The U.S. State Department has denied ITN’s request to expedite a Freedom of Information Act inquiry into the records of an employee at the center of allegations of interference in the U.S. presidential election.
Whistleblowers in Italy have come forward with claims a State Department employee by the name of Stefano Serafini participated in the plot to switch votes electronically from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden on Election Day. That activity is said to have been carried out remotely from various locations in Italy including U.S. Embassy Rome.
The whistleblowers also claim Serafini retired from the State Department days before the election in a bid to safeguard his pension.
ITN filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Serafini’s employment records and asked that it be expedited. FOIA requests traditionally are fulfilled within 20 days of their receipt.
The State Department denied ITN’s expedited request in an email received yesterday evening. The Department found that (among other reasons) we failed to demonstrate “the information is urgently needed by an individual primarily engaged in disseminating information in order to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal government activity.”
It also said it would be unable to fulfill the request during the traditional 20-day window due to “unusual circumstances.” Those include the “need to search for and collect requested records from other Department offices or Foreign Service posts.”
The Department’s Office of Information Programs and Services otherwise acknowledged receipt of the request and says it will be processed “as quickly as possible.”
A State Department employee by the name of Stefano G.J. Serafini was entered into the Congressional record as having begun work in the U.S. Foreign Service in 1997. A State Department employee by the name of Stefano G. Serafini is listed as having graduated from the National Defense University in 1997 with an advanced degree in Cybersecurity Leadership – one of only ten State Department employees out of over 2,000 NDU graduates over a period of several years to do so.
ITN’s FOIA request is meant to help ascertain whether these individuals are one in the same, and what the current employment status of any employee (or employees) with that name is.