From Kohl, Ken [AUSA]
To: Phillips, Channing
cc. Blier, William
Subject : RE: what I’m hearing from the media
Channing
***
“By the way, WFO has opened a leak investigation in an attempt to find out who spoke to NEWSWEEK magazine over the weekend about the bureau’s use of bloodhounds in the investigation.”
Note that Attorney Seikaly verified the interrogatory response relating to his contact with reporters and omitted his contact with Klaidman about bloodhounds.
Are you not reading your own postings? In another thread you posted another memorandum which included this:
The purpose of this memorandum is to notify your office of the closing of the FBI’s criminal investigation of the captioned media leak matter. It is the understanding of the FBI that your continued investigation of this matter will be pursued by your office.
And I replied this way:
It still looks like the FBI planted false information with Seikaly at the DOJ to see if he'd leak it. When he did, the FBI had no way to prosecute someone in the DOJ without help from the DOJ, so they let the people at the DOJ handle it. Seikaly left the DOJ, and he's still sweating out possible prosecution. The FBI got what it wanted: They stopped Seikaly from leaking any more information.
Not every criminal ends up in jail. This looks like a negotiated resulution that caused the least embarrassment to all concerned.
The bloodhound leak matter was evidently turned over to the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The OPR typically punishes people by getting them fired and/or by getting them disbarred. Seikaly left the DOJ. You may argue that he could have left on his own accord, but the facts do not support that belief.