Addendum 1 to Federal Corruption
by Harry V. Martin
June 18, 1991
Copyright Napa Sentinel, 1991
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Napa Sentinel produced a lengthy series about the INSLAW case and alleged wrongdoings by the U.S. Department of Justice. This article and subsequent others will publish the details of a Congressional hearing into the matter.
The U.S. Department of Justice has refused to allow Congress access to INSLAW documents. INSLAW is a small computer software company that developed a sophisticated program to track criminals. The Justice Department was accused by a federal court judge of "deceit, trickery and theft" of the software, which has now found its way into the illegal possession of foreign governments and U.S. intelligence networks.
Congress has decided to investigate the INSLAW case and the Justice Department. The Justice Department, in turn, has arrogantly refused to supply Congress with the documents. Since this refusal, the Justice Department has agreed to allow Congressional investigators to review screened documents. The investigators are not allowed to copy the material, but to make note of them and the Congress would then have to subpoena them. At which time, the Justice Department will decide whether or not to release them to Congress. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who refused to budge on the issue, has now resigned. The heighth of arrogance.
A Congressional Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law of the Committee on the Judiciary held hearings concerning the refusal of the Justice Department to cooperate. Congressman Jack Brooks of Texas, head of the committee investigating the Justice Department, stated that the Justice Department has denied the committee access to critical documents involving the Justice Department's dispute with the INSLAW Corp. "The documents were requested as part of an ongoing investigation of allegations that high-level Department officials conspired to force INSLAW into bankruptcy and liquidate its assets. Further, it has been alleged that these officials also attempted to arrange to have the company's primary software product, called PROMIS, transferred or bought by a rival company." Brooks stated in his opening remarks, "As incredible as this sounds, Federal Bankruptcy Judge George Bason, who will be testifying later, has already found much of the first part of the allegation to be true. In his decision on the INSLAW bankruptcy, Judge Bason ruled that the Department 'took, converted and stole' INSLAW's proprietary software using 'trickery, fraud and deceit'. The judge also severely criticized the decisions by high-level Department officials to 'ignore the ethical improprieties' on the part of the Justice Department officials involved in the case."
Brooks backed up Bason's findings, in stating, "In November 1989, Senior District Court Judge William B. Bryant unequivocally supported Judge Bason's findings and criticized the Department for attempting to escape accountability by asserting, among other things, 'sovereign immunity', whatever that is. I didn't think we had kings in this country." Brooks continued, "Despite the dramatic findings by the two courts, the Department has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing by its officials, claiming that its conflict with INSLAW is nothing more than a simple contract dispute. I find this position a little hard to swallow."
Brooks, who says the major controversy involves the highest levels of the Justice Department, including at least two assistant attorneys general, a deputy attorney general, and Attorney General Meese, himself, states, "Unfortunately, the Department has thwarted attempts by Congress to learn the complete truth concerning the INSLAW case. Justice has repeatedly denied both the House and Senate investigating committees access to critical documents that may prove the Department's innocence or guilt. As a result, I am even more convinced that the allegations concerning INSLAW must be fully and independently investigated by the committee."
Former Attorney General Elliot Richardson has outlined the government's devious role, indicating that friends of Ronald Reagan and Edward Meese made every attempt possible to take over INSLAW and gain full proprietary rights to the PROMIS software. The man behind the move, according to Richardson, was Dr. Earl Brian, who also owns United Press International. Richardson was the Attorney General under Richard Nixon and refused to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor on Nixon's orders, Richardson was also fired.
Richardson revealed that Meese's Justice Department needed to create a case management system designed along the concept of the PROMIS software. Meese's friends wanted the $200 million contract and thus the need to buy out or force INSLAW into bankruptcy. "We believe that these attempts to acquire control of PROMIS were linked by a conspiracy among friends of Attorney General Edwin Meese to take advantage of their relationship with him for the purpose of obtaining a lucrative contract for the automation of the Department's litigating division. Among the facts pointing to the existence of this conspiracy are the following:
• Between 1958 and 1966, Edwin Meese and D. Lowell Jensen (then deputy attorney general) served together in Alameda County, California, District Attorney's Office. From 1966 to 1974, Meese was a key aide to Governor Ronald Reagan. From 1970 to 1975, Dr. Earl Brian served in Governor Reagan's Cabinet. In January 1981, Meese became Counsellor to President Reagan. In 1981 to 1982, Brian served in the White House as the chairman of a task force which reported to Meese.
• When Meese joined the Reagan Administration, Brian was the controlling shareholder in Biotech Capital Corporation. Biotech controlled Hadron, Inc., a company which specialized in integrating computer-based information management systems. This was the company which tried to buy INSLAW.
• Mrs. Meese bought stock in Biotech's first public offering with money borrowed from Edwin Thomas, soon to be an aide to her husband. Brian lent Thomas $100,000 for the purchase of a house in Washington. Mrs. Meese later bought stock in American Cytogentics, another Brian company.
• In June, 1983, a DOJ "whistleblower" warned the staff of Senator Max Baucus that, as soon as Meese became Attorney General, unidentified friends of Meese would be awarded a "massive sweetheart contract" to install PROMIS in every litigation office of DOJ. According to a statement made to Judge Jane Solomon of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Stanton's attempt to force INSLAW into liquidation was part of a 'conspiracy to get the INSLAW software'. Several high-level DOJ officials spoke of DOJ's determination to "get" or "bury" INSLAW. One DOJ employee said that Jensen was behind this effort. A second attributed the award to Hadron of a $40 million computer services contract for litigation support in the Lands Division to the influence of a Deputy Assistant Attorney General with close ties to Meese. Other DOJ employees connected Meese, Brian, and Hadron with the harassment of INSLAW and the attempt to acquire PROMIS."
Richardson also testified, "In late April 1988, Richard LeGrand, chief investigator of the Senate Judiciary Committee, telephoned (William) Hamilton (owner of INSLAW). LeGrand said that he was calling at the request of an unnamed senior official in DOJ whom he had known for 15 years and regarded as completely trustworthy. According to this official, the INSLAW case was 'a lot dirtier for the Department of Justice than Watergate had been, both in its breadth and depth'. The official asked LeGrand to inform the Hamiltons that the Justice Department had been compromised on the INSLAW case at every level, and that Jensen had engineered INSLAW's problems right from the start. The official also said that senior career officials in the Criminal Division knew all about this malfeasance, but would not disclose what they knew except in response to subpoena and under oath. LeGrand has since told the Hamiltons and others that his informant would come forward only if assured of protection against reprisal."
The Justice Department, according to Richardson, refused to undertake any type of criminal investigation. Richardson told Congress, "It was foreseeable that such an investigation would not only expose widely ramified criminal conduct on the part of the Departmental employees, but also make the Department liable for punitive and consequential damages much larger than the $6.8 million already awarded."
Judge Bason told Congress, "The judicial opinions that I rendered reflected my sense of moral outrage that, as the evidence showed and as I held, the Justice Department stole INSLAW's valuable property and tried to drive INSLAW out of business." He added, "Those opinions were upheld on appeal by Senior U.S. District Judge William Bryant. Very soon after I rendered those opinions my application for reappointment as bankruptcy judge was turned down. One of the Justice Department attorneys who had argued the INSLAW case before me was appointed in my stead." Over 90 percent of all bankruptcy judges seeking reappointment are usually returned to the bench.
"And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.", Isaiah 13:11.