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+---
+title: "Read and Destroy"
+date: 2026-10-14
+status: published
+summary: "Ten weeks after the bankruptcy judge who found that the Justice Department stole INSLAW's software ruled, an unsigned memorandum marked 'read and destroy' ranked him last among the finalists for his own seat, which went to a Justice Department tax lawyer who had supervised the INSLAW tax work."
+entities:
+  - "[[George Francis Bason, Jr.]]"
+  - "[[INSLAW]]"
+  - "[[PROMIS]]"
+  - "[[S. Martin Teel Jr.]]"
+  - "[[Norma Holloway Johnson]]"
+  - "[[Stuart Schiffer]]"
+  - "[[C. Madison Brewer]]"
+  - "[[Department of Justice]]"
+  - "[[Nicholas J. Bua]]"
+tags:
+  - INSLAW
+  - PROMIS
+  - DoJ
+  - Judiciary
+---
+# Read and Destroy
+
+On September 28, 1987 Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] ruled from the bench that the [[Department of Justice]] "took, converted, stole" [[INSLAW]]'s enhanced [[PROMIS]] software "by trickery, fraud, and deceit."[^1] His four-year term ran to February 8, 1988.[^2] On October 29, 1987 [[Stuart Schiffer]] of the Civil Division wrote that Bason had set the next INSLAW trial for February 2, 1988, and that "Coincidentally, it has been my understanding that February 1 is the date on which he will either be reappointed or replaced."[^3]
+
+The merit selection panel, chaired by District Judge [[Norma Holloway Johnson]], sent the [[Judicial Council of the District of Columbia Circuit|Judicial Council]] a written report of less than two pages, dated November 24, 1987, ranking four finalists with [[S. Martin Teel Jr.]], a Tax Division attorney, first.[^4] A "confidential memorandum" to Johnson dated December 8, 1987, unsigned and marked at the top "read and destroy," stated that "its purpose is to 'help' elucidate in particular our reasoning in ranking the candidates as we did." The House Judiciary Committee reported that the description of each candidate except Bason began with positive commentary, and that Bason's began: "I could not conclude that Judge Bason was incompetent." It called him "inclined to make mountains out of molehills" and said he "seems to have developed a pronounced and unrelenting reputation for favoring debtors." None of these observations appeared in the panel's written report.[^5]
+
+The committee obtained the memorandum from a judge who said it had been given to several appeals judges after Bason asked the court to reconsider, and who declined to destroy it because "it was an important document and that it would be improper to destroy it." Panel and Council members shown it did not recognize it. A judge and a panel member named another panel member as its author; he denied writing it.[^5] Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] obtained his own copy through the Circuit Executive, quoted the marking as "Please read and destroy," dated the panel report November 28, and concluded the memorandum had been prepared for the Judicial Council, which met on December 15, 1987.[^6]
+
+The Special Counsel reported that Johnson, who had shared an office with Schiffer as a young Justice Department staff attorney in the early 1960s, telephoned him during the selection to ask about two Justice Department candidates on the short list, one of them Teel. Schiffer said he told her the department had a sensitive matter pending before Bason, and that she replied she did not want to hear about Bason.[^7] On December 21, 1987 the appeals judges voted in person or by telephone, and Teel "won by a substantial majority."[^8] Teel told House investigators in 1992 that he had been assistant chief of the Tax Division and had supervised the tax portion of the INSLAW matter, and that the 1987 request to convert INSLAW's reorganization into a liquidation had come from the Internal Revenue Service.[^9] He sat as the District of Columbia's bankruptcy judge from February 8, 1988 to March 22, 2020.[^10]
+
+Bason told the House committee on July 22, 1992 that Judge Tim Murphy had served with Johnson on the D.C. Superior Court from 1970 to 1980, and that Murphy had left the bench on April 15, 1985 to work for [[C. Madison Brewer]] as his assistant director on the Justice Department's PROMIS implementation.[^11]
+
+[^1]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Governmental Affairs, staff study, S. Prt. 101-58 (1989), Appendix D, p. 70.
+[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* (March 1993), p. 155.
+[^3]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report*, H. Rept. 102-857, 102d Cong., 2d sess. (Sept. 10, 1992), pp. 107-108. https://archive.org/stream/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport/TheInslawAffair_djvu.txt
+[^4]: Bua report, p. 171; H. Rept. 102-857, p. 105.
+[^5]: H. Rept. 102-857, p. 105 (§ VIII.A, "Confidential Memorandum," and n. 330, "Confidential memorandum to Judge Johnson, December 8, 1987, p. 1").
+[^6]: Bua report, pp. 172-173.
+[^7]: Bua report, pp. 183-184.
+[^8]: Bua report, pp. 171-172.
+[^9]: H. Rept. 102-857, n. 233 (interview of Teel, March 27, 1992).
+[^10]: Office of the Circuit Executive, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, "Bankruptcy Judge Merit Selection Panel Appointed," January 28, 2020.
+[^11]: H. Rept. 102-857, p. 105, n. 329 (committee review with Judge Bason, July 22, 1992).