...The agent claimed that disclosure of the records would harm an FBI investigation into the allegations that Russians had hacked into U.S. systems.
The FBI now wants the court to agree to keep the new records shielded from Brian Huddleston, a Texas resident who filed a lawsuit against the bureau over its ignoring a Freedom of Information request for records on Rich.
Bureau officials initially claimed in sworn statements that the FBI had searched for records on Rich but did not locate any.
In 2020, for the first time, the FBI admitted it had files from a computer belonging to Rich. Some of those files were then released to Huddleston and made public, including documents that appear to suggest that someone could have paid for his death.
The FBI has said it has images from a second computer owned by Rich, which the bureau described as Rich’s personal laptop. A federal judge in September ordered the bureau to hand the images over to Huddleston, finding that the bureau improperly withheld them....
The bureau is fighting against the release of the images of Rich’s personal laptop and the work laptop, which it says is being held in an FBI evidence room.