This is Jason.
He has more than 2,500 band shirts,
enjoys 80s thrash metal albums,
has a dog named Bela Lugosi,
drinks black coffee in the morning.
And I sue government agencies for information.
I'm Jason Leopold
and I'm an investigative journalist.
Money laundering, corruption,
covert programs.
Secret Service visiting celebrities.
I have the luxury of
dipping my toe into any subject.
I've been described as a FOIA terrorist by the FBI.
I've also been referred to as a member of a FOIA posse
by the Department of Justice.
And the NSA has actually said I've weaponized the FOIA.
The Freedom of Information Act, which is commonly known as
the FOIA, is a law that gives you the right
to access information from the federal government.
It's a half-century-old law.
Often described as a law that keeps citizens in the know
about what their government is doing.
It's an incredibly powerful tool.
So I first got involved with the Freedom of Information Act,
probably about 15 years ago.
And really where it started to pick up
was during Occupy Wall Street.
I started to file requests with the FBI related to their role
in allegedly dismantling the encampments
that were set up around the country.
Remarkably, the FBI responds to my FOIA request
by stating they had no records
and they could not locate any records.
So, I had hooked up with an attorney.
And he told me, well, we can sue the agency.
We can sue the FBI.
And I was like, wait what?
I can sue the government?
Uh, where do I sign up?
And wouldn't you know, once I sued them,
they found those records
that they said they could not find.
And from that moment on,
I just kind of kept filing requests
and suing the government.
I'm constantly filing FOIA requests.
I've easily filed more than 5,000.
There are instances where I'll be driving
and I'll hear something on the radio and I need to
pull over because I have to get the request filed.
Really, what I'm trying to do
is to pry loose records so I can build out investigations,
but also trying to get records that would enlighten the public
and shed light on hot-button issues.
I think the FOIA is underutilized
by the general public.
Journalists only make up a sliver of requests that are filed
on the federal level.
There's certainly been an uptick in the use of FOIA
over the past decade or so.
But the majority
of the FOIA requests that federal government agencies
receive are from
commercial requesters,
people who are taking that
information and selling it.
They're not requesting records
that are in the public interest.
They're not sharing those records with the public.
The FOIA request is what I refer to as a template.
My template says, this is a request
under the Freedom of Information Act.
And I cite the law and I'm telling the agency
exactly what I'm looking for.
So it's a very simple process, but it can also be painstaking.
And here's why.
Agencies are not so eager to turn over records.
And I just sit back and wait.
But sometimes waiting can take years.
It's like Christmas when I get these.
Whoa, whoa.
US Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
And this is a request
that I actually filed back in 2017.
So, it's taken the agency about six years.
There really is no general wait time.
There's more than 400 federal government agencies.
So depending on the agency, the requests can take anywhere
from three months to ten years.
The least amount of time
that I've waited for documents was about two days.
I would say that the record of documents that arrived
on my doorstep
in one day was probably about 7,000 pages
from the State Department.
And I think that they did that as a **** you to me,
knowing that I'd have to thumb through each and every page.
The request that had the most impact
and I mean the most impact
was for Hillary Clinton's emails.
We are all accountable to the American people to get
the facts right.
And it was my request
and my lawsuit that became the vehicle by which
all of Hillary Clinton's emails were released.
And by the way like,
I had no idea she had a private server.
I was just trying to get the public to be like,
Hey! Look, it’s her emails.
Anyway.
The FBI has uncovered new evidence in its investigation
of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's
use of a private email server.
Donald Trump is praising the FBI's decision
to review new emails.
Another FOIA request that I filed and ultimately a lawsuit
that resulted in thousands of records
that were released that had enormous
impact were records around Robert Mueller's report into
whether or not Trump had colluded with Russia
during the campaign of 2016.
I was able to get Donald Trump Jr's name
unredacted from the Mueller Report.
I've gotten records from the government
where they talked **** about me in emails.
And one time,
the FBI sent an agent out
to investigate one of my FOIA requests
and I only found out about that
because I filed a FOIA request with the FBI.
The most rewarding part of this job has always been holding
power to account and speaking truth to power.
That is really what keeps me going.
And being able to shine a light into dark places.