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We added the Secret Service to our lawsuit seeking records on Donald Trump

After the Secret Service failed to acknowledge our FOIA request, we sued the agency for records related to its investigation of Trump's inflammatory statements about Hillary Clinton.
Secret Service agents protect Donald Trump at the Cleveland International Airport. (Photo by Mike Segar?/Reuters)

VICE News and MIT doctoral student Ryan Shapiro sued the Secret Service in US Federal court Tuesday seeking documents related to the agency's "investigation" of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump or his campaign.

Our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was amended from one we filed last week against the IRS and FBI, demanding the IRS turn over all audits of Trump's tax returns from 2002 onward, and demanding the FBI release records related to two inflammatory statements Trump made on the campaign trail. In one statement, he appeared to call for the assassination of Hillary Clinton.

"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks," Trump said, referring to Supreme Court justices. Trump then added: "Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don't know."

In the other statement, he called upon Russia to hack Clinton's email.

VICE News and Shapiro submitted a FOIA request to the Secret Service August 18 for records pertaining to its investigation of Trump's statements, and sought expedited processing. We asked for "disclosure of any and all records that mention or refer to the matter" and "any records compiled as part of any investigation into the referenced matter." The Secret Service didn't even acknowledge the request.

Follow Jason Leopold on Twitter: @JasonLeopold