WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Top International DOJ Officials Caught in Sweeping IG Probe! Embarrassment to Reno! By Jamie Dettmer, Senior Editor - 09-12-00 9/12/00 - The Justice Department’s inspector general sent to Capitol Hill today a damning 400-page report that accuses former and current senior Justice officials - including a onetime favorite of attorney general Janet Reno - of "egregious misconduct," lax handling of highly classified intelligence documents and visa fraud. The report, the result of a nearly three-year-long probe into justice programs tasked with the training of foreign police officers and prosecutors, is already making waves on the Hill and is likely to be the subject of a full hearing by the House Judiciary Committee later this month. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa released the executive summary of the long-awaited IG report following the Republican's comments on the floor of the Senate demanding to know why the Justice Department is not planning to prosecute any of the officials targeted by the IG. The United States Attorney for the District of Columbia apparently declined prosecution notwithstanding such a recommendation from the IG, Insight sources say. Those targetted by the IG probe include the former head of the international programs, Robert Bratt, who the IG says in the report committed visa fraud when he attempted to secure U.S. entry for two Russian women he met in Moscow. The probe into the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program, or ICITAP, and the Office of Prosecutorial Development and Training, or OPDAT, was launched in the spring of 1997 and was first reported by Insight. Justice chiefs tried initially to keep the inquiry under wraps and, according to sources close to the probe, have in the last few months attempted to coax the IG’s office into weakening the report, which is described by a congressional aide as "excoriating." Copies of the IG’s report were given to the U.S. attorneys in the District of Columbia, but they so far have declined to indict any of the Justice officials accused of wrongdoing, say the sources. Capitol Hill aides claim that the failure by the U.S. attorneys to mount any indictments is a result of a "Justice effort to circle the wagons." The probe was sparked initially when the Justice Department’s head of security, Jerry Rubino, was informed by a whistle-blower about serious security breaches within ICITAP. The whistle-blower, Martin Andersen, claimed that the then executive officer Bratt and his subordinates, Janice Stromsem, Joe Lake and Carey Hoover, consistently mishandled top secret in-country reports and cables from the DEA, CIA and other U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. He alleged that the documents, many of which contained details of intelligence sources, were left unsecured and their contents shared frequently with ICITAP contractors who had not undergone security clearances. IG investigators launched a massive security sweep as allegations of other wrongdoing and bizarre mismanagement by Bratt and his deputies multiplied. More than 200 people were interviewed and the files on more than 1,000 ICITAP and OPDAT sub-contractors and consultants were reviewed. A Justice source admitted as the probe widened that the IG was uncovering "general moral turpitude" in the running of the programs. IG agents encountered claims of sexual harassment and heterosexual and homosexual favoritism in the hiring of staff and contractors, including the employing of a waitress from a local Washington DC disco who caught the eye of a senior ICITAP official. Governement sources who have read the report - it has not been fully released to the public or press - say many of the allegations are confirmed in the IG’s report, which among other things recommends major reform of the security procedures followed at Justice. The report confirms that Bratt and other senior officials, including Lake and Hoover, acted "egregiously" while on business trips overseas to Russia, eastern Europe and the Caribbean. Officials visited strip bars and sex clubs, laying themselves open to blackmail. Bratt, who had a high security clearance, failed to report as required friendships and associations with foreign nationals, the report found. Bratt also committed visa fraud when he tried to secure American entry documents for a couple of Russian women who he claimed wrongly were essential for ICITAP’s work, the report maintains. Sources say he claimed they were translators when they were not. v Further Bratt, who recently retired from Justice and now works as a consultant at Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), was found also by investigators to have given false statements during interviews by IG agents. A close associate of Bratt familiar with the IG report says that Bratt believes the allegations against him were wrong and that the report is the result of overzealous prosecutorial behaviour. He's reportedly pointed out to friends that the IG failed to get an indictment against him from the U.S. attorneys as did the DOJ Public Integrity Section. No mention was made by Bratt's associate that the former Justice official was compelled to testify by his superiors which technically provided a form of limited immunity. The report is bound to prove personally embarrassing for Attorney General Reno. Justice sources say that Bratt was a "Reno blue-eyed boy" and as a result the attorney general long ignored allegations of wrongdoing at ICITAP and OPDAT, even when FBI agents tipped off her office about major problems in the management of the international law enforcement programs. When the IG probe was first launched Reno still gave Bratt the benefit of the doubt, the sources say. As allegations tumbled out from ICITAP and OPDAT, she selected Bratt to straighten out the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The probe may also prove embarrassing for current and former senior Justice officials. The IG’s report makes clear that there was a failure of oversight by Bratt’s superiors, and investigators also found security breaches in the Criminal Division - including lax security in the office of the then deputy assistant attorney general Mark Richard. Richard, who along with Public Integrity Section chief Lee Radek led the high-profile inquiry into 1996 campaign-finance abuses by the White House, was also investigated by the IG for approving ethically dubious ICITAP contracts awarded to former Justice officials, including to JoAnn Harris shortly after she retired from her post as assistant attorney general. The report concludes that the contract awarded to Harris wasn't improper but it had "the appearance of favoritism." It questioned the basis for her fee, which was higher than normally given to outside consultants by other government departments. Founded in 1986, ICITAP in recent years has provided training to police forces in Latin America, the Caribbean and Russia. It has been earmarked to provide training to Colombian anti-narcotic police units but in the last few weeks drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey, aware of the impending IG’s probe, has been lobbying against the program being involved in Colombia. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! ****************************************************************************** ******************* A vote for Bush or Gore is a vote to continue Clinton policies! A vote for Buchanan is a vote to continue America! Therefore a vote for Gore or Bush is a wasted vote for America! Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick Buchanan! 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