The Inspector General released a report about an unlawful leak by the then-US-Attorney arising out of the "Fast and Furious" snafu. We discussed the matter when it the issue arose, but now the IG report is out. (We've also repeated the rule of thumb that the almost all the leakers are lawyers. I hope it's rare that the US Attorney is the unlawful leaker.)
When a critic of the F&F program went public, the US Attorney in Arizona, Dennis Burke, unlawfully released an internal memorandum designed to discredit the critic. When asked if he was the leaker, Burke at first obfuscated, then finally admitted it, resigned, and declined to talk to investigators. The report is extremely unflattering to Burke. An exceprt:
We also concluded that Burke’s disclosure of the Dodson
memorandum to Levine was likely motivated by a desire to undermine
Dodson’s public criticisms of Operation Fast and Furious. Although
Burke denied to congressional investigators that he had any retaliatory
motive for his actions, we found substantial evidence to the contrary.
The conclusion:
We found Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum
to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a
U.S. Attorney. We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated
Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member
of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the
Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a
member.