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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "ARRB"
- "JFK Assassination Records Review Board"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- JFKAssassination
- Declassification
summary: "Independent federal agency created by the JFK Records Act of 1992 that released over four million pages from 1994 to 1998 and recorded agency destruction of assassination records."
start: 1994-04-11
end: 1998-09-30
location: "Washington, D.C."
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The Assassination Records Review Board was an independent agency created by the President [[John F. Kennedy]] Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-526, to re-examine for release the assassination records that federal agencies still held too sensitive to open. Representative Louis Stokes and Senator David Boren introduced the legislation on March 26, 1992; President [[George H.W. Bush]] signed it on October 26, 1992, and left the appointments to [[Bill Clinton]], whose five nominees were sworn in on April 11, 1994: John R. Tunheim, chairman, Henry F. Graff, Kermit L. Hall, William L. Joyce and Anna K. Nelson. The act provided that "No assassination record shall be destroyed, altered, or mutilated in any way." Extended by Congress in 1994 and 1997, the board finished on September 30, 1998, leaving "more than four million pages of records" in the National Archives.[^1]
### Releases
Among the records released through the board were the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] proposals of 1962 known as [[Operation NORTHWOODS|Operation Northwoods]], made public in 1997.[^2] The files of [[Edward Wegmann]], lawyer for [[Clay Shaw]], given to the board by his daughter in 1995, showed "that the Shaw defense team had retained [[Southern Research Company]] as of mid-1967," the Shreveport firm whose [[New Orleans]] office had investigated [[David Ferrie]], and recorded [[Wackenhut Corporation|Wackenhut]] men reporting to the defense.[^3] On January 18, 1996, the board's lawyer Philip Golrick telephoned the former [[Guy Banister]] partner [[Joseph Oster]] in search of Banister's files, the Ferrie investigation and the Shaw defense.[^4] The board classed four [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] headquarters records on the family of [[H.L. Hunt]] as assassination records.[^5]
### Records Destroyed
The board's final report recorded what it could not recover:
- The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] "destroyed most of its formal [[HTLINGUAL]] records," the files of its 1952-1973 mail-opening program, "in 1990 at the direction of CIA's Office of General Counsel."[^1]
- The CIA "destroyed tape[s] containing Oswald's voice and other related calls as a matter of routine procedure," although its [[Mexico City]] station had transcribed the calls and reported them to headquarters in an October 8, 1963, cable.[^1]
- Among the papers of Director [[John McCone]], a record of a dinner of May 19, 1964, with [[John J. McCloy]] "Re: Oswald" is annotated "Destroyed 1-28-72"; a record of a meeting with [[McGeorge Bundy]] on November 26, 1963, about the assassination is missing.[^1]
- [[Richard Helms]] directed that the notes and source material for the 1967 Inspector General's report on the plots against [[Fidel Castro]] be destroyed; no "operational diaries" of [[William Harvey]] were found.[^1]
- After [[J. Edgar Hoover]]'s death his secretary, Helen Gandy, destroyed many of his "Personal and Confidential" files.[^1]
- The Army destroyed its intelligence dossier on [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] in 1973 "as part of a program to purge domestic surveillance files."[^1]
- In 1974 the Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the destruction of the minutes and transcripts of the chiefs' meetings from 1947 to 1978.[^1]
- In January 1995, with the act in force, the [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] destroyed protection survey reports for some of Kennedy's trips in the fall of 1963; the board learned of it about a week later.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Assassination Records Review Board. *Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board,* September 1998. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/report/arrb-final-report.txt
[^2]: Bamford, James. *Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.* Doubleday, 2001, ch. 2, reproducing JCS memorandum 1969/321, March 13, 1962.
[^3]: DiEugenio, James. "The Wegmann Files," *Probe,* vol. 4, no. 4, May-June 1997, pp. 8-9; National Archives and Records Administration, finding aid to the Papers of Edward F. Wegmann.
[^4]: Golrick, Philip D. Memorandum to David G. Marwell, "Phone Conversation with Joseph Oster," January 19, 1996, Assassination Records Review Board electronic files (OSTER.WPD), Mary Ferrell Foundation archive.
[^5]: Fagnant, Marie (Assassination Records Review Board staff). "Summary of Dallas Figures: H.L. Hunt, N.B. Hunt, R.L. Hunt, Clint Murchison Jr. and Clint Murchison Sr.," memorandum, July 31, 1997.

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### Inspector General Investigation
CIA Inspector General [[Fred Hitz]] testified before the House Intelligence Committee in March 1998 that the CIA "did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity," including trafficking within the United States. His 400-page report documented CIA relationships with more than 50 suspected drug traffickers during the Contra war.[^14]
CIA Inspector General [[Fred Hitz]] testified before the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence|House Intelligence Committee]] in March 1998 that the CIA "did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity," including trafficking within the United States. His 400-page report documented CIA relationships with more than 50 suspected drug traffickers during the Contra war.[^14]
### Iran-Contra Indictments

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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs"
- "Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs"
- "House Committee on Banking"
- "House Financial Services Committee"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- BNL
- Iraqgate
summary: "House committee created in 1865 as Banking and Currency; under Henry Gonzalez it investigated the BNL loans to Iraq over executive-branch resistance, and under Jim Leach the Systematics allegations."
start: 1865
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Henry B. Gonzalez]]"
reverse: true
start: 1989
end: 1995
role: "chairman"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Jim Leach]]"
reverse: true
start: 1995
end: 2001
role: "chairman"
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[BNL Scandal]]"
start: 1990
end: 1993
fn: 3
- type: investigated
with: "[[Systematics]]"
start: 1995
fn: 8
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The House committee that became the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, and since 2001 the Financial Services Committee, was created in 1865 as the Committee on Banking and Currency. [[Henry B. Gonzalez]] of San Antonio chaired it in the 101st to 103rd Congresses and [[Jim Leach]] of Iowa in the 104th to 106th.[^1]
### Gonzalez and BNL
Gonzalez became chairman in January 1989, and his hearings on [[Charles Keating]] and [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]] produced the evidence against the five senators who had intervened with regulators for Keating.[^2] After the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] raided the Atlanta branch of the [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] in August 1989 and found billions of dollars in off-book loans to Iraq, Gonzalez proposed hearings; the attorney general's legislative aide, [[Lee Rawls]], advised [[Richard Thornburgh]] in 1990 that "our best attempt to thwart any further congressional inquiry by the House Banking Committee into this case is to have you contact Chairman Gonzalez directly." Gonzalez declined the call, and Thornburgh wrote to him on September 26, 1990, that a hearing and staff interviews raised "the prospect that culpable parties will elude prosecution."[^3][^4] The committee issued subpoenas, and from February 1992 Gonzalez read classified documents into the *Congressional Record* in some twenty special order speeches.[^4]
The committee took testimony from [[SerVaas Inc.]] on April 9, 1991, that the brass factory it sold to Iraq was for commercial products; on September 25, 1992, Gonzalez produced a memorandum of July 31, 1988, showing the Iraqi buyer meant it for cartridge cases and artillery fuses.[^5] On April 28, 1992, he told the House that "BNL was a client of Mr. Scowcroft's while he was the vice-chairman of [[Kissinger Associates]]."[^6] [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] told the committee that year: "Quite frankly, the selective disclosure, out of context, of classified documents has led, knowingly or otherwise, to distortions of the record, half-truths, and outright falsehoods."[^3] Director [[Robert Gates]] ordered a damage assessment of one of Gonzalez's disclosures, and on August 4, 1992, the minority leader, [[Bob Michel]], introduced a resolution calling for an ethics investigation; Gonzalez was not censured.[^7] He called the report of the special counsel [[Frederick Lacey]], who in December 1992 found no grounds for an independent counsel, a whitewash.[^9] On November 9, 1993, [[Christopher Drogoul]], the former manager of the Atlanta branch, testified under oath before the committee with five other former employees.[^9]
### Leach and Systematics
At Leach's written request, officers of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s inspector general and the inspector general of the [[National Security Agency]] briefed him in the Rayburn Building on July 21, 1995, on published allegations about [[Systematics]], the Arkansas bank-software company of [[Jackson Stephens]], [[PROMIS]] and Mena. The CIA's memorandum of the meeting records Leach as saying that "most of the allegations contained within the articles were probably false," but that "as information goes out to the American public in non-traditional ways, it becomes more believable." The agency told him it had "not found any records related to Systematics of Arkansas." Director [[John Deutch]] ordered an inspector general's investigation on March 13, 1996, and Leach was still sending questions in 1998.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House Committee on Financial Services, "Committee History." https://financialservices.house.gov/about/history.htm
[^2]: Kohout, Martin Donell. "González, Henry Barbosa," *Handbook of Texas,* Texas State Historical Association. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/gonzalez-henry-barbosa
[^3]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.* Bantam, 1993, pp. 145, 183-194.
[^4]: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, "Henry González," Profile in Courage Award, 1994; Gonzalez, Henry B., "Continuing Saga of Attempts to Thwart BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, May 18, 1992.
[^5]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Brass Factory in Iraq." *Congressional Record,* House, September 25, 1992, p. H9502.
[^6]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL." *Congressional Record,* House, April 28, 1992.
[^7]: "Resolution Calling for an Ethics Probe of Chairman Gonzalez." *Congressional Record,* House, August 4, 1992, p. H7366. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_cr/h920804-gonzales.htm
[^8]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Briefing for Chairman Leach, House Banking Committee," undated, and "Memorandum for the Record," briefing of July 21, 1995, approved for release September 28, 2009, CIA Reading Room documents 0001289820 and 0001289686; Deutch, John, memorandum to the Inspector General, March 13, 1996, as cited on the Jackson Stephens page.
[^9]: Lacey, Frederick B., "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," and testimony of Christopher P. Drogoul, in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, *Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro,* Serial No. 103-95, November 9, 1993. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit ; Gonzalez, Henry B., "Update on BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, January 21, 1993.

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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "House Judiciary Committee"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- PROMIS
- INSLAW
summary: "Standing committee of the House since 1813, overseeing the Justice Department, whose 1992 report under Jack Brooks found strong evidence the department stole INSLAW's PROMIS and sought an independent counsel."
start: 1813-06-03
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Jack Brooks]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman during the INSLAW investigation"
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
end: 1992-09-10
role: "the INSLAW affair"
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The House of Representatives established a standing committee on the judiciary on June 3, 1813; its jurisdiction includes oversight of the [[Department of Justice]].[^1]
### The INSLAW Investigation
Under its chairman, [[Jack Brooks]] of Texas, the committee investigated whether high officials of the Justice Department had stolen [[INSLAW]]'s Enhanced [[PROMIS]] software, the matter known as the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]], and tried to put the company out of business, and whether Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]], Deputy Attorney General [[Lowell Jensen]] and others had conspired to distribute it to other agencies and foreign governments. The Hamiltons of INSLAW and [[Elliot Richardson]] testified before its subcommittee on December 5, 1990, at a hearing on the department's refusal to give the committee its documents.[^3] On July 25, 1991, the Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law voted 10 to 6 to subpoena the department; when it produced the INSLAW files on July 31, it said that 51 documents or files were missing and could not be found.[^2] The department's liaison in the dispute was [[Lee Rawls]].[^4] The committee also pursued the claim that Canadian agencies were running PROMIS; it called a letter of December 4, 1991, from the Canadian ambassador "conclusory" and wrote that "without direct access to RCMP, CSIS and other Canadian officials, the committee has been effectively thwarted."[^2]
After the Martinsburg police concluded in January 1992 that [[Danny Casolaro]] had killed himself, Brooks had committee investigators take sworn statements from the former [[Los Angeles]] strike force prosecutors [[Richard Stavin]] and [[Marvin Rudnick]] on March 13 and 14, 1992, and, "after initial resistance from the Bureau," from [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Special Agent [[Thomas Gates]] on March 25 and 26.[^2]
The committee adopted its report, *The INSLAW Affair,* on August 11, 1992, over the dissent of ten Republican members. It found "strong evidence, as indicated by the findings in two Federal court proceedings as well as by the committee investigation, that the Department of Justice 'acted willfully and fraudulently' and 'took, converted and stole' INSLAW's Enhanced PROMIS by 'trickery, fraud and deceit.'" It recommended that Attorney General [[William Barr]] settle INSLAW's claims at once and "strongly" recommended an independent counsel to investigate "a high level conspiracy within the Department to steal Enhanced PROMIS software to benefit friends and associates of former Attorney General Meese, including Dr. [[Earl Brian]]," the death of Casolaro, possible perjury and obstruction by department officials, and whether the missing documents "were stolen or illegally destroyed."[^2] Barr had appointed [[Nicholas J. Bua]] special counsel in November 1991; the committee noted that at the time Bua had not been empowered to subpoena witnesses, convene a grand jury or compel the department to produce key documents.[^2][^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House Committee on the Judiciary, "About the Committee." https://judiciary.house.gov/about
[^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, summary, section II and recommendations. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport
[^3]: As cited on the Nancy Hamilton page: H. Rept. 102-857; U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993.
[^4]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.* Bantam, 1993, pp. 193-194, as cited on the Lee Rawls page.
[^5]: 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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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "HPSCI"
- "House Intelligence Committee"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- IntelligenceOversight
- RemoteViewing
summary: "House committee created in 1977 to oversee the intelligence community, whose staff were briefed on the CIA's psychic research that year and whose evaluation subcommittee under Charlie Rose pressed the Pentagon to study remote viewing."
start: 1977
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Larry Combest]]"
reverse: true
start: 1995
end: 1997
role: "chairman, 104th Congress"
fn: 5
- type: member_of
with: "[[Charlie Rose]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman of the evaluation subcommittee"
fn: 4
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was "created in 1977" and "is charged with oversight of the [[United States]] Intelligence Community," now eighteen elements, and the Military Intelligence Program.[^1] It and the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] grew out of the findings of the [[Church Committee]].[^2]
### Psychic Research
After *Parade* published "[[Psychic Spying]]" on August 7, 1977, the committee asked the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] for a briefing. [[David Brandwein]], director of the [[Office of Technical Service]], gave three staff members "a short oral history of OTS efforts in the field, dating back to 1961" on November 16, 1977, and left them a written outline of the work classified SECRET, the unclassified article on the research at [[Stanford Research Institute]] and "a brief article on Mr. [[Pat Price]]." He handled most of the office's briefing of Representative [[Charlie Rose]] on February 9, 1978.[^3] On October 25, 1978, Rose, as chairman of the committee's evaluation subcommittee, wrote to [[Ruth Davis]] of the Defense Department that "we have a strong obligation also to learn what Soviet research is underway" and that he would "like to see the [[Department of Defense]] undertake those efforts deemed necessary and appropriate to investigate remote viewing and other related phenomena."[^4] On March 28, 1995, the CIA sent its status responses on the [[Stargate Project|Star Gate]] program to the committee's chairman, [[Larry Combest]], during the [[1995 transfer of Star Gate to the CIA]].[^6]
### Other Records
In 2021 classified versions of the intelligence community's assessment of domestic violent extremism were briefed to the House and Senate intelligence committees.[^7] [[Jim Himes]], its ranking member in 2026, appeared that year on a leaked membership list of [[Peter Thiel]]'s Dialog society.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "History and Jurisdiction." https://intelligence.house.gov/history-jurisdiction/
[^2]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. *Final Report,* S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, as cited on the Church Committee page.
[^3]: Brandwein, David S., memorandum for the record, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," OTS memo 287-77, November 17, 1977, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8; Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Legislative Counsel, "Briefing of Representative Charles Rose," February 9, 1978, OLC 78-0576, CIA-RDP81M00980R000600250087-4.
[^4]: Davis, Ruth M., memorandum for Dr. Jack Vorona, "'Remote Viewing' Project," November 20, 1978, with the letter of Charlie Rose, Chairman, Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 25, 1978.
[^5]: "COMBEST, Larry Ed," History, Art and Archives, U.S. House of Representatives. https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/C/COMBEST,-Larry-Ed-(C000653)/
[^6]: Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs to Larry Combest, Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, March 28, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100040002-2.
[^7]: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security. "Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021." Unclassified summary, March 17, 2021.
[^8]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026.

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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "Senate Committee on Foreign Relations"
- "Kerry subcommittee"
- "Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- Contras
- BCCI
summary: "Senate standing committee since 1816, hearing diplomatic nominations and CIA testimony on Chile, whose Kerry subcommittee reported in 1988 that the State Department had selected companies owned by drug traffickers to supply the Contras."
start: 1816
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Frank Church]]"
reverse: true
start: 1979
end: 1981
role: "chairman"
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[John Kerry]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations"
fn: 8
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Jack Blum]]"
reverse: true
role: "special counsel to the Kerry subcommittee"
fn: 8
- type: investigated
with: "[[Contras]]"
end: 1988-12
fn: 9
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The Senate established the Committee on Foreign Relations in 1816 as one of its original ten standing committees; it considers treaties and all diplomatic nominations.[^1] [[Frank Church]] chaired it from 1979 to 1981.[^2]
### Hearings
On January 6, 1961, Secretary of State [[Christian A. Herter]] gave his farewell briefing to a closed session of the committee and spoke of a "disturbing" new element in the [[Middle East]], the reactor at [[Dimona]].[^3] At his confirmation hearing of 1966 as assistant secretary for inter-American affairs, [[Lincoln Gordon]] testified that "Neither the American Embassy nor I personally played any part" in the 1964 coup in Brazil.[^4] The committee held hearings on the [[AIFLD|American Institute for Free Labor Development]] on August 1, 1969.[^5] On February 7 and March 6, 1973, [[Richard Helms]], newly ambassador to Iran, testified to it about Chile and [[ITT Corporation|ITT]], stating under oath that the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] had not "tried to overthrow the government of Chile" and had not "passed money to the opponents of Allende"; in 1977 he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor counts of misleading Congress.[^6][^13] At the hearing of July 26, 1983, on [[Thomas F. Ellis]], nominated to the Board for International Broadcasting, Senators Paul Tsongas and [[Joe Biden|Joseph Biden]] questioned him about his service on the board of the [[Pioneer Fund]]; he withdrew.[^7] It confirmed [[Donald Gregg]]'s ambassadorial nomination in June 1989 after hearings in which Kerry pressed him on what he had known of Contra operations.[^10]
### The Kerry Subcommittee
The Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations under [[John Kerry]], with [[Jack Blum]] as special counsel, took testimony in 1987 and 1988 from traffickers, pilots and officials, among them [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]] and, in February 1988, José Blandón.[^8] Its report of December 1988, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* stated: "The Subcommittee did not find that the Contra leaders personally were involved in drug trafficking. There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region." It found that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contra's funding problems," citing [[Oliver North]]'s suggestion to the [[DEA]] in June 1985 that 1.5 million dollars from [[Barry Seal]]'s sting be given to the Contras, and that "the [[State Department]] selected four companies owned and operated by narcotics traffickers to supply humanitarian assistance to the Contras," among them [[SETCO]] Air, set up by [[Juan Matta Ballesteros|Ramón Matta Ballesteros]], and [[DIACSA]].[^9] The subcommittee's investigation of the [[BCCI|Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] led to *[[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|The BCCI Affair]],* the report of Kerry and Senator [[Hank Brown]] of December 1992.[^11]
In 1992 a subcommittee of the committee investigated the [[October Surprise]] allegations and found that [[William J. Casey]] had made "potentially dangerous" unauthorized efforts to collect intelligence on the Carter administration's negotiations for the release of the hostages in Iran, without finding a deal.[^12]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, "History." https://www.foreign.senate.gov/about/history
[^2]: As cited on the Frank Church page.
[^3]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991.
[^4]: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hearing on the nomination of Lincoln Gordon as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1966, as quoted on the Lincoln Gordon page.
[^5]: University of Maryland Special Collections, finding aid, "Senate Foreign Relations Committee, American Institute for Free Labor Development hearings," as cited on the AIFLD page.
[^6]: Powers, Thomas. *The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA.* Knopf, 1979; Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, "Richard Helms' Eligibility Under 5 U.S.C. Section 8314 To Receive an Annuity," as cited on the Project FUBELT page.
[^7]: United Press International, dispatch on the withdrawal of Thomas Ellis, Washington, July 28, 1983; United States Senate, nomination PN59-1, 98th Congress.
[^8]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI.* Random House, 1993; as cited on the John Kerry, Ramon Milian Rodriguez and Mike Harari pages.
[^9]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations. *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* S. Prt. 100-165, December 1988. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^10]: As cited on the Donald Gregg page.
[^11]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,* December 1992, as cited on the BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report page.
[^13]: Powers, Thomas, *The Man Who Kept the Secrets,* as cited on the Richard Helms page.
[^12]: U.S. House of Representatives, October Surprise Task Force, *Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980,* 1993, as cited on the October Surprise page.

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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "Senate Committee on the Judiciary"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- INSLAW
summary: "Standing Senate committee since 1816, overseeing the Justice Department and FBI and judicial nominations, whose chief investigator relayed a career official's INSLAW allegations to the company in 1988."
start: 1816-12-10
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Ronald LeGrand]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief investigator"
fn: 3
- type: investigated
with: "[[Leonard Leo]]"
start: 2023
role: "sought records and testimony on his donor network; he declined"
fn: 7
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The Senate established its Committee on the Judiciary on December 10, 1816, among its original standing committees. It oversees the [[Department of Justice]], including the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], and the Department of Homeland Security, and considers judicial and Justice Department nominations.[^1]
### INSLAW
In mid-1979, when the FBI sought approval to buy a new front-end processor, the committee commissioned technical analyses from the [[OTA|Office of Technology Assessment]] and from [[INSLAW]].[^2] In May 1988 its chief investigator, [[Ronald LeGrand]], passed to [[Bill Hamilton]] of INSLAW what a senior career official of the department's Criminal Division had told him: "What you think happened, did happen," and that the division had been the center of the effort to drive the company out of business. According to Hamilton's 1989 affidavit, the source also believed "that documents relating to [[Project Eagle]] were shredded inside DOJ." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] later interviewed the source, who said he had no first-hand knowledge of misconduct concerning INSLAW or [[PROMIS]] and had heard no credible rumors of it; LeGrand told House investigators and Bua that, as far as he knew, none of the information was first-hand.[^3][^4]
### Nominations and Later Inquiries
On June 27, 1985, the committee voted 10 to 8 to reject President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s nomination of [[William Bradford Reynolds]] as associate attorney general.[^5] On May 16, 2018, [[Christopher Wylie]] testified to it that [[Steve Bannon]] had engaged [[SCL Group|SCL]], "a foreign military contractor," to build "an arsenal of informational weapons."[^6] Under Chairman [[Dick Durbin]] it sought the records and testimony of [[Leonard Leo]] on his network of conservative donor groups; on July 25, 2023, Leo's counsel declined to provide them.[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Committee on the Judiciary, "About the Committee." https://www.judiciary.senate.gov
[^2]: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. *An Assessment of Alternatives for a National Computerized Criminal History System.* OTA-CIS-161, October 1982, as cited on the INSLAW page.
[^3]: 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, and *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, quoting Hamilton's affidavit of 1989.
[^4]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^5]: *The Washington Post,* June 28, 1985, as cited on the William Bradford Reynolds page.
[^6]: "Christopher Wylie: Bannon wanted 'weapons' to fight a 'culture war' at Cambridge Analytica," testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018. *CBS News.* https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/senate-cambridge-analytica-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-live-stream-updates-today-2018-05-16
[^7]: Leo counsel's letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, July 25, 2023. https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-7-25-Leo-counsels-ltr-to-Senate-Judiciary-declining-to-produce-requested-information.pdf ; "Inside the 'Private and Confidential' Conservative Group That Promises to 'Crush Liberal Dominance.'" *ProPublica,* March 15, 2023.

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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
aliases:
- "SSCI"
- "Senate Intelligence Committee"
tags:
- Organization
- Government
- Congress
- IntelligenceOversight
- RemoteViewing
summary: "Permanent Senate committee created in 1976 after the Church Committee to oversee intelligence; its budget subcommittee ended Army remote-viewing funding in 1982, and its 2014 study documented the CIA's interrogation program."
start: 1976
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[Malcolm Wallop]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman of the budget subcommittee"
fn: 4
- type: investigated
with: "[[BNL Scandal]]"
end: 1993-02
fn: 7
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---
The Senate created the Select Committee on Intelligence in 1976 "to oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the [[United States]] Government" and "to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States." It has seventeen members, nine from the majority and eight from the minority, including members drawn from the Appropriations, Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees.[^1] It and its House counterpart grew out of the findings of the [[Church Committee]].[^2]
### Letelier and the Charter
On September 29, 1976, eight days after the assassination of [[Orlando Letelier]] in Washington, Senator [[Daniel Inouye]] of the committee wrote to Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] asking what the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] knew of a reported high-level meeting in the Chilean government at which Letelier had been discussed.[^3] In April 1978 the former deputy director for plans [[Thomas Karamessines]] appeared before the committee to oppose its draft charter for the CIA, calling the investigations of the preceding years "an inexcusable exercise in political sensationalism."[^8]
### Remote Viewing
At the end of fiscal 1982, according to the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, "the budget subcommittee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Senator Wallop) curtailed all psychoenergetic operational activities conducted by the Army in the National Foreign Intelligence Program"; its chronology records that on October 1, 1982, "NFIP funding terminated for Army GRILL FLAME collection operations project by Congressional directive," and the program continued under other funding as [[Center Lane]].[^4][^5] Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] invited eight members of the committee to a GRILL FLAME briefing in his Capitol office on September 29, 1982; "none were present."[^6] After a briefing of [[Malcolm Wallop]] on October 5, 1983, the Army's record states that "the Senator replied that he is only one person, and that perhaps the briefing should be presented to the entire SSCI Budget Subcommittee."[^4] Committee staff received status reports on the [[Stargate Project|Star Gate]] program in March and April 1995 and a briefing on June 1, attended by seven staff members, during its [[1995 transfer of Star Gate to the CIA|transfer to the CIA]].[^9]
### Later Inquiries
The CIA told the committee in April 1984 that it "was unable to confirm reports implicating high-level Sandinistas in drug trafficking."[^10] In 1986, after a member of Senator [[Jesse Helms]]'s staff was briefed by the CIA on the burning of Rodrigo Rojas by Chilean soldiers and the Chilean government learned of an American intelligence operation, the committee asked the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] to investigate whether Helms or an aide had disclosed it.[^11] Its staff reported in February 1993 on the [[BNL Scandal]] that the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department had coordinated poorly and that the CIA's grounds for withholding its reports from prosecutors had "no legal support," without finding deliberate concealment.[^7] Its study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, released in summary on December 9, 2014, concluded that the program had produced little intelligence not available by other means and that the agency had misled Congress, the [[White House]] and the public about it.[^12]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "About the Committee." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about-the-committee/
[^2]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. *Final Report,* S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, as cited on the Church Committee page.
[^3]: Inouye, Daniel K., letter to George Bush, September 29, 1976, CIA Reading Room, as cited on the Orlando Letelier page.
[^4]: Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^5]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "Briefing - Project Center Lane," c. 1984, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100180002-8, and "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^6]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5.
[^7]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair,* staff report, S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993.
[^8]: Hailey, Jean R. "T. H. Karamessines, Ex-Chief of CIA Covert Work, Dies." *The Washington Post,* September 9, 1978, p. B4.
[^9]: "Star Gate Transfer Chronology: 1995," memorandum for the record, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190017-9; Director of Research and Development, ORD-0520-95, memorandum for the Executive Director, "Star Gate - Final Response," September 27, 1995.
[^10]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, as cited on the Sandinistas page.
[^11]: United Press International, report on the Justice Department inquiry into Senator Helms, August 2, 1986.
[^12]: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. *Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program,* S. Rept. 113-288, December 9, 2014.

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summary: "The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia was the original client for the PROMIS case management software, commissioning the system in 1969 under U.S. Attorney Thomas A. Flannery and deploying it January 1, 1971; the EOUSA later signed the March 1982 implementation contract with INSLAW that became the central dispute in the PROMIS Software Scandal."
location: "Washington, D.C."
---
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia is the federal prosecutor's office responsible for both local criminal matters (unique among U.S. Attorneys' offices due to DC's non-state status) and federal crimes within the District. As used throughout the INSLAW files and the House Judiciary Committee's PROMIS investigation, "the U.S. Attorney's Office" refers to this DC office unless otherwise specified.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia is the federal prosecutor's office responsible for both local criminal matters (unique among U.S. Attorneys' offices due to DC's non-state status) and federal crimes within the District. As used throughout the INSLAW files and the [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]]'s PROMIS investigation, "the U.S. Attorney's Office" refers to this DC office unless otherwise specified.
### Role in PROMIS Development
In 1969, U.S. Attorney [[Thomas A. Flannery]] perceived an urgent need for improved case management tools to handle the volume of cases flowing through the DC office. He directed the [[Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia]] to commission a computerized case tracking system, funded by a $60,000 [[LEAA]] grant (70-DF-047) administered through [[Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co]]. The design team was co-directed by [[Joan E. Jacoby]] and [[Charles R. Work]] (then Deputy Chief of the office's Superior Court Division), with [[Bill Hamilton]] of Peat Marwick as project manager. The resulting system, the Prosecutor's Management Information System ([[PROMIS]]), was deployed January 1, 1971.[^1]
The DC office became the first PROMIS site and served as the demonstration platform for the system's national expansion. [[LEAA]] subsequently funded [[INSLAW]] to adapt PROMIS for adoption by other jurisdictions, and provided grants to municipalities converting to the system.[^1]
The DC office became the first PROMIS site and served as the demonstration platform for the system's national expansion. LEAA subsequently funded [[INSLAW]] to adapt PROMIS for adoption by other jurisdictions, and provided grants to municipalities converting to the system.[^1]
### EOUSA Implementation Contract