The FBI is asking a federal court to reverse its order that demanded the bureau to disclose information from a laptop belonging to Seth Rich. If the judge refuses, the FBI has asked for a delay of 66 years. Rich was working as a staffer for the Democratic National Committee when he was shot and killed on a Washington D.C. street in 2016. No arrests have ever been made in connection with the Rich killing.

The FBI asserted that a release would violate the privacy of Rich’s family members.

The FBI previously claimed that it was not in possession of Seth Rich’s laptop, or any information from it.

Then, in 2020, the bureau admitted that it had several thousand files from the computer. At that time, the FBI stated that it was “getting the files from Seth Rich’s personal laptop into a format to be reviewed.”

Files and other material extracted from the laptop were provided to the FBI from a source in 2018, FBI records officer Michael Seidel wrote in a filing.

In the latest filing, government attorneys have claimed that the FBI never extracted the data, saying it come from a different law enforcement agency. The filing stated that photos from the Seth Rich laptop are currently stored on a compact disc.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has suggested Rich leaked Democratic National Committee (DNC) files to WikiLeaks.