Justice Dept. Concealing Leak Report
By LARA JAKES JORDAN and MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Friday, January 12, 2007; 10:18 PM
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is fighting in court to keep
secret a government report concluding that it leaked confidential and
damaging information against a former prosecutor accused of bungling
a high-profile terror trial.
Justice attorneys say they can't disclose all the contents of the
December 2004 report by the department's inspector general without
violating employees' privacy.
However, ex-Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard G. Convertino of Detroit
said the Justice Department violated his own privacy rights by
revealing to the media that he was the subject of an internal ethics
inquiry after he criticized the Bush administration's
counterterrorism strategy.
Two people who have seen the full report confirmed it rules out
Convertino as a suspect in the leak case. Those people described the
report's findings to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity
because it is sealed under a Justice Department protective order.
A heavily edited version of the report is included in court documents
filed in Washington. It concludes that investigators "did not find
sufficient evidence to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, who
leaked this information."
It narrowed the source to a universe of about 30 prosecutors and
other Justice Department officials, in Washington and Detroit, all of
whom denied leaking the information. The full report also concluded
that Convertino "was not the source because he did not have access to
all of the information," according to related court documents filed
by his attorneys.
Convertino's attorney, Stephen M. Kohn, would not comment on details
in the government's sealed report. But he accused the Justice
Department of sealing it to cover up its own misconduct.
"There's nothing in that report that should not be out there in the
public domain so people could assess the hypocrisy and misconduct of
the Department of Justice," Kohn said Friday. "Withholding it, I
believe, is part of a cover-up."
A department spokesman declined to comment. But in documents filed in
federal court, government attorneys Jeffrey M. Smith and Jonathan E.
Zimmerman rejected Convertino's request as "attempts to do exactly
what he contends was done to him." They accused the former prosecutor
of "an attempt to discredit or embarrass individuals who were the
subjects of that investigation."
For two years, Convertino led the government's case in the nation's
first terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He was
removed in 2003 after the Justice Department concluded he withheld
evidence that could have proved the innocence of the four defendants
accused of being a Detroit terror cell.
Convictions of three of the four men were later overturned because of
prosecutorial misconduct. The fourth was acquitted.
Four months after he was taken off the case, a January 2004 article
in the Detroit Free Press cited anonymous Justice Department sources
saying Convertino was under investigation for misconduct during the
trial. The Justice leak violated Convertino's privacy rights, his
attorneys said.
Convertino also maintains he was targeted because, shortly before he
was removed from the case, he criticized the Bush administration
during a Senate hearing on funding for terrorism prosecutions. The
sealed report does not cite that congressional hearing or identify it
as a motive for the leak, according to the people who have seen the report.
Convertino was indicted last March for obstructing justice in the
terror trial and in another case. The criminal case continues against
Convertino, as does his civil lawsuit against the Justice Department.
Leaks are also at the heart of another high-profile trial that begins
next week against former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
In both cases, attorneys said, the Bush administration sought to
discredit its critics with information that was made public
illegally. And in both cases, lawyers said, the government sought to
cover up its leaks.
Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction for allegedly lying to
investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding CIA
operative Valerie Plame. Plame believes her status was revealed as
retribution for comments her husband, Joseph Wilson, made about the
Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Like Convertino, Plame and Wilson are suing the Bush administration
for the leak.
"Anything you want to do to people who go off the reservation is fair
game," said Melanie Sloan, the lawyer for Plame and Wilson.
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:18 CST