Earlier this week, I mapped out all of the leaks used by Brent Wilkes' lawyer, Mark Geragos, to support his attempts to get Wilkes' indictment thrown out as improper. But there's one leak of particular concern--one which Geragos used to support his claim that Carol Lam had bypassed normal DOJ oversight when she brought the indictment. Geragos says that Main Justice told at least one reporter about its inability to exercise normal supervision of the Wilkes indictment. But if you look at the timeline, it is clear that the USA Purge investigation--and not any press leaks--were the only thing preventing DOJ from being as involved in the Wilkes indictment as they might like.
Here's Geragos' description of the leak:
Around the same time the print reporters were disclosing to me detailed knowledge of the draft indictments, and stating that government officials were showing them copies of draft indictments, a television reporter told me that an attorney at the Justice Department main offices in Washington D.C. ("Main Justice") had disclosed that Main Justice believed that it could no longer exercise its normal supervisory role because the leaks of the indictment "would now make any action taken by Main Justice appear to be political".
Curiously, Geragos provides a really vague timeline for this leak: "around the same time that print reporters were disclosing to me detailed knowledge of the draft indictments." The first leak providing Geragos "detailed knowledge" of the indictments--which turned out to be dead wrong!--came on February 1, the same day that Geragos wrote a letter to Sanjay Bhandari, one of the AUSAs prosecuting the case. The last leak Geragos references came roughly on February 11, a "few days" before the indictments were unsealed on February 13. So we can assume the Main Justice leak came in the two weeks leading up to the indictments.
So let's look at what else was going on at Main Justice, with regards to the Wilkes-Foggo indictments and Lam's departure, in and around that time period.
January 5: The clique agrees to give one month extensions on their resignation dates to Chiara and Bogden, but not Lam. Elston calls Lam to tell her she gets no extension, and she shouldn't focus on her existing cases.
January 9: Leahy and DiFi send a letter asking about forced resignations.
January 12-14: Internal DOJ discussions (which have not been turned over to Congress) about press reportings of Lam's resignation. This includes correspondence with FBI on the comments from Dan Dzwilewski describing Lam's firing as political.
January 15: Lam resignation.
January 16: DiFi vents about the firings on the floor of the Senate, sparking an internal discussion, much of it not turned over to Congress. Those internal discussions label DiFi's comments as "inaccurate."
January 17: Conyers asks if Lam was fired because of the ongoing Wilkes case.
February 2: The earliest that Geragos could have received the leak from the TV reporter.
February 5: Lam contacted to testify before the HJC.
February 7: Rahm Emmanuel requests that Gonzales appoint Lam outside counsel on Wilkes case.
February 8: More internal discussion about DiFi (not turned over to Congress).
February 11: The latest that Geragos could have received the TV reporter leak.
In other words, before the time when DOJ leaks its purported concern that:
Main Justice believed that it could no longer exercise its normal supervisory role because the leaks of the indictment "would now make any action taken by Main Justice appear to be political"
...they had already put a plan in place to ensure Lam left quickly--and had no opportunity to transition her cases to her successor:
I received a call from Michael Elston informing me that my request for more time based on case-related considerations was "not being received positively," and that I should "stop thinking in terms of the cases in the office." He insisted that I had to depart in a matter of weeks, not months, and that these instructions were "coming from the highest levels of the government." In this and subsequent calls, Mike Elston told me that (1) he "suspected" and "had a feeling" that the interim U.S. Attorney who would succeed me would not be someone from within my office, but rather would be someone who was a DOJ employee not currently working in my office, (2) there would be "no overlap" between my departure and the start date of the interim U.S. Attorney, and (3) the person picked to serve as interim U.S. Attorney would not have to be vetted by the committee process used in California for the selection of U.S. Attorneys.
DiFi and Conyers had repeatedly suggested that Lam had been ousted to disrupt the Wilkes investigation. Lam had already been contacted to serve as a witness in this Congressional investigation. And several members of Congress had requested that Lam remain on the case even after she left DOJ.
In other words, by early February, DOJ was already deeply involved in an investigation of whether they had fired Lam to disrupt the investigation into Wilkes.
Yet Main Justice propagated a leak--which never got published, it just got shared with Wilkes' defense attorney--that they couldn't exercise their normal supervisory role with respect to the Wilkes indictment because of the leaks related to the case.
Uh huh.