Censure recommended for lawyer who leaked info on warrantless wiretap program to New York Times
A Washington, D.C., ethics committee has recommended public censure for a former Justice Department lawyer who leaked information about the government’s warrantless wiretap program.
The lawyer, Thomas Tamm, had agreed to the censure for revealing confidential client information, according to the report (PDF) by the hearing committee of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility. The New York Times has a story on the recommendation.
Tamm has said he told a New York Times reporter about the secret National Security Agency program in a 2004 pay phone call from a subway station. Eighteen months later the New York Times ran a Pulitzer Prize-winning story on the program, used to wiretap overseas phone calls and emails of terrorism suspects. Tamm suspected the program bypassed the special intelligence court and concluded it was probably illegal.
Tamm placed the call when he was a lawyer with the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.
The hearing committee cited several mitigating factors: Tamm’s intent was to further government compliance with the law, he discussed the issue with a supervisor but thought it would be futile to contact the attorney general, he received no financial compensation for the disclosure, and he was careful not to disclose details about the program.
Tamm “has already paid a severe price for his actions,” the hearing committee report says. “He was under criminal investigation for years after the disclosure. This criminal investigation was both stressful and expensive. The investigation by Disciplinary Counsel—aside from the criminal investigation—has been pending since 2009. Moreover, [Tamm] now no longer works for the Department of Justice; he is an assistant public defender in Washington County, Maryland, with a much lower salary. No reasonable person looking at what [Tamm] has gone through would think that revealing a client secret in this way is a cost-free endeavor.”
Related articles:
ABAJournal.com: “DC lawyer ethics board investigating Bush-era DOJ lawyer who leaked info about warrantless wiretaps”
ABAJournal.com: “DOJ Won’t Prosecute Onetime Department Lawyer for Leaking Warrantless Wiretap Program Info”
ABAJournal.com: “Ex-DOJ Lawyer Says He Leaked News of Warrantless Wiretaps”
