Judicial Watch: Federal Court Orders Justice Department to Answer Records Questions on FBI ‘Burn Bag...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a federal judge ordered the United States Justice Department to provide answers about nearly 2 million pages of FBI records discovered in a “hidden room” at FBI headquarters, including whether the records have already been reviewed in response to other Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and whether the newly uncovered records had been stored in other government record systems: 

Upon consideration of the parties’ Joint Status Report and as discussed at [the August 3, 2026] status conference, it is ORDERED that the parties shall file a joint status report on or before September 4, 2026. In addition to updating the Court on the parties’ progress in narrowing the issues, the joint status report shall include the government’s responses to the following: (1) Whether the legacy and/or recent records at issue in this FOIA request have previously been considered or reviewed in response to other FOIA requests; and (2) Whether the legacy and/or recent records at issue in this FOIA request are contained in any other systems of records or indices. The government shall also determine whether it can provide additional information regarding the nature of the two investigations it represents are reflected in the legacy files.

The order comes in Judicial Watch’s November 2025 FOIA lawsuit filed after the FBI failed to respond to a June 2025 request for all records stored in the room. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino disclosed in May 2025 that FBI officials had discovered a large volume of records in the room that had not been properly processed or digitized. The FBI subsequently told the court that the room contains 20 five-drawer filing cabinets holding an estimated 950,000 to 1.9 million pages of records (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:25-cv-04047)).

In July 2026, the Justice Department told the court that, at a rate of 500 pages a month, processing records from the “hidden room” at FBI Headquarters would take approximately 158 years. The room — now dubbed the “burn bag room” — holds over 2 million pages of records, according to the FBI’s own filing. There is one safe, believed to contain “legacy files,” that is yet to be accessed.

Bongino said in May 2025 that some of the records were found stashed “in bags:”

There was a room [in FBI Headquarters], and we found stuff. A lot of stuff … hidden from us at least and not mentioned to us. And then found stuff in there. A lot is from the Comey era. We are working … right now to declassify. And just so you know, because I get the public—I totally understand people saying “well do it now.” The process is: not all of the information is ours to declassify. Some is other intelligence agencies’…. We literally can’t do it. Once that gets done … and you read some of the stuff we found—that, by the way, was not processed through the normal procedure, digitizing and putting in FBI records. We found it in bags, hiding under Jim Comey’s FBI. You’re going to be stunned.

 Judicial Watch previously uncovered that the room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) containing several safes—now identified as 20 file cabinets—holding between roughly 950,000 and 1,900,000 pages of records, split into two categories: “legacy files,” older records mostly tied to two closed historical investigations and more recent files tied to active investigations and prior Special Counsel records, reportedly including material connected to Special Counsel Jack Smith.  

More than a year after Judicial Watch submitted its FOIA request, the FBI has yet to begin processing the records sought. The parties must report to Judge Friedrich by September 4, 2026, on their progress and provide the specific information demanded by the court.

“American citizens should be outraged that the FBI has told a federal judge it could take 158 years to process the records in its secret ‘burn bag’ room,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Now the court is demanding answers about whether these records were previously searched, whether they are stored in records systems as federal law requires, and what two mysterious investigations are represented in the “legacy” files. It is urgent the American people receive all the details on how the FBI was used as a political weapon against Donald Trump and other Americans. The Justice Department and FBI should stop the stonewalling and get these records out.”

This is the latest in a series of Judicial Watch investigations targeting shady FBI weaponization and abuse of power.

In August 2025, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department for all records regarding the FBI, under then-Director James Comey, initiating an investigation of then-2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In May 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered the FBI “EC”—the electronic communication that officially launched the counterintelligence investigation, termed “Crossfire Hurricane,” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The document was written by former FBI official Peter Strzok and was obtained as the result of a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit for: “The Electronic Communication that initiated the counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.”

In August 2019, Judicial Watch uncovered “302” report material from FBI interviews with Bruce Ohr, who was removed from his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General in December 2017.

In March 2019, Judicial Watch received heavily redacted records from the Justice Department that reveal that Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant.

In December 2018, Judicial Watch uncovered U.S. State Department documents showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN). Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a FOIA lawsuit for records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Cardin.

In August 2018, Judicial Watch announced that in response to a its FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.

Also in August, Judicial Watch forced the release of heavily redacted records about Christopher Steele, the former British spy, hired with Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds, who authored the infamous dossier targeting Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. The documents show that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” (CHS) after he disclosed his relationship with the FBI to a third party. The documents also show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016 and document that he was admonished for unknown reasons in February 2016.

In July 2018, Judicial Watch released documents about FISA warrants targeting Carter Page, who had been a Trump campaign adviser.

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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/burn-bag-room-documents/