigated the subject." I write asking the FBI reconsider, by the way,
“that is too nice. Well, Jason, this is the holidays, my friend. So I think the”
health suit is making you soft. Where are you wearing the health suit while you file this? I was not wearing the health suit. Okay, okay, fair. Okay, I was not wearing the health suit. Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard, to all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy. Bond markets are massive, murky, and let's be real. Lots of firms throw a couple flashy funds
your way and call it a day. But on Vanguard, a Vanguard institutional quality isn't a tagline. It's a commitment to your clients. We're talking top-grade products across the board of over 80 bond funds, actively managed by a 200-person global squad of sector specialists, analysts, and traders.
“These folks live and breathe fixed income. So if you're looking to give your clients”
consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for yourself at Vanguard.com/audio. That's Vanguard.com/audio, all investing in subject-to-risk Vanguard marketing corporation distributor. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. The time is approximately 11-15 a.m. about the start, consensual telephone call, with Dr. Diwasang. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful
spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside.
"Wait?" "That's a Noshikina." "I've never seen that much evidence in my entire career,
and I don't think we'll ever see that much evidence again." I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer no doubt, no question of his life. And that's the unicorn. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS, and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to the sixth bureau from Bloomberg Podcasts, starting on February 13th on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
For decades, people traveled across the world to see John of God. Desperate for cures no doctor could offer. And when they arrived, they saw things they couldn't explain.
"This is real, this guy's actually doing surgery and it's a miracle. I never believed that
miracles were real until that point." But behind those adoring crowds was something much darker. One of the reasons why I never went to the police is because I saw at least five or six men with guns everywhere he went. There was clear to me like close your mouth, they'll open your mouth and say anything. I'm your host, Martina Castro, and in the podcast two-faced, John of God. We'll look back on a man who claimed he could perform miracles and got
people from all around the world to believe him. From exactly right, and Adon de Media, this is
Two-faced, John of God.
So first though, I got a kind of clear some things up because you might have picked up on this,
but in addition to 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 their request and understand it. They just have this robotic
“right way that they go about it. I must search the CRS and I must see if this is here, right?”
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. Yeah. So I go on. Well, the additional information FBI
“requested is not necessary because it is misunderstood to 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? Oh, man. I actually learned some things about Santa Claus that I hadn't really previously known. Santa Claus is complete in Miss Santa Claus. But he's also been known as Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, St. Nick, my Christmas ringle, or Santa. Love it. 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 Mira, who was born March 15th. He came to it, who was born March 15th to 70 AD and Father Christmas, who originated in 16th
“century England. But Santa Claus, as we understand 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, in the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, now known as The Night Before Christmas in 1823. I love it. All right, so they've asked me like, hey, who's this Santa Claus guy? You're should talk in about what 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 be in. Father Christmas, give us some money.
Oh, it's good. The kinks. And you know what, now you mentioned that, you could see that perhaps the FBI found that song to be subversive and began an investigation into the King's, the cross-reference Santa Claus. That's 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. I love to the best of my knowledge. Like, like, hey, you know, from saying this under palsy of poetry, right, to the best of my knowledge. That's where it was on. 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 him enough to understand who Santa Claus is, even though again, they didn't really, all he needed to do was like, type it into the search box and give me the 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 presence 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, "screw," 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. Wow, you took this to another
level. Oh, dude. Like, if I'm in it, I'm in it. You want to know, you want me to tell you who Santa Claus is? I'm going to tell you who Santa Claus is. Oh, man. This is a paper on Santa Claus. I love it. We're not even halfway through the letter yet. Just so you have a frame of reference.
All right.
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. C-E-G, Ruby Sue's character in the film Christmas”
occasion, or that Santa Claus normalizes Christianity in America and others people who do not celebrate Christmas, and that Santa Claus teaches children to accept the modern surveillance. That's good. 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,
believe by Christians to be the son of God who is born 080 in Bethlehem to save the world. I will be making a request on Jesus Christ on December 25th. Please start processing that. I mean, if they didn't know who Santa Claus was fair for me to wonder if maybe they didn't remember her to Jesus and so I'm going ahead and just affirmatively address that now. Okay, depending on one's perspective, any of these might be considered Santa Claus's quote
implored. FBI's letter also asked that 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 U.S. air space, violations of eavesdropping and privacy laws involving minor children, if he had written it to use his annual delivery run to disperse. Give me a second. And the opportunity to use his annual delivery run to distribute narcotics
manufactured by his elves, the FBI is never investigated Santa Claus. Did you say that?
“That's what's that saying you're a letter? That's what I said. Yes, I'm reading you the letter.”
That is amazing. If I'm the FBI, I could think, hey Santa Claus could be a great colleague 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 main file in 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 asked that you reconsider your decision to administratively close this request and run the searches I requested happy holidays met topic. Wow, you didn't say Merry Christmas. You said happy holidays. Well, I don't know what holidays they celebrate or not. Fair. I'm a happy holidays person. You know,
I know I'm a happy holidays person too. Look at what the 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.
This is, well, first of all, the letter I mean needs to be framed. You got to frame the FBI's response
to your request and then your letter next to it because it is not presented in any sarcastic way. I mean, it is serious. Like, okay, you need more info. You got it. U.S. I answered. All right. Did they respond? So see what I'm doing here is instead of getting to them. Right. I'm just like I'm going to kill them with kindness. Yeah. This is so to speak. Did they respond? Okay. December 22nd, 2023. Oh, we can't talk to the liar. It's a Christmas miracle. It is a Christmas miracle because they agree
to reconsider. Oh, my God. I get a letter from them. It says we're reopening your request
“in light of the additional information that you have to provide. But there's only three days.”
So Christmas. 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 human Santa Claus. Like, like, really Santa Claus. Oh, okay. Wait. This is like, let's just stop for a second here. This is a big deal. Right. Just getting the FBI to reconsider and saying, oh, we're going to reopen your request. Well, process it is a big deal because they don't
often do that unless a request or actually provides them with that kind of info that you that you
sent them. Right. And the reality is most requesters will just kind of throw their hands up at.
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. Oh, yeah. Even if the responses as ridiculous as, please provide us with Santa's data birth and previous places of employment.
Why we might have been investigated again.
they tell me they're going to reconsider. So late January, 2024, I get a CD in the main.
“No. And then usually I just get we get your CDs and then we 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, and FOIA requires a number of subjects Santa Claus and I get a letter and I get a CD. All right. Now, I'm going to read you from the letter. Okay. 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. Well, well, well, well. Uh-huh. Previously processed. Uh-huh. All right. I'm like, I definitely feel my blood pressure starting to increase on this one.
Now they're, no, they're taught me. Yeah. This is, 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. Right. It's that what I is for. And I don't think there were, it's a prior Santa Claus request. I think they just went to the database of records they previously released. They searched for Santa Claus. Right. And they gave me the hit. Yeah. 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. This is exactly what the FBI did to Attorney General Pambandi when she requested yesterday in five. That's exactly what happened. Exactly what the FBI did. They gave her pre-processed records. I wonder, I should tell her about this. She might be like, yeah, she might be sympathetic.
“But that's what the FBI does. There should really be an inspector general investigation into”
how they handled this request in my opinion. Yeah. 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 they're going through the whole playbook. Oh man. Of like, of how to be difficult. And then it's like,
you fight them on the first one. And then now it's the now it's the next one. But I did get some documents.
Hello, I'm Michelle Hussein, and for more than 20 years, I was at the BBC. Military withdrawal from Afghanistan. But all the time I was delivering the headlines, I wanted to go further than the news of the day. To spend more time with the people shaping our
“world. And that's what I'm doing here on this podcast. Speaking to people from Nigel Farage.”
This is lovely trying. I think it's a lovely trying. I was a hard one. To tech journalist, Kara Swisher and the tech industry is running wild. You know, they've gotten what they wanted, and they've seen a huge run-up in their staff prices. This will be a place where every weekend,
you can count on one essential conversation to help make sense of the world. So please join me,
listen and subscribe to the Michelle Hussein Show from Bloomberg Weekend. Wherever you get, you'll put us. This doesn't ask interesting questions. For decades, people traveled across the world to see John of God. Desperate for Cures, no doctor could offer. And when they arrived, they saw things they couldn't explain. This is real. This guy's actually doing surgery and it's a miracle. I never believe that
miracles were real into that point. But behind those adoring crowds was something much darker. One of the reasons why I never went to the police is because I saw at least five or six men with guns everywhere he went. There was clear to me like close your mouth, open your mouth, or say anything. I'm your host, Martina Castro. And in the podcast, two-faced, John of God will look back on a man who claimed he could perform miracles and got
people from all around the world to believe him, from exactly right and Adon DeMedia. This is two-faced, John of God. Listen on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. First of all, what are these previously processed records? So I get these pre-processed documents. Yeah. In a lot of them have, they have stamps on them that indicate certain lawsuits that they were released during those lawsuits. You probably might say that on your documents,
it'll have like the 23-CV 1222 or whatever case. Okay. So first item, Chicago's sometimes
Editorials Thursday, December 25, 1975.
newscrubs. 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 unspisticated. Anyway, there's sort of talking about how to respond to the question of whether there's a Santa Claus in a sometimes
editorial. And they've only given us the first page, so I don't know what the rest of it says.
Yeah. But here is the super interesting part of that. There's a note, a handwritten little note, that somebody puts in there. Okay. Yeah. Next to the headline, there's hope for Santa Claus. It says correct, but not for the Republican part. Oh, God. Wow. So wait, wait. What? So, so this is
“obviously during Nixon's tenure in office, 1975. No, this would have been, I think, for it is”
wrapping up. Right. So Nixon resigns in '74. So so Ford is in office. And you know, at this point. And somebody believes that while there may be hope for Santa Claus, there's no hope for the Republican
all night. Yeah. 75. But wait, they added this to a file? Yeah. Like, we don't know where this
document originated. We know that for some reason it was produced in this other lawsuit. Yeah. And as it turns out, I went and looked up the case number that stamped on it. It's one of my cases. Yeah, out of here. Yeah. Yeah. Wait a little bit. Yeah. So this was already released to you, or you're a fly at? Well, this, yeah, this had already been released to the, in this is page 3,114 of a production to a different client. Yeah. Okay. Voluminous records there.
Church committee? I mean, in 75, the church committee did issue their report in 1975.
“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. And one of the revelations of the committee include
Operation M.K. Ultra, which involved the drugging of U.S. citizens as part of mine control human experiments. I mean, you could see how potentially they would recruit Santa Claus into those kinds of efforts. Right. I mean, what a perfect cover, too. Right. I'm Santa Claus. Yeah. One of uh, give children gifts. Instead, I'm installing bugs in people's houses. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So that's document number one. Document number two. This is, it looks like a
magazine article. So it's another press clipping, and it's called the CIA and the shake, the agency coddled Omar Abdel Ramon, allowing him to operate in the U.S. Now, this unholy
“alliance has blown up in her 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 it 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 Ramon 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? Yeah. I was just going to say what's the Santa reference in that one. Yeah. So you got to go way deep into the document, and still going, still going. Here we go. Like, well into it. It's as the shake then moved entirely to the El Salam mosque in Jersey City. The founder of the mosque is Sultan Ibrahim El Gowali, 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. Oh, man. El Gowali who sports a full white Santa Claus beer 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. So wait, I just need to ask. Are these all news clippings? Is that what they essentially gave you? Yes, everything is
news clippings, which I find old news clippings in government files to be really interesting. Oh, so to watch. Like, especially the ones where they do leave notations on the clippings. Oh, yeah. That's great. And at these handwritten notations. And they think they're so funny. They just think they're so
Funny.
from the St. Petersburg Times. The headline is a bootcamp 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 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 reddle trap van from Washington, DC. Austin had altered a Santa Claus shirt to say
“I believe in sabotage. It plans to be part of the World Bank protest. Oh, man. I thought it was going”
to say I believe in saying I mean, if you're altering a Santa Claus shirt seems that you're just
rearranged to the letters. Yeah. All right. So obviously those were interesting documents, but they still will 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 I January 30th to 2024. I make a new request for the five most recently dated records resulting from a main files 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 mean?
He think of. 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. Yeah. Exactly. You know,”
like, let's keep the momentum going. Did you tell them that you did not want previously processed records? Or are you saying? No, I just said I want the records resulting from the particular search that I asked for it, which should be the easiest way to make a rest. 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 of
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 indulge them and made a new request. And then they hit me with unusual circumstances. This totally reminds me of what Mike Saraj was saying. Yeah, Mike was on the episode previous to this one. He's a former FOIA officer and he talked to a lot about how FOIA
officers, if they don't have enough experience or confidence, they're going to err on the side of withholding documents instead of producing, which is exactly the opposite of what the statute is supposed to make happen. 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 without one? Like go to the search query box, type in Santa Claus, press enter and look at the results. I mean, they could have been
done in like a minute. 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. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that just reading my email took longer than it would have taken to go just like run this search. 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? 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. Yeah. Or maybe they think he's some sort of a communist, you know, agitator given, given toys to everyone who's good. I mean, come on. That's just communism, Jason.
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, you know, my reaction is to immediately file a request for their FBI file. And certainly in some instances, there are records that may relate to an investigation or it's across reference file. But there's also evidence showing that they just have files on
Everyone, you know?
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, let me tell you about it. Dear math, you topic, this is in response to your Freedom of Information Privacy Act, F.O.I.P.A. 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 F.O.I.P.A. that are responsive to the request. Therefore, your request is being closed. And
“then, so like, additional verbiage after that. 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 got to then request it all over again.
Wait, are you saying they might still be messing with me and that they never actually did a cross-reference
search? Yeah. So I would appeal this. So there's one other thing here, though, too, that it says they were unable to identify records subject to the F.O.I.P.A. 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 glomer 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. I mean, these are tumultuous times. Who knows what'll happen? This Christmas with Santa? You know, he may get busted for going into people's houses. This DOJ will not tolerate breaking and entering by people by communist, dressed in red, delivering
“toys to people who didn't pay for that. Like what is this socialistic thing that's going on there?”
Also, terrorists, can we just say that like, you know, toys are expensive now, because a pair of I don't know how Santa is going to do it. So you get, you go underneath the tree. There's a box, but then there's also like $4,000 tear of charge. Yeah, sorry kids. This year, you're going to have
to pay me. All right. Well, as always, it's 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. Happy holidays. See you all in the new year. Watch this space. From Bloomberg and 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 Brocott. Our executive producers for Bloomberg are sage,
boundman and me, Jason Leopold. And our executive producers for no smiling, our 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
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a little cold for you, but I would love to have you. I mean, I probably would decline, but you know, I would like the invite. So that's, that's okay. You got it, buddy. The news doesn't stop on the weekends. Contacts changes constantly. And now blumber is the place to stay on top of it all. Hi, I'm David Gurra. Join us every Saturday and Sunday for the new Bloomberg this weekend. I'm Christina Rafini. We'll bring you the latest headlines
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