The Tennessee Star on Friday sent a letter urging newly-confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel drop the agency’s opposition to the release of the full manifesto left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the biological woman who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023.
Both Star News Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, and Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Star, are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that seeks to compel the FBI to release Hale’s full writings. Hale reportedly left about 1,000 pages in journals that police recovered from the residence where the 28-year-old lived with her parents.
Dan Lennington, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty attorney who represents SNDM and Leahy in their federal case, on Friday asked the Department of Justice and FBI to provide an update on their timeline to respond to the settlement offer that SNDM extended earlier this month, which would see the lawsuit ended in exchange for the FBI dropping its objection to the release of Hale’s writings. As part of the offer, SNDM and Leahy would lower the amount of legal bills to be paid by defendants.