Judicial Watch says an FBI court filing estimates that processing more than 2 million pages discovered in a secure room at bureau headquarters would take approximately 158 years at the agency’s proposed rate of 500 pages per month.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The FBI has told a federal court that reviewing and processing more than 2 million pages of records found in a secure room at bureau headquarters could take approximately 158 years if the agency proceeds at a rate of 500 pages per month, according to a court filing highlighted by Judicial Watch.
The estimate appears in a Joint Status Report filed July 30, 2026, in a Freedom of Information Act case brought by Judicial Watch against the Department of Justice. The watchdog group filed the lawsuit seeking records connected to what has been described as a previously undisclosed room inside FBI headquarters.
JW v DOJ Joint Status Report 04047 2 by yourNEWS Media
The litigation, Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice, No. 1:25-cv-04047, centers on records that former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in May 2025 had been discovered outside normal bureau records-management procedures, including documents he said were found “in bags.”
The room has since been referred to as the “burn bag room.”
According to the FBI’s filing, the location contains more than 2 million pages of potentially responsive material. Judicial Watch has asked the court for permission to conduct a limited deposition of the FBI concerning how the material was discovered, stored and handled.
The group wants to question the bureau about who first discovered the room and when it was found, who had access to the area, the room’s security classification and how records came to be stored in file cabinets, safes, boxes and burn bags.
Judicial Watch also wants information about what steps the FBI has taken to bring the records into standard records-management systems and whether the material had previously been searched in response to other FOIA requests.
The FBI has reported that it has not yet gained access to one safe believed to contain additional records.
The agency states that “it will take approximately 158 years to process at a rate of 500 pages a month.”
The FBI opposes Judicial Watch’s request for discovery. A status conference in the case is scheduled for Aug. 3, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich in Washington, D.C.
Judicial Watch originally filed its complaint in 2025 seeking all documents associated with Bongino’s public disclosure of the room. The request covered “[a]ll documents referenced by Deputy Director Dan Bongino” concerning the location at FBI headquarters.
The organization also sought internal communications involving officials in the offices of FBI Director Kash Patel and Bongino concerning the discovery, along with any instructions or directives issued about how the records should be handled.
The FBI currently maintains that it has no responsive records in the categories involving Patel-Bongino communications and directives. Judicial Watch is also challenging the adequacy of the government’s search for those materials.
Bongino publicly described the discovery during a Fox News interview on May 29, 2025, saying records had been found inside FBI headquarters that had not gone through normal bureau procedures.
“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,” Bongino said.
Judicial Watch had previously reported that the room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, containing multiple safes and what have now been identified as 20 file cabinets.
Earlier estimates placed the volume of material in those locations at between approximately 950,000 and 1.9 million pages.
The records were described as falling into two broad categories. One group consists of “legacy files,” including older material largely associated with two closed historical investigations. The other consists of more recent files tied to active investigations and previous special counsel matters, reportedly including material associated with Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton sharply criticized the FBI’s proposed processing timetable.
“American citizens should be outraged the FBI just told a federal court judge that its stonewalling means it will take 158 years to release the 2 million weaponization and lawfare records in its secret ‘burn bag’ room,” Fitton said. “The American people need to know today how the FBI was used as a political weapon against Donald Trump and other innocents.”
The litigation is part of a longer series of Judicial Watch FOIA cases concerning FBI and Justice Department conduct.
In August 2019, Judicial Watch obtained FBI “302” interview report material involving Bruce Ohr, who had been removed from his position as U.S. associate deputy attorney general in December 2017.
Several months earlier, in March 2019, Judicial Watch received heavily redacted Justice Department records showing that Ohr remained in communication with former British intelligence officer and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for disclosing to the media his status as an FBI confidential informant.
In December 2018, Judicial Watch obtained State Department documents showing that classified information concerning Russian election interference was researched and distributed to multiple U.S. senators by the Obama administration shortly before Trump’s inauguration.
The records showed that recipients included Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Ben Cardin of Maryland, along with Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. Judicial Watch obtained the material through litigation seeking records concerning the Obama State Department’s efforts to share classified Russia-related information with Cardin before Trump took office.
In August 2018, Judicial Watch also pursued a FOIA lawsuit concerning Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act proceedings involving former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The Justice Department acknowledged in a subsequent court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court did not hold hearings on the FISA warrant applications targeting Page, who was subject to four controversial surveillance warrants.
Also that month, Judicial Watch secured the release of heavily redacted FBI records concerning Steele, who had been hired using funds connected to the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee and authored the dossier targeting Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Those documents showed Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source after disclosing his FBI relationship to a third party. They also documented at least 11 FBI payments to Steele during 2016 and showed that he had been admonished for undisclosed reasons in February of that year.
In July 2018, Judicial Watch separately released FISA-related documents involving surveillance warrants directed at Page.
The current dispute now centers on how quickly the FBI must identify, review and potentially release material from the headquarters room, along with whether Judicial Watch will be permitted to question bureau officials about how millions of pages of records came to be stored there and whether they were properly included in earlier searches for responsive federal records.
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