CHR - Whistleblowers: Best Way to Bury Government Misconduct Is To Call In The Inspector General

TOP LINE

I’ve heard complaints from many whistleblowers who allege the “best way to bury government misconduct is to call in the Inspector General.”

This week’s report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog delivers exhaustive detail, but it is light on accountability.

The Justice Department misled federal courts with no significant consequences.

DEEP DIVE

The new Justice Department Inspector General report suggests the federal courts rubber stamped DOJ subpoenas for phone records of congressional investigators – with no significant consequences to date.  

In last week’s newsletter, I was among the first to predict the Justice Department IG would soon release its findings into government overreach, specifically the abuse of compulsory process (including subpoenas) to obtain phone and email records.

This is NOT the first time that FBI and DOJ officials have misled the federal courts to obtain evidence for criminal investigations.   The FBI and Justice Department improperly used unsubstantiated claims, and news reports, to secure surveillance warrants for Trump campaign aide Carter Page.  

A former FBI agent who has personally drafted FISA warrants told me he had never seen surveillance applications that cited news stories.

I have reviewed the Inspector General’s report and singled out one of the most important findings on page 4. It found Justice Department officials obfuscated the true identity of their targets and the construct for their leak investigations which probed media outlets and congress.

Most IG reports pass with limited media attention, but this one titled “A Review of the Department of Justice’s Issuance of Compulsory Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Congressional Staffers, and Members of the News Media,” drew attention across the board.

Two Factors: the report impacts reporter records, and it found that the FBI and DOJ collected phone records on then GOP-congressional staffer Kash Patel who is now nominated by President Trump to lead the FBI.

What’s clear from the findings is that the Justice Department relied on “boilerplate” language in its Non-Disclosure Order applications to the court.  NDOs can block reporters and congress, as the report notes, from “learning about the use of compulsory process” to seek their records.  That delays, and in some cases prevents, the subjects from challenging the process in the federal judiciary.

The courts did not have the full picture from the Justice Department, and the blame squarely falls on the DOJ. The DOJ was not transparent about its efforts to secure records from members of Congress and their investigators who were probing the origins of the FBI’s probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

On its face, the DOJ's withholding of information from the courts appears to be an act of commission.  If the courts had known the FBI and DOJ were seeking records from congressional investigators, the federal judges might have pushed back requiring immediate notification to the parties. 

Patel seemed a prime target. Because of his extensive experience at the Justice Department, he understood and could expose defects in the surveillance (FISA) warrants for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, among other irregularities in the FBI/DOJ case.

According to Kash Patel’s 2023 lawsuit against Justice Department officials and FBI Director Wray, he didn’t learn about the subpoena for his google records until several years after the fact.

As I reported in last week’s newsletter, I faced severe push back, including the threat of attacks on my journalistic integrity from a justice department official when I reported allegations that in 2018 then Deputy Attorney Rosenstein threatened to subpoena Patel and others.   

While the FBI and DOJ officials disputed the characterization of the 2018 clash between these two branches of government, this week’s report confirms that Justice Department had already sought the records for Patel and others months earlier.

Buried at the back of the report on page 81 are the top line recommendations.  The first recommendation calls for the expansion of protections and internal review protocols for obtaining records from the news media.  The second and third recommendations call for greater transparency when the DOJ investigates Congress which has oversight for the Justice Department.

WHEN KASH PATEL GOT THE CBS NEWS TREATMENT

Kash Patel has always been a political lightning rod.

When I arrived at CBS News in November 2019, a senior executive told me that I brought a “fresh dimension” to the Network’s news gathering because I had deep contacts on both sides of the aisle.    

We interviewed Kash Patel for a story in December 2019.  CBS News titled the report, “White House staffer Kash Patel denies he was back channel to Trump on Ukraine.”

The interview was roundly rejected by the CBS broadcast shows. A senior producer on the CBS Evening News told me the interview wasn’t “newsy enough” to qualify for their broadcast.

The story was eventually posted to the CBS News website.  At the time, I was taken aback by what seemed internal resistance to presenting all points of view on the Impeachment story.

At CBS News, I was surprised and disappointed to find a culture where many colleagues seemed content to confirm the reporting of other networks, rather than break news first.  There were exceptions, but when it came to politics, I experienced a “follow the pack” mentality.

I’ll have more to say about the blowback over the Kash Patel reporting.  

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Best, Catherine

Inside the SCIF

This week, insightful comments on President Biden’s new round of pardons, including 1500 commutations and 39 pardons.

Tom O. wrote, “Are they going to claim Biden (is) incompetent to be prosecuted? So criminal acts (taking influence money or misusing the justice system) is only punishable by your mental capacity.

I’m surprised with the nepotism of the pardon through history. This is sad for those who have sacrificed for a political system that based on family, money, influence and who you know. I hope we can stay the oldest republic and rethink this Presidential privilege.”