A good government group is seeking Justice Department records about a top official in the Obama and Biden administrations who reportedly blocked the release of key information about the Russia collusion hoax, The Federalist has learned.
In its Monday lawsuit, the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) requested the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the DOJ to hand over documents related to Lisa Monaco‘s reported handling of the Durham appendix. As The Federalist previously reported, Monaco — who served as President Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser before later becoming President Biden’s deputy attorney general — was a “a key figure” behind the Biden administration’s lawfare against Donald Trump and its “Jan. 6 prosecutions.”
The “Durham appendix” is in reference to roughly 30 pages of documents that were a part of Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 investigative report into the origins of the debunked Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Declassified earlier this year, the appendix seemingly showed how the Hillary Clinton campaign laid the groundwork for pushing the false narrative that Trump sought to conspire with Moscow to steal the 2016 election — a lie which Obama’s intel agencies were more than willing to further with their Russia collusion investigations into the Republican candidate.
On July 31, 2025, RealClearInvestigations senior reporter Paul Sperry reported claims from sources who purportedly told him that, as Biden’s deputy AG, Monaco “prevented Special Counsel Durham from releasing the 30-pp appendix to his final report b/c it implicated her old boss Obama.” He further reported that during her time as Obama’s White House adviser, Monaco “attended [then-CIA Director John] Brennan’s fusion cell meetings +the Dec 9 2016 pow-wow to flip [the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment].”
As The Federalist previously reported, the 2017 ICA parroted the “key judgement” that Russia’s 2016 election interference was designed “to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.” Records declassified earlier this year by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, however, showed that that central claim was based on weak and uncorroborated intel — a fact known by Obama intel chiefs like Brennan, who insisted on it and other unsubstantiated intel’s inclusion in the ICA despite their unreliability.
Meanwhile, intelligence contradicting that “key judgement” was left out of the ICA.
In response to Sperry’s reporting about Monaco’s alleged role in blocking the release of the Durham appendix, CASA filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DOJ on Aug. 31, 2025. The group asked that the agency forfeit any and all communications and records from April 21, 2021-July 1, 2023, involving Monaco and the Durham appendix, including “records of meeting requests, virtual meeting invitations, call logs and any chats in the relevant virtual platforms (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, etc.), related to the Durham appendix.”
CASA further requested records pertaining to any communications Monaco may have had with legacy media outlets, the Executive Office of the President, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Obama Foundation.
“CASA is focused on public education, and all materials and information requested will be disseminated to the public for this purpose,” the Aug. 31 FOIA reads. “Thus, the disclosure of the requested records would not be to our primary benefit but would be to the primary benefit of the general public.”
In its Monday lawsuit, CASA claimed that it “received confirmation” from the DOJ that its FOIA had been “successfully submitted,” would be sent to the attorney general’s office and assigned a confirmation ID number. According to the good government group, however, “over 72 days have elapsed since the federal government received CASA’s request, yet DOJ has still not made a determination with respect to it.”
“DOJ has not produced responsive documents to CASA, has not communicated to CASA the scope of the documents it intends to produce or withhold — along with the reasons for any such withholding — and has not informed CASA of its ability to appeal any adverse portion of its determination,” the lawsuit reads. “Given these facts, DOJ has not met its statutory obligations to provide the requested records for the request.”
CASA has requested the D.C. District Court to order the DOJ to “produce, within ten days of the Court’s order, or by other such date as the Court deems appropriate, any and all non-exempt records responsive to [its] request and an index justifying the withholding of all or part of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption.” The group further asked the court to award it “reasonable attorney’s fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred” throughout the legal battle, as well as “other such relief as the Court deems just and proper.”
CASA v DOJ-AG Lisa Monaco Comms on Durham Appendix by The Federalist
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
