Can’t Trace Leak in Rep. Gray Case, Thornburgh Says

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Friday that there will be no prosecution or disciplinary action over a news leak about a Pennsylvania congressman because the department cannot identify the leaker.

In a letter to Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thornburgh said investigators had been “unable to identify with certainty the original source” of unauthorized disclosures to CBS reporter Rita Braver about the office of Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.).

Thornburgh said the investigators told him that “the nature of the confirmations alleged to have been forthcoming to Braver” were “uncertain.”

Consequently, he said, the investigators told him that “it would be futile and impossible to pursue a prosecution based on the available evidence.”

“Therefore, I have accepted the recommendation of the investigators and prosecutors that this matter be closed without prosecution,” the attorney general said.

“Furthermore, since the investigation has not produced sufficient evidence to enable me to ascertain that any present employee of the Department of Justice was responsible for the disclosure, I have determined that no termination of employment or other disciplinary action is justified in this matter at this time.”

The leak occurred when Gray was seeking election in the House as majority whip, prompting accusations by Democratic lawmakers that Thornburgh’s aides were the source of a political leak.

Several days after Braver said in a broadcast that Gray was under investigation, the Justice Department stated that Gray was not a target of the investigation and was cooperating with the inquiry.

Gray, who was elected whip, said he had been told by FBI agents from the Philadelphia office in a Memorial Day interview that they were looking into the possibility that one of his employees held a no-show job. Nothing more has been heard of that investigation.

Thornburgh said he wrote to Biden because the Judiciary Committee chairman, at a committee hearing on June 2 at which Thornburgh testified, “raised questions with regard to my concerns over unauthorized disclosure of information.”

He told the senator that 11 FBI agents devoted about 385 days to the investigation. Thornburgh said those interviewed included FBI officials, members of Congress, aides to Gray, confidential sources and several reporters. Braver “declined to be interviewed or otherwise cooperate with this investigation,” he said.

Gray said in a statement Friday from Philadelphia: “The failure of this investigation raises the white flag of surrender to those in the Department of Justice who use false leaks to defame innocent citizens. The leaks in this case were designed to harm me, but their real victim was the integrity of our criminal justice system.”