December 16, 2025 • 38 mins
One Christmas, Matt dashed off a letter to the FBI’s FOIA office: Please search your old investigation files for the name Santa Claus, he requested, and send me the first few pages you find. What a simple holiday wish taught us about one agency’s spirit of giving.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What the are you wearing? Okay, this is a little scary,
isn't it obvious? I can't tell you that. What are
you an elf?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm an elf?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yes, you are wearing an health outfit? Why are you
wearing an elf? Costa?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Because, Jason, I have a very special holiday foyer story
for you today, and I think you're gonna like it.
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh my god? I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Can I do the thing this time?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Do it? Brather, jingle them bells. I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold.
I spend most of my days getting documents from the government.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm attorney Matt Tabbit, and I fight them in court
to open their files when they don't want to.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
From Bloomberg and no smiling, This is Disclosure, a podcast
about buying loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act,
and the unexpected places that takes us.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
So I have a special story for you, Jason. I'm
going to take you back to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
It up all right, So.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Picture this Chicago, Matt's office, December eighth, twenty twenty three.
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 going to start. You know, I'm
(01:22):
sitting around, I'm having a pregame whiskey. I'm listening to
some Nat King Cole, a little bit of Santa Claus
is coming to town. Just getting in the mood for
holiday time, and I think to myself, I should make
some kind of a holiday boyer requests. So this is
what I saw on I decided to make a foyer
(01:44):
request to our very good friends at the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. And here is my request. Greetings, I request
the first twenty five pages you locate from a CRS
main file in cross reference, search for the term quote
Santa Claus end quote.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Oh my god, amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You like that?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Amazing? So what's the CRS, Jason, Well, the CRS is
the Central Record System, the database that holds one hundred
million FBI files, investigative file.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
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 is 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.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
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 that the FBI maintains.
(03:09):
It's sort of like if the FBI were investigating Satan,
and you know, Satan and Santa had some interactions and
Santa ends up in Satan's file? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Are you breaking news here about a previously unknown relationship
between Santa Claus and Citan.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I mean their names are anagrams, all right, So back
to the story.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
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 then a 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
(03:55):
there could be cross references. And what I'm thinking, 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 liketay, I need a list.
I need a list of every bank robbery in which
someone was dressed up with Santa Claus in that's what
the cross reference searches in the cross referencing system would
allow you to do. So I make my request, and
(04:17):
I finished my whiskey, and I enjoy my colleagues and
clients and friends at our holiday party, and I and
I wait, I wait a little bit, and I don't
have to wait that long because on December thirteenth, twenty
twenty three, 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
(04:39):
guess as to what the response was?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, so this is twenty twenty three. I was going
to say, if you filed this request in say twenty
fifteen or sixteen, I would have said that the FBI's
response to you would have been they were unable to
locate any responsive records. But since you filed it in
tw twenty three, I'm going to say that the FBI glomar.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Do you glomar? So that that would be Hey, wait
a second. Now, we can't tell you if we're investigating
Santa or not because we can't tip Santa off that
we're onto them exactly right, that would be the glomar
or 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
(05:25):
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 thirteenth, twenty twenty three, Request number
one six one two nine four five dash triple zero,
subject Santa Claus. Dear mister topic. This is in response
to your Freedom of Information Privacy Acts FOIPA requests to
(05:49):
the FBI. Below you find information relevant to your request.
Please read each item carefully. Your request did not contain
enough identifying information for this off is to make a
determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our central record system.
We're not even getting a really good party.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
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 God, this
(06:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, exactly. And I kind of wonder 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.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
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 wonder born on
(07:28):
December twenty fifth, right, is that right? I'm assuming I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That's allegedly the birth date of Jesus, in which all right, right,
my bad. I did wonder if they were like taking
de 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
(07:53):
Santa Claus. So what do you think, Jason, Am I
gonna be like, oh, oh too bad?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
There is that what I do? Uh?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
No, I assume you immediately appealed.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, so they didn't deny it. They administratively closed it,
which and they did not include language requiring me to appeal,
so I did not appeal. Instead, I sent an email
to the good folks at FOIPA questions at FBI dot
gov and to the OGIS and to OJIS.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
They can kind of help to broker resolution and help
clear up confusion. And I think especially with requesters who
who don't who are new to it. They can be
really helpful to help them understand how Stone works. So
I send a two and a half page email addressing
the things that the FBI tells me they need to
(09:08):
know in order to process my request. All right, are
you ready, Jason?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Here we go. All right, dear FBI and ogis. I
submitted the above reference to feuer request. The request sought
the first twenty five 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
(09:36):
System end quote, and administratively closed the request. FBI also
suggested that I provide the quote subject's complete name, date
of birth, prior addresses former employment information or any incidents
for which you believe the FBI may have investigated the subject.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I write asking that FBI reconsidered.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
By the way, that is too nice.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, you know, Jason, this is the holiday, my friend,
So I was I.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Think the health suit is making you soft? Were you
wearing the helf suit while you file.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
This I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Okay, okay, fair, okay, I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So first though, I gotta kind of clear some things
up because you might have picked up on this. But
in addition to it 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
(10:40):
of how the FBI sometimes handles things. They don't really
read their request and understand it. They just have this
robotic 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 gonna
explain to them here why they're not interpreting my request.
Records are response to my request if they result from
(11:01):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It is responsive.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
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, it's 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 the scope of
(11:40):
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?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Buddy?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Oh man, I actually learned some things about Santa Claus
that I hadn't really previously known. Santa Claus is completely
miss Santa Claus, but he's also been known as far
Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nicky, Chris Springle, or Santa
Love it to provide some additional context about who Santa
Claus is. According to legend, every Christmas Eve, I can't
(12:11):
do this. At eleven every Christmas Eve, Santa delivers presence
to children around the world, but only if they have
been good. Santa Claus is said to have origins in
Saint Nicholas of Mirra, who was born March fifteenth to it,
who was born March fifteenth to seventy a d. And
(12:31):
Father Christmas, who originated in sixteenth century England. But Santa
Claus as we understand him in America is generally considered
to have originated with the publication of the book in
New Year's Present to the Little Ones from five to
twelve in eighteen twenty one, and the poem A Visit
from Saint Nicholas now known as The Night Before Christmas
(12:51):
in eighteen twenty three.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I love it, all.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Right, So they've asked me, like, hey, who's this Santa
Claus guy you're you're talking about? When 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 behan fa.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
The Christmas give us some money. Oh it's good.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
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 Kings. Yeah,
Cross referenced Santa Claus. Not 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
(13:33):
has been said that he spends time in tropical locations
immediately after Christmas.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I just love. I love to the best of my knowledge, Like, like, hey,
you know, I'm saying this under penalty of perjury. Right
to the best of my knowledge, that's where he resort.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
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 get them enough to understand
who Santa Claus is, even though again they didn't really
All they needed to do is 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
(14:15):
judging the perceived goodness or badness of children, manufacturing toys
and other presents, and delivering the appropriate presence or coal
for those judge 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.
(14:36):
A more cynical person, one we may commonly refer to
as a quote Scrooge 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 presence.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
They often receive, Wow, you take this to another level,
Oh dude, Like if I'm in it, I'm in it.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You want me to tell you who Santa Claus is.
I'm going to tell you who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Oh man, this is a paper on Santa Claus. I
love it.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
We're not even halfway through the letter yet, just so
you have a frame of reference, right, all right, So
I'm talking about Santa's jobs, and a cynical person may
say that he's 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 see
ce eg Ruby SU's character in the film Christmas Vacation,
(15:29):
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 state God.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
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, believed by Christians to be the son
of God who was born zero eight in Bethlehem.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
To say, the world, I will be making a request
on Jesus Christ on December twenty fifth, please start processing that.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I mean, if they did know who Santa Claus, it
was fair for me to wonder if maybe they didn't
never heard of Jesus and so I'm going to go
in and just affirmatively address that now. Okay, Depending on
one's perspective, any of these might be considered Santa Claus's
quote unployment. 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
(16:30):
violations of US airspace, violations of eavesdropping and privacy laws
involving minor children, and the opportunity to use his annual
delivery run to just appreciate, give me a second, Oh
my god, and the opportunity to use his annual delivery
(16:51):
run to distribute narcotics manufactured byselves. The FBI has never
investigated Santa c Did you say that that's what that's
in your letter? That's what I said. Yes, I'm reading
you the letter.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
That is amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
If I'm the FBI, I could think, hey, Santa Claus
could be a great comic 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 and cross reference searches. While there's been much
(17:27):
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,
(17:47):
Matt topic.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Wow, you didn't say Merry Christmas. You said happy Holidays.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, I don't know what holidays they celebrate or not fair.
I'm a happy holidays person, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I know I'm a happy holidays person.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
To let 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 holities.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
This is well. First of all, the letter I mean
needs to be framed. You gotta 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. They're like, okay, you need more info.
You got it, you asked, I answered, all right? Did
(18:35):
they respond?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
So see what I'm doing here is instead of getting
to them, right, I'm just like, I'm gonna kill them
with kindness. Yeah, this is so to speak.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Did they respond? Okay?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
December twenty second, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Oh, We'll getting up to the liar.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It's a Christmas miracle. It is a Christmas miracle because
they agree to reconsider. Oh my, I get a letter
from them. It says, we're reopening your requests in light
of the additional information that you have provide.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
But there's only three days so Christmas.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Oh you men, Santa Claus, Like like really a Santa Claus.
Oh okay, wait, this is like, let's let's just stop
for a second here. This is a big deal, right.
Just getting the FBI to reconsider and saying, okay, we're
gonna reopen your request, we'll process it is a big
(19:42):
deal because they don't often do that unless a requester
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 it, right,
It's like too much work, not gonna do it. Yep.
This is why it's important when you're following a request
(20:03):
to just really follow it through to the end. Oh yeah,
even if the response is as ridiculous as please provide
us with Santa's date of birth and previous places of
employment and.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Why we might have been investigating him. Right, So December
twenty second, just a few days before Christmas, they tell
me they're gonna reconsider. So late January twenty twenty four,
I get a CD in the main and usually I
just get we get your CDs and then we load them.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Up and give them to you.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
But like this one's to me, right, Like it's addressed
to me, Matthew Vincent Topic and Foyer requests number subjects
Santa Claus. And I get a letter and I get
a CD. All right, now I'm gonna 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 twenty
(20:57):
five pages of records were determined to be respect to
your subject and were previously processed and released.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well whoa, whoa, uh huh previously processed. Uh huh. All right,
I'm like I definitely feel my blood pot sure, yeah,
starting to increase on this one there.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Now they're taunting me.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Now, yeah, this is they're 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, That's not what I asked for.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And I don't think there was 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.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, so they.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Did the right search in the wrong place. I didn't
want preprocessed stuff. I wanted to see what did they
tag in the CRS on the search term Santa Claus.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
This is exact, Athlete, what the FBI did to Attorney
General Pam Bondi when she requested ESDN five.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
This is exactly what the FBI did. They gave her
preprocessed records.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I wonder I should tell her about this.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
She might be like, yeah, she might be sympathetic, but
that's what the FBI does.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
There should really be an inspector general investigation into how
they handled this request.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
In my opinion.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
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 man of like of how to be difficult,
(22:48):
and then it's like you fight them on the first
one and then now it's now it's the next one.
But I did get some documents.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Of all, what are these previously processed records?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So I get these preprocessed documents and a lot of
them have they have stamps on them that indicate certain
lawsuits that they were released like during those lawsuits you
probably never said on your documents that will have like
the you know, twenty three CV. Twelve twenty two or
whatever it is the case number.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Okay, So first item Chicago Sun Times Editorials, Thursday, December
twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Not oh man, wow.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So this is a news clipping.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Okay, they do love their news clippings.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
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 unsophisticated. Anyway, they're sort of talking
about how to respond to the question of whether there's
Santa Claus in a Sun Times editorial, and they've only
(24:01):
given us the first page, so I don't know what
the rest of it says. But here is the super
interesting part of that. There's a note, a handwritten little
note that somebody puts in there. Okay, next to the
headline there's hope for Santa Claus, it says, correct, but
not for the Republican Party. Oh my god. Wow?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Wait, well wait what so this is obviously during Nixon's
tenure in office.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Nineteen seventy five, No, this would have been I think
Ford is wrapping up, right, So Nixon resigns in seventy four,
so Ford is in office, and you know, at this
point and somebody believes that, well there may be hope
for Santa Claus, there's no hope for the republic all yeah. Five.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
We wait they added this to a file.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, Like, we don't know where this document originated. We
know that for some reason it was produced in this
other lawsuit. Yeah, as it turns out I went and
looked up the case number that stamped on it. It's
one of my cases.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Get out of here. Yeah yeah wait wait wait yeah,
so this was already released to you or your FIAT.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well this, yeah, this had already been released to the
in This is page three and fourteen of a production
to a different client.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, okay, voluminous records. They are Church Committee. I mean
in seventy five. The Church Committee did issue their report
in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And one of the revelations of the committee include Operation
mk Ultra, which involved the drugging of US citizens as
part of mind control human experiments.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I mean you could see how potentially they would recruit
Santa Claus into those kinds.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Of efforts, right, I mean, what a perfect cover too, Right,
I'm Santa Claus. You want to give children gifts and
sent them installing bugs in people's houses? Right, exactly?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
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 Sheik.
The agency coddled Omar abdel Rahman, allowing him to operate
in the US. Now this unholy alliance has blown up
in our faces. Now, this doesn't have a lawsuit number
(26:25):
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 thirtieth, nineteen ninety three. So I did
a little research, and it looks like this article is
from the Village Voice and was written five weeks after
(26:45):
the nineteen ninety three World Trade Center bombing, and Omar
abdel Rahman that they're writing about was later convicted and
jailed for that. This article was thirteen pages long, which
is more than half of the twenty five pages the
FBI set me. Wow, so you're probably thinking, well, what
does this have to do with Santa Claus?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Right? Yeah? I was just going to say, what's the
Santa reference in that one? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
So you gotta go way deep into the document and
still going, still going here, we go, like, well into it,
it says the Sheikh then moved entirely to the El
Salam Mosque in Jersey City. The founder of the mosque
is Sultan Ibrahim el Gowali, a wealthy fifty five year
(27:31):
old Egyptian businessman who was convicted by a federal jury
in July nineteen eighty six for conspiring to export one
hundred and fifty pounds of Sea four plastic explosives to
Israel for use by the PLO in a Christmas bombing.
Oh Man El Gwali, who sports a full white Santa
(27:52):
Claus beer Ah, served eighteen 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.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So wait, I just need to ask, are these all
news clippings? Is that what they essentially gave you.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yes, everything is news clippings, which I find old news
clippings in government files to be really interesting, especially.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
The ones where they do leave notations on the clippings.
Oh yeah, that's great, and have these handwritten notations and.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
They think they're so funny. They just think they're so funny,
all right. Next up is a website called the Ruckus Society.
Well I like that, and it's an article from the
Saint Petersburg Times. The headline is a boot Camp for Rebellion.
It's from March of two thousand. It looks like it's
been republished on the Ruckus Society website, and for some
(28:47):
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 I 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 reference. I heard this was
the place to be, said Sarah Austin, twenty one, who
with four fellow American University students, spent nineteen hours driving
(29:10):
a rattle trap van from Washington, DC. Austin had altered
a Santa Claus shirt to say I believe in sabotage
and plans to be part of the World Bank protest.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Next. Oh man, I thought I was going to say
I believe insane. I mean, if you're altering a Santa
Claus shirt, seems that you just rearrange the letters. Yeah,
all right.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
So obviously those were interesting documents, but they still 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 at January thirtieth, twenty twenty four, I
make a new request for the five most recently dated
records resulting from a main file CRS index search for
(29:58):
the term Santa Claus. May limit this to ten 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 thirty nine pages. So forty nine
total pages. Jason, what does that make you think of?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Oh, you're trying to keep it under fifty pages so
you can stay in what you might call the simple track,
which theoretically allows for faster processing.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know. I'm like, let's keep the momentum going. Did
you tell them that you did not want previously processed
records or are you saying no?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I just said I want the records resulting from the
particular search that I asked for, which should be the
easiest way to make a request, And I'm expecting like, oh,
this should be pretty easy, right Nope. February twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four. Please be advised that unusual circumstances apply
to the processing of your request. Unusual circumstances include one
(30:52):
or more of the following scenarios and then like stuff
about searching and consulting. These unusual circumstances will delay our
ability to make it a term on your request within
twenty days. So they made this complicated. I indulged them
and made a new request, and then they hit me
with unusual circumstances.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
This totally reminds me of what Mike Sarah was saying.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, Mike was on the episode previous to this when
he's a former FOY officer, and he talked a lot
about how FOY officers, if they don't have enough experience
or confidence, they're going to air on the side of
withholding documents instead of producing, which is exactly the opposite
of what the statue is supposed to make happen.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
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 you outline.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
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.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
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
(32:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Oh absolutely, I mean just reading my email took longer
than it would have taken to go just like run
this search.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
The FBI did not respond to our request for comment.
But Matt, is 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.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
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 is some sort of a communist, you know,
agitator given toys to everyone who's good. I mean, come on,
that's just communism, Jason, it is, but it is a
(33:03):
good request.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
It's worth it. I mean, if we sort of joke
about this, when someone prominent passes away suddenly, and you know,
my reaction is to immediately file request for their FBI file.
And certainly in some instances there are records that may
relate to an investigation or it's a cross reference file.
(33:28):
But there's also evidence showing that they just have files
on everyone, you know. Yes, yeah, and that's the reality.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, And that's why I am really eager to see
what do they have where they actually like we're 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
(33:58):
to know about. I did eventually get a bounce back, Jason.
Let me let me tell you about it. Dear Matthew topic.
This is in response to your Freedom of Information Privacy
Act FOIPA 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
(34:18):
were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA that
are responsive to the request. Therefore your request is being closed,
and then some like additional verbiage after that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Wait are you saying they might still be messing with
me and that they never actually did a cross reference search.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, so I would appeal this.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
So there's one other thing here though, too that it
says they were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA,
so subject to FOYA. 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
(35:22):
glomar 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
(35:42):
that possibility yet.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I mean, these are tumultuous times. Who knows what will
happen uh this Christmas with Santa. You know, he may
get busted for going into people's houses. This DOJ will.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Not tolerate breaking an entering by people, by communists dressed
in red delivering toys to people who didn't pay for that, Like,
what is.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
This socialistic thing that's going on here? Also terriffs? Can
we just like say that, like, you know, toys are expensive?
Now is a tariff? I don't know how san is
gonna do it?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Get you go underneath the tree, there's a box, but
then there's also like four thousand dollars tariff charge.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, sorry kids this year, you're gonna have to pay me.
All right.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Well, as always is the case with us, one thing
leads to another thing leads to another thing. So we'll
see what we turn up.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
All right. Happy holidays, brother, Happy holidays.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
See all in the new year.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
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 Schroing and Sean Cannon for No Smiling.
Our editor for Bloomberg is Jeff Brocott. Our executive producers
(36:59):
for Bloomberg Sagebauman and me Jason Leopold, and our executive
producers for No Smiling are Sean Cannon, Heather Schrowing and
Matt Topic. The disclosure theme song is by Nick, with
additional music by Nick An Epidemic sound sound design and
mixing is by Sean Cannon. For more transparency news and
(37:20):
important document dumps, you can subscribe to my Weeklyfoya Files
newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash Foya Files. That's Foia Files.
To get every episode early on Apple Podcasts, become a
Bloomberg dot com subscriber today. Check out our special intro
offer right now at Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast offer,
(37:42):
or click the link in the show notes. You'll also
unlock deep reporting data and analysis from reporters around the world.
We'll see you again next Tuesday, Matt. I don't think
I've ever received an invite to that holiday office party.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You might be a little cold for you, but I
would love to have you.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
I mean, I probably would decline, but you know, I
would like the invite, so that's that's okay.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
You got it, buddy,
What the are you wearing? Okay, this is a little scary,
isn't it obvious? I can't tell you that. What are
you an elf?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm an elf?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yes, you are wearing an health outfit? Why are you
wearing an elf? Costa?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Because, Jason, I have a very special holiday foyer story
for you today, and I think you're gonna like it.
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh my god? I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Can I do the thing this time?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Do it? Brather, jingle them bells. I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold.
I spend most of my days getting documents from the government.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm attorney Matt Tabbit, and I fight them in court
to open their files when they don't want to.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
From Bloomberg and no smiling, This is Disclosure, a podcast
about buying loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act,
and the unexpected places that takes us.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
So I have a special story for you, Jason. I'm
going to take you back to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
It up all right, So.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Picture this Chicago, Matt's office, December eighth, twenty twenty three.
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 going to start. You know, I'm
(01:22):
sitting around, I'm having a pregame whiskey. I'm listening to
some Nat King Cole, a little bit of Santa Claus
is coming to town. Just getting in the mood for
holiday time, and I think to myself, I should make
some kind of a holiday boyer requests. So this is
what I saw on I decided to make a foyer
(01:44):
request to our very good friends at the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. And here is my request. Greetings, I request
the first twenty five pages you locate from a CRS
main file in cross reference, search for the term quote
Santa Claus end quote.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Oh my god, amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You like that?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Amazing? So what's the CRS, Jason, Well, the CRS is
the Central Record System, the database that holds one hundred
million FBI files, investigative file.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
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 is 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.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
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 that the FBI maintains.
(03:09):
It's sort of like if the FBI were investigating Satan,
and you know, Satan and Santa had some interactions and
Santa ends up in Satan's file? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Are you breaking news here about a previously unknown relationship
between Santa Claus and Citan.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I mean their names are anagrams, all right, So back
to the story.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
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 then a 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
(03:55):
there could be cross references. And what I'm thinking, 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 liketay, I need a list.
I need a list of every bank robbery in which
someone was dressed up with Santa Claus in that's what
the cross reference searches in the cross referencing system would
allow you to do. So I make my request, and
(04:17):
I finished my whiskey, and I enjoy my colleagues and
clients and friends at our holiday party, and I and
I wait, I wait a little bit, and I don't
have to wait that long because on December thirteenth, twenty
twenty three, 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
(04:39):
guess as to what the response was?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, so this is twenty twenty three. I was going
to say, if you filed this request in say twenty
fifteen or sixteen, I would have said that the FBI's
response to you would have been they were unable to
locate any responsive records. But since you filed it in
tw twenty three, I'm going to say that the FBI glomar.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Do you glomar? So that that would be Hey, wait
a second. Now, we can't tell you if we're investigating
Santa or not because we can't tip Santa off that
we're onto them exactly right, that would be the glomar
or 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
(05:25):
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 thirteenth, twenty twenty three, Request number
one six one two nine four five dash triple zero,
subject Santa Claus. Dear mister topic. This is in response
to your Freedom of Information Privacy Acts FOIPA requests to
(05:49):
the FBI. Below you find information relevant to your request.
Please read each item carefully. Your request did not contain
enough identifying information for this off is to make a
determination regarding the responsiveness of records in our central record system.
We're not even getting a really good party.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
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 God, this
(06:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, exactly. And I kind of wonder 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.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
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 wonder born on
(07:28):
December twenty fifth, right, is that right? I'm assuming I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That's allegedly the birth date of Jesus, in which all right, right,
my bad. I did wonder if they were like taking
de 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
(07:53):
Santa Claus. So what do you think, Jason, Am I
gonna be like, oh, oh too bad?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
There is that what I do? Uh?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
No, I assume you immediately appealed.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, so they didn't deny it. They administratively closed it,
which and they did not include language requiring me to appeal,
so I did not appeal. Instead, I sent an email
to the good folks at FOIPA questions at FBI dot
gov and to the OGIS and to OJIS.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
They can kind of help to broker resolution and help
clear up confusion. And I think especially with requesters who
who don't who are new to it. They can be
really helpful to help them understand how Stone works. So
I send a two and a half page email addressing
the things that the FBI tells me they need to
(09:08):
know in order to process my request. All right, are
you ready, Jason?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Here we go. All right, dear FBI and ogis. I
submitted the above reference to feuer request. The request sought
the first twenty five 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
(09:36):
System end quote, and administratively closed the request. FBI also
suggested that I provide the quote subject's complete name, date
of birth, prior addresses former employment information or any incidents
for which you believe the FBI may have investigated the subject.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I write asking that FBI reconsidered.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
By the way, that is too nice.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, you know, Jason, this is the holiday, my friend,
So I was I.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Think the health suit is making you soft? Were you
wearing the helf suit while you file.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
This I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Okay, okay, fair, okay, I was not wearing the elf suit.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So first though, I gotta kind of clear some things
up because you might have picked up on this. But
in addition to it 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
(10:40):
of how the FBI sometimes handles things. They don't really
read their request and understand it. They just have this
robotic 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 gonna
explain to them here why they're not interpreting my request.
Records are response to my request if they result from
(11:01):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It is responsive.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
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, it's 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 the scope of
(11:40):
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?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Buddy?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Oh man, I actually learned some things about Santa Claus
that I hadn't really previously known. Santa Claus is completely
miss Santa Claus, but he's also been known as far
Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nicky, Chris Springle, or Santa
Love it to provide some additional context about who Santa
Claus is. According to legend, every Christmas Eve, I can't
(12:11):
do this. At eleven every Christmas Eve, Santa delivers presence
to children around the world, but only if they have
been good. Santa Claus is said to have origins in
Saint Nicholas of Mirra, who was born March fifteenth to it,
who was born March fifteenth to seventy a d. And
(12:31):
Father Christmas, who originated in sixteenth century England. But Santa
Claus as we understand him in America is generally considered
to have originated with the publication of the book in
New Year's Present to the Little Ones from five to
twelve in eighteen twenty one, and the poem A Visit
from Saint Nicholas now known as The Night Before Christmas
(12:51):
in eighteen twenty three.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I love it, all.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Right, So they've asked me, like, hey, who's this Santa
Claus guy you're you're talking about? When 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 behan fa.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
The Christmas give us some money. Oh it's good.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
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 Kings. Yeah,
Cross referenced Santa Claus. Not 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
(13:33):
has been said that he spends time in tropical locations
immediately after Christmas.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I just love. I love to the best of my knowledge, Like, like, hey,
you know, I'm saying this under penalty of perjury. Right
to the best of my knowledge, that's where he resort.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
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 get them enough to understand
who Santa Claus is, even though again they didn't really
All they needed to do is 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
(14:15):
judging the perceived goodness or badness of children, manufacturing toys
and other presents, and delivering the appropriate presence or coal
for those judge 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.
(14:36):
A more cynical person, one we may commonly refer to
as a quote Scrooge 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 presence.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
They often receive, Wow, you take this to another level,
Oh dude, Like if I'm in it, I'm in it.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You want me to tell you who Santa Claus is.
I'm going to tell you who Santa Claus is.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Oh man, this is a paper on Santa Claus. I
love it.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
We're not even halfway through the letter yet, just so
you have a frame of reference, right, all right, So
I'm talking about Santa's jobs, and a cynical person may
say that he's 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 see
ce eg Ruby SU's character in the film Christmas Vacation,
(15:29):
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 state God.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
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, believed by Christians to be the son
of God who was born zero eight in Bethlehem.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
To say, the world, I will be making a request
on Jesus Christ on December twenty fifth, please start processing that.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I mean, if they did know who Santa Claus, it
was fair for me to wonder if maybe they didn't
never heard of Jesus and so I'm going to go
in and just affirmatively address that now. Okay, Depending on
one's perspective, any of these might be considered Santa Claus's
quote unployment. 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
(16:30):
violations of US airspace, violations of eavesdropping and privacy laws
involving minor children, and the opportunity to use his annual
delivery run to just appreciate, give me a second, Oh
my god, and the opportunity to use his annual delivery
(16:51):
run to distribute narcotics manufactured byselves. The FBI has never
investigated Santa c Did you say that that's what that's
in your letter? That's what I said. Yes, I'm reading
you the letter.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
That is amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
If I'm the FBI, I could think, hey, Santa Claus
could be a great comic 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 and cross reference searches. While there's been much
(17:27):
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,
(17:47):
Matt topic.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Wow, you didn't say Merry Christmas. You said happy Holidays.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, I don't know what holidays they celebrate or not fair.
I'm a happy holidays person, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I know I'm a happy holidays person.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
To let 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 holities.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
This is well. First of all, the letter I mean
needs to be framed. You gotta 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. They're like, okay, you need more info.
You got it, you asked, I answered, all right? Did
(18:35):
they respond?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
So see what I'm doing here is instead of getting
to them, right, I'm just like, I'm gonna kill them
with kindness. Yeah, this is so to speak.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Did they respond? Okay?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
December twenty second, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Oh, We'll getting up to the liar.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It's a Christmas miracle. It is a Christmas miracle because
they agree to reconsider. Oh my, I get a letter
from them. It says, we're reopening your requests in light
of the additional information that you have provide.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
But there's only three days so Christmas.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Oh you men, Santa Claus, Like like really a Santa Claus.
Oh okay, wait, this is like, let's let's just stop
for a second here. This is a big deal, right.
Just getting the FBI to reconsider and saying, okay, we're
gonna reopen your request, we'll process it is a big
(19:42):
deal because they don't often do that unless a requester
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 it, right,
It's like too much work, not gonna do it. Yep.
This is why it's important when you're following a request
(20:03):
to just really follow it through to the end. Oh yeah,
even if the response is as ridiculous as please provide
us with Santa's date of birth and previous places of
employment and.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Why we might have been investigating him. Right, So December
twenty second, just a few days before Christmas, they tell
me they're gonna reconsider. So late January twenty twenty four,
I get a CD in the main and usually I
just get we get your CDs and then we load them.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Up and give them to you.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
But like this one's to me, right, Like it's addressed
to me, Matthew Vincent Topic and Foyer requests number subjects
Santa Claus. And I get a letter and I get
a CD. All right, now I'm gonna 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 twenty
(20:57):
five pages of records were determined to be respect to
your subject and were previously processed and released.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well whoa, whoa, uh huh previously processed. Uh huh. All right,
I'm like I definitely feel my blood pot sure, yeah,
starting to increase on this one there.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Now they're taunting me.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Now, yeah, this is they're 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, That's not what I asked for.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And I don't think there was 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.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, so they.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Did the right search in the wrong place. I didn't
want preprocessed stuff. I wanted to see what did they
tag in the CRS on the search term Santa Claus.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
This is exact, Athlete, what the FBI did to Attorney
General Pam Bondi when she requested ESDN five.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
This is exactly what the FBI did. They gave her
preprocessed records.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I wonder I should tell her about this.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
She might be like, yeah, she might be sympathetic, but
that's what the FBI does.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
There should really be an inspector general investigation into how
they handled this request.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
In my opinion.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
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 man of like of how to be difficult,
(22:48):
and then it's like you fight them on the first
one and then now it's now it's the next one.
But I did get some documents.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Of all, what are these previously processed records?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So I get these preprocessed documents and a lot of
them have they have stamps on them that indicate certain
lawsuits that they were released like during those lawsuits you
probably never said on your documents that will have like
the you know, twenty three CV. Twelve twenty two or
whatever it is the case number.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Okay, So first item Chicago Sun Times Editorials, Thursday, December
twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Not oh man, wow.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So this is a news clipping.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Okay, they do love their news clippings.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
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 unsophisticated. Anyway, they're sort of talking
about how to respond to the question of whether there's
Santa Claus in a Sun Times editorial, and they've only
(24:01):
given us the first page, so I don't know what
the rest of it says. But here is the super
interesting part of that. There's a note, a handwritten little
note that somebody puts in there. Okay, next to the
headline there's hope for Santa Claus, it says, correct, but
not for the Republican Party. Oh my god. Wow?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Wait, well wait what so this is obviously during Nixon's
tenure in office.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Nineteen seventy five, No, this would have been I think
Ford is wrapping up, right, So Nixon resigns in seventy four,
so Ford is in office, and you know, at this
point and somebody believes that, well there may be hope
for Santa Claus, there's no hope for the republic all yeah. Five.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
We wait they added this to a file.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, Like, we don't know where this document originated. We
know that for some reason it was produced in this
other lawsuit. Yeah, as it turns out I went and
looked up the case number that stamped on it. It's
one of my cases.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Get out of here. Yeah yeah wait wait wait yeah,
so this was already released to you or your FIAT.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well this, yeah, this had already been released to the
in This is page three and fourteen of a production
to a different client.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, okay, voluminous records. They are Church Committee. I mean
in seventy five. The Church Committee did issue their report
in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And one of the revelations of the committee include Operation
mk Ultra, which involved the drugging of US citizens as
part of mind control human experiments.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I mean you could see how potentially they would recruit
Santa Claus into those kinds.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Of efforts, right, I mean, what a perfect cover too, Right,
I'm Santa Claus. You want to give children gifts and
sent them installing bugs in people's houses? Right, exactly?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
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 Sheik.
The agency coddled Omar abdel Rahman, allowing him to operate
in the US. Now this unholy alliance has blown up
in our faces. Now, this doesn't have a lawsuit number
(26:25):
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 thirtieth, nineteen ninety three. So I did
a little research, and it looks like this article is
from the Village Voice and was written five weeks after
(26:45):
the nineteen ninety three World Trade Center bombing, and Omar
abdel Rahman that they're writing about was later convicted and
jailed for that. This article was thirteen pages long, which
is more than half of the twenty five pages the
FBI set me. Wow, so you're probably thinking, well, what
does this have to do with Santa Claus?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Right? Yeah? I was just going to say, what's the
Santa reference in that one? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
So you gotta go way deep into the document and
still going, still going here, we go, like, well into it,
it says the Sheikh then moved entirely to the El
Salam Mosque in Jersey City. The founder of the mosque
is Sultan Ibrahim el Gowali, a wealthy fifty five year
(27:31):
old Egyptian businessman who was convicted by a federal jury
in July nineteen eighty six for conspiring to export one
hundred and fifty pounds of Sea four plastic explosives to
Israel for use by the PLO in a Christmas bombing.
Oh Man El Gwali, who sports a full white Santa
(27:52):
Claus beer Ah, served eighteen 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.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So wait, I just need to ask, are these all
news clippings? Is that what they essentially gave you.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yes, everything is news clippings, which I find old news
clippings in government files to be really interesting, especially.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
The ones where they do leave notations on the clippings.
Oh yeah, that's great, and have these handwritten notations and.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
They think they're so funny. They just think they're so funny,
all right. Next up is a website called the Ruckus Society.
Well I like that, and it's an article from the
Saint Petersburg Times. The headline is a boot Camp for Rebellion.
It's from March of two thousand. It looks like it's
been republished on the Ruckus Society website, and for some
(28:47):
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 I 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 reference. I heard this was
the place to be, said Sarah Austin, twenty one, who
with four fellow American University students, spent nineteen hours driving
(29:10):
a rattle trap van from Washington, DC. Austin had altered
a Santa Claus shirt to say I believe in sabotage
and plans to be part of the World Bank protest.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Next. Oh man, I thought I was going to say
I believe insane. I mean, if you're altering a Santa
Claus shirt, seems that you just rearrange the letters. Yeah,
all right.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
So obviously those were interesting documents, but they still 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 at January thirtieth, twenty twenty four, I
make a new request for the five most recently dated
records resulting from a main file CRS index search for
(29:58):
the term Santa Claus. May limit this to ten 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 thirty nine pages. So forty nine
total pages. Jason, what does that make you think of?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Oh, you're trying to keep it under fifty pages so
you can stay in what you might call the simple track,
which theoretically allows for faster processing.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know. I'm like, let's keep the momentum going. Did
you tell them that you did not want previously processed
records or are you saying no?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I just said I want the records resulting from the
particular search that I asked for, which should be the
easiest way to make a request, And I'm expecting like, oh,
this should be pretty easy, right Nope. February twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four. Please be advised that unusual circumstances apply
to the processing of your request. Unusual circumstances include one
(30:52):
or more of the following scenarios and then like stuff
about searching and consulting. These unusual circumstances will delay our
ability to make it a term on your request within
twenty days. So they made this complicated. I indulged them
and made a new request, and then they hit me
with unusual circumstances.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
This totally reminds me of what Mike Sarah was saying.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, Mike was on the episode previous to this when
he's a former FOY officer, and he talked a lot
about how FOY officers, if they don't have enough experience
or confidence, they're going to air on the side of
withholding documents instead of producing, which is exactly the opposite
of what the statue is supposed to make happen.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
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 you outline.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
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.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
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
(32:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Oh absolutely, I mean just reading my email took longer
than it would have taken to go just like run
this search.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
The FBI did not respond to our request for comment.
But Matt, is 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.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
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 is some sort of a communist, you know,
agitator given toys to everyone who's good. I mean, come on,
that's just communism, Jason, it is, but it is a
(33:03):
good request.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
It's worth it. I mean, if we sort of joke
about this, when someone prominent passes away suddenly, and you know,
my reaction is to immediately file request for their FBI file.
And certainly in some instances there are records that may
relate to an investigation or it's a cross reference file.
(33:28):
But there's also evidence showing that they just have files
on everyone, you know. Yes, yeah, and that's the reality.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, And that's why I am really eager to see
what do they have where they actually like we're 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
(33:58):
to know about. I did eventually get a bounce back, Jason.
Let me let me tell you about it. Dear Matthew topic.
This is in response to your Freedom of Information Privacy
Act FOIPA 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
(34:18):
were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA that
are responsive to the request. Therefore your request is being closed,
and then some like additional verbiage after that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Wait are you saying they might still be messing with
me and that they never actually did a cross reference search.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, so I would appeal this.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
So there's one other thing here though, too that it
says they were unable to identify records subject to the FOIPA,
so subject to FOYA. 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
(35:22):
glomar 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
(35:42):
that possibility yet.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I mean, these are tumultuous times. Who knows what will
happen uh this Christmas with Santa. You know, he may
get busted for going into people's houses. This DOJ will.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Not tolerate breaking an entering by people, by communists dressed
in red delivering toys to people who didn't pay for that, Like,
what is.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
This socialistic thing that's going on here? Also terriffs? Can
we just like say that, like, you know, toys are expensive?
Now is a tariff? I don't know how san is
gonna do it?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Get you go underneath the tree, there's a box, but
then there's also like four thousand dollars tariff charge.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, sorry kids this year, you're gonna have to pay me.
All right.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Well, as always is the case with us, one thing
leads to another thing leads to another thing. So we'll
see what we turn up.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
All right. Happy holidays, brother, Happy holidays.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
See all in the new year.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
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 Schroing and Sean Cannon for No Smiling.
Our editor for Bloomberg is Jeff Brocott. Our executive producers
(36:59):
for Bloomberg Sagebauman and me Jason Leopold, and our executive
producers for No Smiling are Sean Cannon, Heather Schrowing and
Matt Topic. The disclosure theme song is by Nick, with
additional music by Nick An Epidemic sound sound design and
mixing is by Sean Cannon. For more transparency news and
(37:20):
important document dumps, you can subscribe to my Weeklyfoya Files
newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash Foya Files. That's Foia Files.
To get every episode early on Apple Podcasts, become a
Bloomberg dot com subscriber today. Check out our special intro
offer right now at Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast offer,
(37:42):
or click the link in the show notes. You'll also
unlock deep reporting data and analysis from reporters around the world.
We'll see you again next Tuesday, Matt. I don't think
I've ever received an invite to that holiday office party.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You might be a little cold for you, but I
would love to have you.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
I mean, I probably would decline, but you know, I
would like the invite, so that's that's okay.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
You got it, buddy,
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