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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Anthony Moscato.md
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---
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category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
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tags:
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- Person
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- AnthonyMoscato
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- PROMIS
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- INSLAW
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- DOJ
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- EOUSA
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alias:
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- Anthony C. Moscato
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- Tony Moscato
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summary: "Career Justice Department administrator, acting director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys during the Bua inquiry, whom Bill Hamilton accused of helping deny Judge Bason's reappointment; he told the special counsel he had nothing to do with it."
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born: 1945-09-04
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died: 2026-06-12
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location: "Fairfax, Virginia"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Anthony Charles Moscato (September 4, 1945, [[New York City]], to June 12, 2026, Fairfax, [[Virginia]]) spent his career in the administrative offices of the [[Department of Justice]]. Raised in Washington Heights, he took a degree in government at [[Columbia University]] in 1967 and a law degree at [[George Washington University]] in 1970, joined the department's Tax Division as a trial attorney in 1976, and moved the next year to the Justice Management Division as special assistant to the assistant attorney general for administration. Over the following two decades he served as deputy assistant attorney general for administration, acting inspector general of the department, director of the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] and director of the [[Executive Office for Immigration Review]]. In 1999 the attorney general named him a member of the Board of Immigration Appeals, from which he retired in 2006.[^1]
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### The Bason Allegation
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His name entered the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]] through [[Bill Hamilton]], who told the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that a former department security officer, [[Garnett Taylor]], knew that "Anthony Moscato, who is now Acting Director of EOUSA, played an affirmative role on behalf of DOJ in denying Judge Bason's reappointment," and asked that Taylor be subpoenaed before a grand jury. [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]], the bankruptcy judge who had found in 1987 that the department took [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] software by fraud, was not reappointed by the merit selection panel of the district court chaired by Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]]. Bua's report records Moscato's answer: "he had nothing whatsoever to do with the selection of bankruptcy judges. He convincingly stated that he is not familiar with Judge Norma Johnson, did not know that she chaired a selection panel, and did not even know there was a Merit Selection Panel. He stated that he spoke to no one about Bason's qualifications for reappointment. He cannot explain why his and Garnett Taylor's names would be used in the same sentence as Bankruptcy Judge Bason. Taylor and he are not even social friends, much less confidants." At the time of the 1987 non-reappointment he held other administrative posts in the department; the transcript of Bason's ruling had reached the panel from [[Royce Lamberth]], then chief of the civil division of the [[U.S. Attorney's office]].[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "Anthony (Tony) Charles Moscato," obituary, Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home, June 2026. https://www.fairfaxmemorialfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Anthony-Charles-Moscato?obId=48707990
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[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 185-186 (the report's own pagination). https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport
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@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ In 1973, Hamilton and his wife Nancy founded [[INSLAW]] (the Institute for Law a
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### The DOJ Contract and Bankruptcy
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In March 1982, INSLAW signed a $10 million, three-year contract with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ's]] Executive Office for United States Attorneys to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. From the contract's earliest days, Hamilton and [[C. Madison Brewer]], the DOJ's project manager, were in conflict: Hamilton alleged Brewer obstructed INSLAW's proprietary rights claims and engineered advance payment disputes to force the company into financial distress. When INSLAW ran out of funds to sustain litigation against the DOJ while fighting to protect its software rights, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1985.[^2]
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In March 1982, INSLAW signed a $10 million, three-year contract with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ's]] [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. From the contract's earliest days, Hamilton and [[C. Madison Brewer]], the DOJ's project manager, were in conflict: Hamilton alleged Brewer obstructed INSLAW's proprietary rights claims and engineered advance payment disputes to force the company into financial distress. When INSLAW ran out of funds to sustain litigation against the DOJ while fighting to protect its software rights, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1985.[^2]
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Hamilton and Nancy Hamilton sued the DOJ for non-payment on a version of PROMIS called Modification 12 and for the alleged unauthorized distribution of the enhanced software beyond the contract's authorized sites. In September 1987, [[Bankruptcy Judge George F. Bason]] ruled in their favor, finding DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit" and awarding approximately $6.8 million in damages. The ruling was affirmed by the district court but reversed on jurisdictional grounds by the Court of Appeals in May 1991.[^2]
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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Christine Odell Cook Miller.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Christine Odell Cook Miller.md
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---
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category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
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tags:
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- Person
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- ChristineMiller
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- PROMIS
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- INSLAW
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- CourtOfFederalClaims
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- Judiciary
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alias:
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- Christine Cook Nettesheim
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- Christine Miller
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- Judge Christine Miller
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- Judge Nettesheim
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summary: "Judge of the Court of Federal Claims who, as hearing officer on the Senate's 1995 referral of INSLAW's claims, ruled on July 31, 1997, that every version of PROMIS was in the public domain and INSLAW was owed nothing, ending the affair in the courts."
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born: 1944
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location: "Oakland, California"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Christine Odell Cook Miller (born 1944, Oakland, [[California]]), who served under the name Christine Cook Nettesheim until September 10, 1994, is a judge of the [[United States Court of Federal Claims]]. She took a degree at [[Stanford University]] in 1966 and a law degree at the University of Utah in 1969, clerked for Judge David T. Lewis of the Tenth Circuit, was a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the [[Department of Justice]] from 1970 to 1972 and at the [[Federal Trade Commission]] from 1972 to 1974, practiced in Washington, and served as special counsel to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and assistant general counsel of the U.S. Railway Association. [[Ronald Reagan]] nominated her to the Claims Court on November 23, 1982; the Senate confirmed her on December 10. [[Bill Clinton]] gave her a recess appointment to the same seat on December 10, 1997, and the Senate confirmed her again on February 3, 1998. She took senior status on February 4, 2013, and retired on March 1.[^1]
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### The INSLAW Referral
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In May 1995 the Senate referred [[INSLAW]]'s remaining claims against the government to the Court of Federal Claims for an advisory opinion, after the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]]'s 1992 report had endorsed Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]]'s finding that the department took [[PROMIS]] by fraud and the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] had rejected it in 1993. As hearing officer, Miller ruled on July 31, 1997, that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been entitled to use the software as it wished, so that INSLAW was owed no compensation. A three-judge review panel of the court upheld the ruling in August 1998. The Justice Department announced the decision in a press release.[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, "U.S. Court of Federal Claims: Miller, Christine Odell Cook," Biographical Directory. https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/u.s.-court-federal-claims-miller-christine-odell-cook
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[^2]: See [[INSLAW]] and [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] and the Department of Justice press release of August 1997 cited there; the opinion of July 31, 1997, was not examined.
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---
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category: "PROMIS Scandal"
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category: "Political Figure"
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tags:
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- Person
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- PROMIS
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summary: "Exiled President of the Philippines whose stolen fortune was reportedly laundered through Robert Booth Nichols via networks connected to the PROMIS scandal."
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born: 1917-09-11
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died: 1989-09-28
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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Garby Leon.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Garby Leon.md
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---
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category: "Authors & Journalists"
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tags:
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- Person
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- GarbyLeon
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- Casolaro
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- Wilcher
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- PROMIS
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- Hollywood
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summary: "Hollywood development executive at Joel Silver Productions and Columbia who wrote to Janet Reno in July 1993 demanding an inquiry into Paul Wilcher's death as a parallel to Casolaro's, and who prompted and assisted Cheri Seymour's investigation of the Octopus."
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location: "Los Angeles, California"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Garby Leon, born in [[New York City]], took a degree at Marlboro College and a doctorate at [[Harvard University]], was a conscientious objector during the [[Vietnam War]] and active in the antiwar movement, and went into the film business. He was director of development at [[Joel Silver Productions]] at Warner Brothers in Burbank, where he oversaw more than seventy projects, and by July 1993 was at Columbia Pictures in the Thalberg Building at Culver City. He was a frequent telephone and mail correspondent of [[Paul Wilcher]], the Washington lawyer who in May 1993 hand-delivered a hundred-page letter to Attorney General [[Janet Reno]] alleging cover-ups by the [[Department of Justice]] and who was found dead in his apartment in June.[^1]
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### The Letter to Reno
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On July 14, 1993, Leon wrote to Reno that Wilcher's case "deserves your most serious attention." He drew the parallels with [[Danny Casolaro]], found dead in a Martinsburg hotel in August 1991 while investigating the [[PROMIS]] affair and what he called [[The Octopus]]: both men had been investigating illegal government activity, both had said they feared for their lives, both were found dead in strange circumstances with records missing and their bodies altered. He questioned the reported presence of [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] and [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] personnel at the death scene, objected that Wilcher's body had been cremated "without fingerprint or dental x-ray matching," and wrote: "I don't believe he died of natural causes." Of Wilcher he said he was "not a perfect person" but "a man of unusual energy and altruism," a former seminarian who had considered the priesthood before the law. [[Sarah McClendon]] wrote to Reno in the same terms.[^1][^2]
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### The Last Circle
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Leon spent the following year pressing the California journalist [[Cheri Seymour]] to write up her investigation of Casolaro's death and the Octopus, and worked with her on it; she thanked him, "formerly Director of Development at Joel Silver Productions," for prompting a first draft in 1994 and for "countless tasks" during their joint investigation, and he appears as a subject in her book.[^3]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Leon, Garby. Letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, July 14, 1993, with the biographical note attached, reproduced at http://www.pinknoiz.com/covert/wilcher.html
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[^2]: See [[Paul Wilcher]] and [[Janet Reno]] and the sources cited there.
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[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal,* TrineDay, 2010, acknowledgments (as described in later accounts; the text was not examined).
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22
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Gregory McKain.md
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---
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category: "PROMIS Scandal"
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tags:
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- Person
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- GregoryMcKain
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- PROMIS
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- INSLAW
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alias:
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- Greg McKain
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summary: "INSLAW programmer whom Jack Rugh of the Justice Department telephoned in February 1985 with a job offer and the word that the trustees expected INSLAW to be liquidated within sixty days, the call Judge Bason treated as evidence of a plan to convert the bankruptcy."
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Gregory McKain was a programmer at [[INSLAW]] who had worked on [[PROMIS]] from the start of the company's contract with the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]]. On February 21, 1985, shortly after INSLAW filed under Chapter 11, [[Jack Rugh]], the deputy project manager who had, in the words of the special counsel's report, "been very impressed for some time with McKain's work and had discussed with McKain on several occasions the possibility of McKain working for DOJ," telephoned to ask whether he would be interested in joining the [[Department of Justice]]. According to McKain's testimony, Rugh told him during the call that the department had talked to the trustees, who said INSLAW would not survive Chapter 11 and would probably be in Chapter 7 within thirty to sixty days.[^1]
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McKain reported the conversation to [[Bill Hamilton]], who was upset by it and had INSLAW's bankruptcy counsel, Stanley Salus of the firm of [[Charles Docter]], take it up with the United States Trustee, [[William White]], who assured them his office acted independently of the department. Rugh's account differed: he said he had offered only his personal opinion that INSLAW would end in liquidation. Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]], in his 1988 findings, treated the call as part of the department's effort to force the company into liquidation and noted its business consequences, INSLAW's officers having had to spend time calming McKain and other employees who feared for their jobs and to incur legal fees investigating the claim. The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] wrote in 1993: "Arguably there is no more reason to think that Rugh is lying about this than there is to think that McKain is... It is equally possible, of course, that Mr. McKain simply misunderstood what Mr. Rugh had said. In the end, McKain's testimony provides some support to the conversion theory, but not enough to satisfy us that the theory is true." White later asked that a confidentiality order be worded to protect him from the kind of criticism INSLAW's counsel had made after the Rugh-McKain call.[^1][^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 211-214. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport
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[^2]: *In re INSLAW, Inc.,* 88 B.R. 484 (Bankr. D.D.C. 1988). The opinion was not examined; the statements that McKain had worked on PROMIS from the start and Bason's findings on the call's business consequences rest on a reporter summary of it.
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---
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category: "Belgium Scandals"
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category: "PROMIS Scandal"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Belgium
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S."
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Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S. Trustee in the Southern District of New York. He became involved in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] allegations concerning the attempted conversion of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s bankruptcy case.
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[[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), tried to detail Jones to [[Philip White]]'s office in Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]] initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure to have Jones assigned to the case. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton sought to have Jones detailed to accomplish the conversion when White resisted Stanton's pressure. The Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton did consider transferring Jones to assist in the Inslaw matter, but denied that Jones was to be assigned to effect a conversion. Stanton testified he wanted Jones to set up the creditors' committee and conduct the first meeting of creditors due to the matter's likely publicity, and that Blackshear had told him his office was too busy to spare Jones. Jones himself testified that he was never requested by anyone, including Stanton, to go to Washington to work on the [[INSLAW]] case. The Special Counsel's investigation found no evidence to the contrary and concluded that the inference that Jones was to be used to file a baseless motion to convert was unreasonable, given Jones's reputation for integrity and expertise in bankruptcy matters.[^1]
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[[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), tried to detail Jones to [[William White]]'s office in Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]] initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure to have Jones assigned to the case. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton sought to have Jones detailed to accomplish the conversion when White resisted Stanton's pressure. The Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton did consider transferring Jones to assist in the Inslaw matter, but denied that Jones was to be assigned to effect a conversion. Stanton testified he wanted Jones to set up the creditors' committee and conduct the first meeting of creditors due to the matter's likely publicity, and that Blackshear had told him his office was too busy to spare Jones. Jones himself testified that he was never requested by anyone, including Stanton, to go to Washington to work on the [[INSLAW]] case. The Special Counsel's investigation found no evidence to the contrary and concluded that the inference that Jones was to be used to file a baseless motion to convert was unreasonable, given Jones's reputation for integrity and expertise in bankruptcy matters.[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993.
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---
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category: "PROMIS Scandal"
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category: "Political Figure"
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tags:
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- Person
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- PROMIS
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summary: "Widow of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos who was acquitted with Adnan Khashoggi of racketeering and fraud charges in 1990."
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born: 1929-07-02
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location: "Manila, Philippines"
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John Keeney was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He was implicated in allegations surrounding the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]].
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According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], Keeney, along with [[Mark Richards]] and [[Philip White]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richards and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1]
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According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], Keeney, along with [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]] and [[Philip White]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richard and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1]
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However, when interviewed by the Special Counsel, John Keeney stated that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Lowell Jensen generally, or of the type of wrongdoing described in the Hamilton affidavit specifically. The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support the allegations against Keeney or any connection between him and a conspiracy related to [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] or [[PROMIS]].[^1]
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### Bua Report Findings
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Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], appointed in November 1991, found no credible evidence supporting any of these allegations. Jensen, by then a sitting federal district judge, denied engineering contract disputes with INSLAW or directing any DOJ action to harm the company. He denied any financial interest in Brian-controlled entities including Biotech, Hadron, Accumenics, and Simeon, and denied ever being promised stock in any computer-related company. He stated he had been genuinely interested in modernizing DOJ through information technology, specifically recalling "Project Eagle," a multi-million dollar initiative to automate DOJ's litigating divisions, but denied any role in awarding Project Eagle contracts, noting that the Request for Proposals was issued in May 1986 and he was appointed to the bench the following June.[^2]
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Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], appointed in November 1991, found no credible evidence supporting any of these allegations. Jensen, by then a sitting federal district judge, denied engineering contract disputes with INSLAW or directing any DOJ action to harm the company. He denied any financial interest in Brian-controlled entities including Biotech, Hadron, [[Accumenics]], and Simeon, and denied ever being promised stock in any computer-related company. He stated he had been genuinely interested in modernizing DOJ through information technology, specifically recalling "Project Eagle," a multi-million dollar initiative to automate DOJ's litigating divisions, but denied any role in awarding Project Eagle contracts, noting that the Request for Proposals was issued in May 1986 and he was appointed to the bench the following June.[^2]
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The Bua Report found Jensen to be a credible witness and concluded there was no evidence to support the claim that he acted out of bias toward INSLAW or in coordination with Brian.[^2]
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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md
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---
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- Person
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- MikeHarari
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- Mossad
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- Panama
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- Noriega
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- Contras
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- PROMIS
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- Israel
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alias:
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- Michael Harari
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- Michael Harare
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summary: "Mossad operations chief who led the Lillehammer team in 1973, then ran arms, and by the testimony of Noriega's former consul drugs, through Panama in the 1980s as Noriega's associate, and whom Ari Ben-Menashe names as Pesach Ben-Or's partner in the Guatemalan PROMIS sale."
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born: 1927-02-18
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died: 2014-09-21
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location: "Tel Aviv, Israel"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Mike Harari (February 18, 1927, Tel Aviv, to September 21, 2014) was the [[Mossad]] officer who ran its special operations section in the years after the Munich massacre and who led the team that killed Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter mistaken for the Black September planner Ali Hassan Salameh, at Lillehammer, [[Norway]], in July 1973. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] writes that Harari "had just left Israel because of his failure in the 'Moroccan Waiter Affair'" when he joined the private arms network that [[Ariel Sharon]] ran in Central America from the late 1970s, and that he "was a close associate of Panama's military intelligence chief, [[Manuel Noriega]]." By 1981, in Ben-Menashe's account, "Sharon and Harari were running what Harari described as more of a CIA network than an Israeli operation," supplying the [[Contras]] and financing itself, "according to Harari," by "transporting cocaine from South America to the United States via Central America," with Noriega "a major player."[^1]
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### Panama
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In February 1988 [[Jose Blandon]], Noriega's former consul general in New York, told the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations under Senator [[John Kerry]] that "Michael Harare" had "close contacts with Noriega and was Panama's honorary consul in Tel Aviv," and that his network did "business with Noriega in Panama for a series of companies for arms contraband, smuggling to supply arms to Central America and to the counterrevolution, the Nicaragua counterrevolution." Asked by Kerry what "other things" the network handled, Blandon answered, "Drugs," and confirmed "a direct linkage" between "the Harare network and these airstrips, in which guns would go in one shipment and drugs would come out in another." "The Harare network is a network that was established with Israeli citizens, Panamanians and U.S. citizens for arms supply purposes," he said. The Israeli embassy spokesman Yosef Gal replied that Harari was "acting as a private citizen" and that Israel "had no knowledge of his activities." Harari was not named in the Miami and Tampa indictments of Noriega that month, left [[Panama]] at the time of the American invasion of December 1989 and returned to [[Israel]].[^2][^3]
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### PROMIS
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Ben-Menashe's account of the sale of a modified [[PROMIS]] to [[Guatemala]] states that "the price Israel had to pay for this agreement was that the [[Eagle]] company, run by [[Pesach Ben-Or]] in Guatemala and his associate Mike Harari in Panama, and overseen by Ariel Sharon, would continue selling weapons to the Guatemalan government." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] found Ben-Menashe's PROMIS affidavits contradicted by his later testimony, and no official inquiry examined Harari's part. He received the Mossad chief's medal of distinction in 2007 and was the subject of a 2014 Hebrew biography by Aaron J. Klein.[^1][^3]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network,* Sheridan Square, 1992, chs. "The First Billion" and "Promis." https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe
|
||||
[^2]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* February 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian The printed subcommittee report, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* December 1988, was not examined.
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993. Harari's birth and death dates, the Lillehammer role, his absence from the 1988 Noriega indictments, his departure from Panama in December 1989, the 2007 medal and the Klein biography are as given in obituary and press summaries not examined in full.
|
||||
|
|
@ -11,6 +11,11 @@ location: "St. Louis, Missouri, USA"
|
|||
---
|
||||
Nancy Burke Hamilton was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She married [[Bill Hamilton]] in 1963. Together they founded the [[INSLAW|Institute for Law and Social Research]] (ILSR), the non-profit predecessor to [[INSLAW|INSLAW, Inc.]], and were joint owners of INSLAW, Inc. when it was incorporated in Delaware in January 1981. She is listed alongside Bill Hamilton as a co-owner and co-plaintiff throughout INSLAW's decade-long litigation against the [[Department of Justice]] over the theft and misappropriation of the [[PROMIS]] software.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Testimony
|
||||
|
||||
On March 17, 1987, [[Anthony Pasciuto]], deputy director of the Executive Office for United States Trustees, met privately with the Hamiltons and, by her testimony, told them that his director [[Thomas Stanton]] had pressured the United States Trustee [[William White]] to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 case into a Chapter 7 liquidation and had tried to detail the New York trustee's attorney [[Harry Jones]] to the case to effect it; the account became the basis of Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]]'s finding of June 1987 that the [[Department of Justice]] had tried "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" to convert the case. She testified with her husband before the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]]'s subcommittee under [[Jack Brooks]] on December 5, 1990, at its hearing on the department's "repeated refusal" to give the committee access to its documents, alongside [[Elliot Richardson]], and was co-author of INSLAW's Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report and its addendum of February 1994. The couple's daughter [[Patricia Hamilton]], INSLAW's sales manager for Canada, swore the February 1991 affidavit that opened the Canadian thread of the affair.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992.
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, and *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994; Hamilton, Patricia C., affidavit, February 1991, Exhibit 1, *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States,* Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069 (Bankr. D.D.C.). See [[Project Abbreviation]].
|
||||
|
|
|
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|
|
@ -68,9 +68,9 @@ Allegations that Maxwell worked for Israeli intelligence were aired publicly in
|
|||
|
||||
The most detailed espionage account came from [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-described former employee of the Israeli [[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)|Military Intelligence Directorate]], who claimed in his 1992 book [[Profits of War]] that Maxwell and Davies were long-time [[Mossad]] assets, and that Davies had tipped him to Vanunu's 1986 approach to the [[Sunday Mirror]] over the photographs Vanunu had taken at [[Dimona]], introducing him to Vanunu's intermediary [[Oscar Guerrero]]; Vanunu was subsequently lured from London to [[Rome]], seized by Israeli operatives, and convicted in Israel.[^10][^22] His maternal relationship to the prime minister's office began, by his own account, through a meeting arranged with [[Yitzhak Shamir]] in the early 1960s.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The Welsh author Gordon Thomas, in [[Gideon's Spies]] (1999) and the later book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy (2002), drew partly on Ben-Menashe and on the Israeli operative [[Rafi Eitan]] to allege that Maxwell helped distribute a version of the [[PROMIS]] case-management software that Israeli technicians had fitted with a hidden "trapdoor," enabling Israel to monitor the foreign agencies that bought it, marketing it through the Tel Aviv firm [[Degem Computers]].[^9][^23] In these accounts Maxwell received a flat fee of about 8 million dollars plus a percentage of revenues, and the agencies said to have received the software through his network included those of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua, with an abridged version said to have been sold to [[Credit Suisse]] in 1985 and a Soviet sale in the late 1980s facilitated by the lifting of [[IBM]] export restrictions.[^10][^9] INSLAW separately alleged that Maxwell contributed 600,000 dollars from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to secure the removal of its lead litigation counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]], and that the former senator [[John Tower]] had approached Maxwell in 1984 on behalf of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-connected group to formalize his role as the PROMIS marketing intermediary; the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] found no credible evidence for these claims.[^10][^25]
|
||||
The Welsh author Gordon Thomas, in [[Gideon's Spies]] (1999) and the later book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy (2002), drew partly on Ben-Menashe and on the Israeli operative [[Rafi Eitan]] to allege that Maxwell helped distribute a version of the [[PROMIS]] case-management software that Israeli technicians had fitted with a hidden "trapdoor," enabling Israel to monitor the foreign agencies that bought it, marketing it through the Tel Aviv firm [[Degem|Degem Computers]].[^9][^23] In these accounts Maxwell received a flat fee of about 8 million dollars plus a percentage of revenues, and the agencies said to have received the software through his network included those of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua, with an abridged version said to have been sold to [[Credit Suisse]] in 1985 and a Soviet sale in the late 1980s facilitated by the lifting of [[IBM]] export restrictions.[^10][^9] INSLAW separately alleged that Maxwell contributed 600,000 dollars from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to secure the removal of its lead litigation counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]], and that the former senator [[John Tower]] had approached Maxwell in 1984 on behalf of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-connected group to formalize his role as the PROMIS marketing intermediary; the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] found no credible evidence for these claims.[^10][^25]
|
||||
|
||||
Ben-Menashe's reliability has been repeatedly questioned, including by a 1993 congressional task force, and no declassified record has substantiated the PROMIS-distribution or recruitment allegations; an Israeli prime minister's spokesman dismissed Thomas's claims as "unmitigated drivel."[^9][^11] Maxwell was also long rumored to have had contacts with British intelligence and, given his Eastern European origins and trading ties, with the Soviet [[KGB]], though these characterizations rest on journalistic sourcing rather than disclosed files, and no archive of any of the three services has been released that confirms a formal agent relationship.[^2][^9]
|
||||
Ben-Menashe's reliability has been repeatedly questioned, including by a 1993 congressional task force, and no declassified record has substantiated the PROMIS-distribution or recruitment allegations; an Israeli prime minister's spokesman dismissed Thomas's claims as "unmitigated drivel."[^9][^11] In February 1994 INSLAW argued that twenty pages the FBI had released under the Freedom of Information Act showed its Albuquerque office had run a foreign counterintelligence investigation of Maxwell and one of his companies, and that this must concern a PROMIS sale to a defense installation in [[New Mexico]]; the Justice Department's reviewers, having read the unredacted documents, called the inference "a remarkable leap" and wrote that "none of the documents in question even mentioned INSLAW or PROMIS... In short, there is nothing of which we are aware that links Mr. Maxwell to PROMIS."[^26] Maxwell was also long rumored to have had contacts with British intelligence and, given his Eastern European origins and trading ties, with the Soviet [[KGB]], though these characterizations rest on journalistic sourcing rather than disclosed files, and no archive of any of the three services has been released that confirms a formal agent relationship.[^2][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Murder Allegations
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -109,3 +109,4 @@ Herzog eulogized him with the words, "He scaled the heights of human endeavor. K
|
|||
[^23]: Thomas, Gordon, and Martin Dillon. *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul.* Carroll & Graf, 2002.
|
||||
[^24]: Ostrovsky, Victor. *The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda.* HarperCollins, 1994, on the alleged Mossad motive to eliminate Maxwell as a collapsing liability.
|
||||
[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, on the rejection of the Leigh Ratiner and PROMIS-distribution allegations and the proximity of the Casolaro and Maxwell deaths.
|
||||
[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.,* September 27, 1994, section on the INSLAW addendum of February 1994. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -10,11 +10,11 @@ summary: "Ronald LeGrand was the Chief Investigator for the Senate Judiciary Com
|
|||
---
|
||||
Ronald LeGrand was the Chief Investigator for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In late April 1988, he telephoned [[Bill Hamilton]], president of [[INSLAW]], to request a full briefing on the disputes between Inslaw and the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. Hamilton and his [[Nancy Hamilton|wife]] subsequently briefed LeGrand at Inslaw on the morning of May 11. Two days later, LeGrand telephoned Hamilton with information from a trusted senior [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] career official. This source, who had been in the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] since the [[Watergate scandal]] under President [[Richard Nixon]], told LeGrand to convey to the Hamiltons that "What you think happened, did happen. You are not crazy. But you do not know squat about how dirty the [[INSLAW]] case really is. If you ever learn even half of it, you will be sickened. [[INSLAW]] is a lot dirtier for the [[Department of Justice|Department of Justice]], in its breadth and depth, than [[Watergate]]. The [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] has been compromised at every level on the [[INSLAW]] case."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The source also stated that [[Lowell Jensen]] engineered Inslaw's problems and relied on [[Miles Matthews]], [[James Knapp]], and [[James Johnston]]. Miles Matthews allegedly stated in the presence of LeGrand's source that "Lowell [Jensen] wants to get INSLAW out of the way and give the business to friends." The source further indicated that [[John Keeney]], [[Mark Richards]], and [[Philip White]] knew "all about" Jensen's malfeasance, and that while Richards and White were "pretty upset," they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath. The source also believed that documents related to Project Eagle were shredded inside the DOJ, but suggested Inslaw should subpoena paperwork prepared by a Jensen subordinate regarding the purchase of large quantities of computer hardware for which senior DOJ career staff saw no justification.[^2]
|
||||
The source also stated that [[Lowell Jensen]] engineered Inslaw's problems and relied on [[Miles Matthews]], [[James Knapp]], and [[James Johnston]]. Miles Matthews allegedly stated in the presence of LeGrand's source that "Lowell [Jensen] wants to get INSLAW out of the way and give the business to friends." The source further indicated that [[John Keeney]], [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]], and [[Philip White]] knew "all about" Jensen's malfeasance, and that while Richard and White were "pretty upset," they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath. The source also believed that documents related to Project Eagle were shredded inside the DOJ, but suggested Inslaw should subpoena paperwork prepared by a Jensen subordinate regarding the purchase of large quantities of computer hardware for which senior DOJ career staff saw no justification.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The source also informed [[INSLAW]] through LeGrand that the Criminal Division had served as the nerve center for the scheme to drive [[INSLAW]] out of business by engineering sham contract disputes. LeGrand's communication was a significant turning point for the Hamiltons, as it provided internal corroboration of their suspicions regarding the theft of the [[PROMIS]] software.[^1] However, the Special Counsel's investigation found that LeGrand provided little corroboration of Hamilton's allegations during a sworn statement to House investigators.
|
||||
|
||||
LeGrand informed House investigators and the Special Counsel that, as far as he knew, none of the information provided to him by his source was obtained first-hand. The Special Counsel interviewed LeGrand's source, a long-time career employee of the Department of Justice, who stated that he had no first-hand knowledge of any misconduct by anyone in relation to PROMIS or Inslaw, and had not heard any credible rumors about such misconduct. This source indicated that the subject of Inslaw came up during a friendly conversation with LeGrand in 1987 or 1988. He suggested contacting Miles Matthews because Matthews was responsible for procurement in the Criminal Division and the source disliked or distrusted him. The source denied ever mentioning Jensen, Richards, White, Johnston, or Knapp to LeGrand, and did not believe any of these individuals would be involved in any type of cover-up. Furthermore, the source denied that any statements attributed to him in Hamilton's affidavit were accurate, and he never said or believed any of the comments attributed to him, never had reason to believe that identified DOJ officials were involved in wrongdoing, or that Project Eagle documents were improperly shredded. The Special Counsel's investigation ultimately found no credible evidence of a conspiracy involving Jensen or other senior DOJ officials.[^2]
|
||||
LeGrand informed House investigators and the Special Counsel that, as far as he knew, none of the information provided to him by his source was obtained first-hand. The Special Counsel interviewed LeGrand's source, a long-time career employee of the Department of Justice, who stated that he had no first-hand knowledge of any misconduct by anyone in relation to PROMIS or Inslaw, and had not heard any credible rumors about such misconduct. This source indicated that the subject of Inslaw came up during a friendly conversation with LeGrand in 1987 or 1988. He suggested contacting Miles Matthews because Matthews was responsible for procurement in the Criminal Division and the source disliked or distrusted him. The source denied ever mentioning Jensen, Richard, White, Johnston, or Knapp to LeGrand, and did not believe any of these individuals would be involved in any type of cover-up. Furthermore, the source denied that any statements attributed to him in Hamilton's affidavit were accurate, and he never said or believed any of the comments attributed to him, never had reason to believe that identified DOJ officials were involved in wrongdoing, or that Project Eagle documents were improperly shredded. The Special Counsel's investigation ultimately found no credible evidence of a conspiracy involving Jensen or other senior DOJ officials.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
34
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Royce Lamberth.md
Normal file
34
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Royce Lamberth.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- RoyceLamberth
|
||||
- PROMIS
|
||||
- INSLAW
|
||||
- FISACourt
|
||||
- DOJ
|
||||
- Judiciary
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Royce C. Lamberth
|
||||
- Judge Lamberth
|
||||
summary: "Chief of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington who, weeks before taking the federal bench in 1987, delivered Judge Bason's INSLAW ruling to the judge chairing the panel on Bason's reappointment; later presiding judge of the FISA court."
|
||||
born: 1943
|
||||
location: "San Antonio, Texas"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-22
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-22
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Royce C. Lamberth (born 1943, San Antonio, [[Texas]]) is a judge of the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]], appointed by [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1987 after thirteen years in the [[U.S. Attorney's office]] for the District, where from 1978 he was chief of the civil division. He took his law degree at the [[University of Texas School of Law]] in 1967 and served as a captain in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps until 1974. He presided over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 1995 to 2002, was chief judge of the district court from 2008 to 2013, and took senior status on July 15, 2013.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Bason Reappointment
|
||||
|
||||
On September 28, 1987, Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] ruled from the bench that the [[Department of Justice]] had taken [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] software "by trickery, fraud, and deceit." Bason's term was then before a merit selection panel of the district court chaired by Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]], which did not recommend his reappointment. Johnson told the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that she had received a transcript of Bason's oral ruling from Lamberth, "who at the time was the Chief of the Civil Division for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia"; she had at first failed to recall the contact. Bua's report noted that when Lamberth brought the ruling to Johnson's attention he was still employed at the U.S. Attorney's office but "had, in fact, already been nominated to the federal bench," Reagan having named him on March 19, 1987, "and was sworn in shortly thereafter, on November 16, 1987." The Senate had confirmed him on November 13. Bua concluded that no Justice Department official had improperly influenced the selection panel, that the contact was the only evidence found of any department contact with the reappointment process, and that the episode did not call Johnson's credibility into doubt.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later Career
|
||||
|
||||
Lamberth's [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] service ran from 1995 to 2002, the last years as presiding judge. As chief judge from 2008 he sat on the Judicial Conference of the United States. After taking senior status he also sat by designation in the Western District of Texas at San Antonio.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, "Lamberth, Royce C.," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/lamberth-royce-c
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 156-157, 165-166 (the report's own pagination). https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport
|
||||
|
|
@ -16,8 +16,9 @@ McDade spent three days photocopying thousands of supporting documents to *The L
|
|||
|
||||
McDade also described [[Scott Lawrence]]'s deep-cover drug investigation, code-named [[THE INDO-CHINA PROJECT]], on the Maine/Canadian border. Lawrence's investigation was abruptly shut down after he and his supervisor, [[John (Tim) Kelly]], requested to impanel grand juries to depose [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] officials.[1]
|
||||
|
||||
McDade found himself a target of [[ECHELON]] technology during his investigation in the [[United States]], forcing him to take extraordinary measures to communicate with [[Sue Todd]] and [[Cheri Seymour]]. He stated that the [[NSA|NSA]] was spying on [[Canada|Canadian]] citizens while [[Canada]] spied on [[United States|American]] citizens, both using [[ECHELON]] and trading data. Although he reportedly left the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] after his investigation was exposed in the *Toronto Star* in August 2000, [[Sue Todd]] indicated he ultimately returned to police work in his hometown.[1]
|
||||
McDade found himself a target of [[ECHELON]] technology during his investigation in the [[United States]], forcing him to take extraordinary measures to communicate with [[Sue Todd]] and [[Cheri Seymour]]. He stated that the [[NSA|NSA]] was spying on [[Canada|Canadian]] citizens while [[Canada]] spied on [[United States|American]] citizens, both using [[ECHELON]] and trading data. The RCMP's spokesman Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet said on August 25, 2000, that the inquiry had produced "absolutely nothing to date to indicate national security has been compromised in any way," and CSIS's Dan Lambert that the service had reviewed the matter in 1991 and never held a copy of the software;[2] the public record of the affair, from the 1991 origin to the 2000 disclosure, is on the [[Project Abbreviation]] page. Although he reportedly left the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] after his investigation was exposed in the *Toronto Star* in August 2000, [[Sue Todd]] indicated he ultimately returned to police work in his hometown.[1]
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
[1] Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[1] Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[2] Sallot, Jeff. "Mounties probe software allegations," *The Globe and Mail,* August 26, 2000.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
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