ABOUT THIS PODCAST 🔗
Disclosure, the podcast dedicated to revealing the government’s inner workings, is back for Season 2.
By law, nearly every move federal agencies make—every email, every memo, every receipt—belongs to the public. Access is granted through the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA obligates the government to open its files. But it also allows the government to hold back certain details, meaning that forcing transparency often requires a fight. Every Thursday, Bloomberg reporter Jason Leopold and attorney Matt Topic take audiences on a guided tour of explosive details, bureaucratic foibles and details that government officials never wanted you to know.
Produced by Bloomberg and No Smiling.
Update frequency:
weekly
Average audio length:
33 minutes
Guest interviews
Has sponsors
English
United States
15 episodes
since Oct. 21, 2025
episodic
IN THIS PODCAST 🔗
AUDIENCE OF THIS PODCAST 🔗
~59.51% of listeners are from United States.
🇺🇸
US
59.51%
🇬🇧
GB
9.78%
🇦🇺
AU
5.09%
🇨🇦
CA
3.48%
🇪🇸
ES
3.08%
🇩🇪
DE
2.68%
🇮🇳
IN
2.54%
🇯🇵
JP
2.41%
🇮🇪
IE
1.74%
🇦🇹
AT
0.93%
🇨🇿
CZ
0.80%
🇮🇹
IT
0.80%
🇳🇱
NL
0.80%
🇫🇷
FR
0.67%
🇨🇴
CO
0.53%
🇨🇭
CH
0.53%
🇭🇰
HK
0.40%
🇹🇷
TR
0.40%
🇳🇴
NO
0.40%
🇸🇪
SE
0.26%
🇩🇰
DK
0.26%
🇱🇹
LT
0.26%
🇸🇬
SG
0.26%
🇮🇱
IL
0.26%
🇲🇽
MX
0.26%
🇧🇷
BR
0.13%
🇭🇷
HR
0.13%
🇦🇷
AR
0.13%
🇰🇪
KE
0.13%
🇷🇺
RU
0.13%
🇱🇺
LU
0.13%
🇻🇪
VE
0.13%
🇧🇪
BE
0.13%
🇲🇦
MA
0.13%
🇳🇿
NZ
0.13%
🇹🇭
TH
0.13%
🇺🇾
UY
0.13%
🇦🇱
AL
0.13%
Others
0.18%
* Data source: directly measured on Listen Notes. real-time
LATEST EPISODE 🔗
How a 50-year FOIA campaign changed the public understanding of the most notorious Cold War espionage case.
In 1953, the US executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on charges of conspiring to pass atomic bomb secrets to the Soviets. Their sons, then 6 and 10 years old, have spent a half-century reques…
PREVIOUS EPISODES 🔗
Is your alma mater inviting the government to monitor its football fans on game day? How much do Big Ten schools earn renting out their mascots? You can FOIA that – or visit FOIAball.com, where journalist David Covucci adds transparency to the big business of collegiate sports. Covucci tells …
When the Securities and Exchange Commission announced earlier this year that it had disciplined workers for golfing on the job, investigative reporter Jason Leopold shot off a FOIA request. Co-host Matt Topic, who is an accomplished golfer, and Jason, who isn’t, pore over records he received …
Investigative reporter Jason Leopold and attorney Matt Topic take viewers inside a yearslong effort to head off document destruction at the White House during President Trump’s first term. Drawing from government documents (and The Big Lebowski), they reveal how the US National Archives and R…
Disclosure, the podcast dedicated to revealing the government’s inner workings, is back for Season 2 in audio and video.By law, nearly every move federal agencies make—every email, every memo, every receipt—belongs to the public. The key to gaining access is the Freedom of Informa…
One Christmas, Matt dashed off a letter to the FBI’s FOIA office: Please search your old investigation files for the name Santa Claus, he requested, and send me the first few pages you find. What a simple holiday wish taught us about one agency’s spirit of giving.
The Disclosure podcas…
Ask the US government for public records, and your request will go to a federal employee who holds the keys to what gets released and what doesn’t. Jason and Matt get a rare look inside a government Freedom of Information Act operation from Michael Sarich, who worked his way up from a FOIA po…
The new Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the government to release a trove of documents from its Jeffrey Epstein investigations – minus whatever documents the Justice Department determines need to be withheld from the public. Jason and Matt dig into the FBI’s massive review of th…
Exclusivity was the point of Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Only one copy was produced. A few minutes of it were played -- once -- in public. It sold at auction, with the condition it be heard only in private. And the album may have remained shrouded in mystery, were it not f…
Earlier this year, newly minted young workers from the Department of Government Efficiency slashed USAID spending and hobbled the US Institute of Peace. Meanwhile, at the Peace Corps, staffers spent weeks preparing for their own mystery guest from Doge – ensuring that whoever arrived would ha…
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
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