AP: Justice Dept. Concealing Leak Report (Detroit terror trial)

Justice Dept. Concealing Leak Report

By LARA JAKES JORDAN and MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Friday, January 12, 2007; 4:09 PM

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is fighting in court to keep secret a government
report concluding that it leaked confidential and damaging information against a former
prosecutor accused of bungling a high-profile terror trial.

Justice attorneys say they can't disclose all the contents of the December 2004 report
by the department's inspector general without violating employees' privacy.

However, ex-Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard G. Convertino of Detroit said the Justice
Department violated his own privacy rights by revealing to the media that he was the
subject of an internal ethics inquiry after he criticized the Bush administration's
counterterrorism strategy.

Two people who have seen the full report confirmed it rules out Convertino as a suspect
in the leak case. Those people described the report's findings to The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity because it is sealed under a Justice Department protective
order.

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