{"id":16193,"date":"2025-04-09T05:08:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T05:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16193"},"modified":"2025-04-09T05:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T05:56:57","slug":"department-of-justice-nashville-police-left-in-dark-on-covenant-killer-manifesto-release-to-third-party-amid-lawsuit-fbi-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16193","title":{"rendered":"Department of Justice, Nashville Police Left in Dark on Covenant Killer Manifesto Release to Third Party amid Lawsuit, FBI Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/09\/department-of-justice-nashville-police-left-in-dark-on-covenant-killer-manifesto-release-to-third-party-amid-lawsuit-fbi-silence-2\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Department of Justice and Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) both indicated to The Tennessee Star\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>on Tuesday that they were unaware of the FBI\u2019s decision to conditionally release the 1,299 pages<\/a> of writings left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as a transgender man when she killed six<\/a> at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023, to independent journalist Megyn Kelly last week.<\/p>\n

Kelly on Monday stated that the FBI provided the killer\u2019s writings to her with permission to analyze and report their contents over the weekend but that her team was restricted from publishing the materials in their entirety. Excerpts shared by Kelly appear to match the killer\u2019s 2023 manifesto, which The Star\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>legally obtained last June and published in September 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both Star News Digital Media, Inc.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(SNDM)<\/strong><\/em>, which owns and operates The Star<\/strong><\/em>, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy sued the FBI<\/a> in May 2023 to compel the agency to release Hale\u2019s writings. The lawsuit was filed after the agency declined to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request The Star <\/strong><\/em>filed for the writings under the leadership of former FBI Director Christopher Wray.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the FBI\u2019s decision to release Hale\u2019s writings despite claiming in court that such a release would jeopardize its ongoing investigations, attorney Dan Lennington at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, who represents Leahy and SNDM\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>in the federal lawsuit, requested an immediate explanation<\/a> on Monday from the Department of Justice (DOJ), which represents the FBI in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Lennington also told the DOJ that a recent settlement offer<\/a> extended by Leahy and SNDM<\/strong><\/em>, which would have seen the lawsuit dropped in exchange for FBI Director Kash Patel dropping his agency\u2019s opposition to releasing Hale\u2019s writings, as he suggested he would<\/a> during a December 2023 interview, may be off the table.<\/p>\n

His counterpart at the DOJ on Tuesday claimed to have no knowledge of the FBI\u2019s decision to release the materials to Kelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not aware of the records that your clients requested being released, but I am looking into it,\u201d wrote the DOJ attorney, before suggesting a full release of Hale\u2019s writings to\u00a0The Star<\/strong><\/em> could be forthcoming after the conditional release to Kelly.<\/p>\n

The DOJ attorney confirmed, \u201cIf the records that your clients requested were released by DOJ, I would of course provide them to you and inform the Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the federal lawsuit against the FBI, Leahy, and SNDM\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>are plaintiffs in the state lawsuit<\/a> seeking to compel MNPD to release Hale\u2019s writings. MNPD previously argued it could not release the killer\u2019s writings until after it concluded its investigation, and following that conclusion earlier this month, a department spokesman told The Star\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>its hands were tied unless the Tennessee Court of Appeals reverses Chancery Court Judge I\u2019Ashea L. Myles\u2019s July 4, 2024 decision, which prohibited the release<\/a> of Hale\u2019s writings.<\/p>\n

MNPD Public Affairs Director Don Aaron did not respond directly when asked on Tuesday whether the FBI informed the department of its plans to release the documents to Kelly or whether local authorities objected to such a release.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not see the Megyn Kelly program,\u201d said Aaron. \u201cIn any event, you will need to call the FBI or Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains unclear who consented to the conditional release of the killer\u2019s writings to Kelly, as the FBI directed The Star\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>to the DOJ in response to a Monday press inquiry.<\/p>\n

Within the federal court case, the killer\u2019s writings have been sequestered by U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger, who, about a year ago, began a\u00a0private review<\/a>\u00a0of the documents in order to determine which\u00a0might be released<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The Star\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>for public dissemination.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Tom Pappert<\/a>\u00a0is the lead reporter for\u00a0The Tennessee Star<\/strong>, and also reports for\u00a0The Pennsylvania Daily Star<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>The Arizona Sun Times<\/strong>. Follow Tom on\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>. Email tips to\u00a0pappert.tom@proton.me.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The post Department of Justice, Nashville Police Left in Dark on Covenant Killer Manifesto Release to Third Party amid Lawsuit, FBI Silence<\/a> first appeared on The Star News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/09\/department-of-justice-nashville-police-left-in-dark-on-covenant-killer-manifesto-release-to-third-party-amid-lawsuit-fbi-silence-2\/ The Department of Justice and Metro Nashville Police Department…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":16046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16194,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16193\/revisions\/16194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}