It is of no comfort that Justice Department officials announced last night that its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and Office of Inspector General (OIG) have launched a joint investigation into the firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys. Often, the only real investigation that emanates from the OIG and OPR centers not on the problem, but on the person who raised the problem. It is not unusual for the employee who made the report of misconduct to find him or herself the subject of the real investigation, and that is exactly what happened to me.
Every major federal agency has an Office of Inspector General (IG). A primary purpose of the IG is to investigate reports of internal fraud, waste or abuse. The IG staff is usually divided up between financial audits and investigations. While the IG touts itself as independent, it really is not. In agencies like the Justice Department, the IG is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The IG reports to the head of the agency and serves at the pleasure of the President. In other words, if an IG is rocking the Administration’s boat, he can be instantly removed. The IG’s performance appraisal comes from the agency head, who also controls the issuance of awards and financial bonuses to the IG. As a consequence, many IG offices are quite political in the selection of cases for investigation and the manner in which its findings are cast.
However, Justice’s Inspector General, Glenn Fine, had a good reputation – at least when it comes to going after the “baby agencies” that the Department of Justice oversees: the FBI, INS, DEA, ATF, and Bureau of Prisons.
I had a quixotic view of the IG as a kind of knight in shining armor – an outside, objective force riding over the hill to save me from the wrath of the Justice Department. My reliance on the IG was misplaced. The IG is a bureaucracy just like any other, with all the problems and limitations any bureaucracy suffers. The IG controls the investigation. Often, the IG initiates a probe in response to a scandal first raised in the media. And often, the only real investigation that emanates from the IG centers not on the problem, but on the person who raised the problem. It is not unusual for the employee who made the report of misconduct to find him or herself the subject of the real investigation, and that is exactly what happened to me.
Agent Ronald Powell became the Inspector Javert of my life, pursuing me relentlessly and obsessively, and making a normal life impossible, including telling my private law firm that I was a "criminal" and would steal client files. When the law firm put me on leave, Powell assisted the law firm in contesting my award of unemployment compensation benefits. Since when does the government assist a private employer in contesting the meager unemployment benefit awarded to a private citizen?
On January 7, 2003, Glenn Fine, the Inspector General himself, called my attorney with two pieces of bad news. The IG “looked into it” (my whistleblower allegations), and they “were not going to pursue it.” My immediate reaction was that they didn’t look very deeply. They didn’t even bother to ask me, the whistleblower, what happened. They didn’t bother to interview the complainant!
And I have nothing good to say about OPR, which we learned this past week rejected claims of political interference by Bush appointees in the Justice Department's tobacco case. Instead of investigating the multiple ethics violations of Claudia Flynn, Michael Chertoff and others in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, they referred me to the state bars in which I'm licensed as an attorney--based on a secret report to which I did not have access.
How does a pretextual bar referral screw up a lawyer's life?
It prevented me from getting a new job for three years because the mere referral (even absent a finding of misconduct) will increase the malpractice liability insurance of any firm that wants to hire you. The only reason I have a job now is because my current boss, Alan Grayson, was willing to see the Justice Department's sham investigations for what they were.
The Maryland Bar complaint was dismissed in February 2005, but the D.C. Bar complaint is still pending after three and a half years.