Chris arranged to provide these notes to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Sunday Telegraph, to Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media, to "DCA," and to me. [DCA is the "incognito" associate of mine referred to in the CIR on page 1.]
The notes were made by FBI agents working for the Fiske Investigation, but the effort to analyse these notes is only just underway. It will take a while for results to appear since there are a number of handwriting styles and the handwriting is not that good.
Very early indications are that the contrast between the contents of the typed FBI interview reports and the underlying FOIA'd handwritten interview notes should be characterized as ranging from "significant" to "explosive."
I helped in a minor way re the documents needed to support Chris's FOIA suit since I was familiar with the Fiske letter quoted from below. I was familiar with it largely because Fiske makes reference in his letter to "large aerial photographs of Fort Marcy Park" being available for viewing by the Senate Whitewater Committee at the OIC -- something that is a focus of mine.
Another statement in this letter by Mr. Fiske apparently left the "FOIA door" open. When he transmitted some of the investigators' handwritten notes to the Senate Whitewater Committee [July 11, 1994, letter from Fiske to Senators Riegle and D'Amato at pages 1344-45 of S. Hrg. 103-889, Volume II] Fiske wrote:
"In an effort to expedite a production to you and avoid needless repetition, I am not at this time producing the "backup" to these forms -- handwritten notes of the agents, memos to file, communications between members of my staff, or other material that reflects the deliberative process of this Office or its traditionally protected attorney work product."
Since the only limitation on the production of many the handwritten notes to the Senate Whitewater Committee was Mr. Fiske's effort "to expedite," these 389 pages of handwritten interviewer notes could be "reached" by a FOIA suit and Chris Ruddy filed one. To me, this is the exception that proves the rule because, except as an aid to industrial espionage, my impression over the years has been that one could never get anything "sexy" via a FOIA suit. I am ecstatic to have been proved wrong in this case!
Warm regards,
Hugh Sprunt