(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Lawyers for the Justice Department have inadvertently leaked classified information to a neo-Nazi facing charges of plotting to attack the power grid, according to a report earlier this month from Raw Story.
The neo-Nazi, Marine Corps veteran Jordan Duncan, was set to stand trial this month. But his lawyer, Raymond Tarlton, said that the DOJ sent him discovery last month that contained classified information.
“We all of a sudden realized there was classified information produced to us,” Tarlton told Raw Story, explaining that his defense team gave the classified material back to the government. “No one on our defense team has a security clearance … It’s put a big pause in our preparations for them to cure what they call ‘spillage.’”
According to Duncan’s attorney, the government found classified information on his client’s hard drive when he was arrested in October 2020. That classified information was apparently downloaded from the internet and originated from the website Wikileaks.
The DOJ spent the next three-plus years reviewing Duncan’s electronic devices to ensure no other classified information was located on them—but then still gave Duncan classified info in a batch of discovery last month. Duncan has not been charged with mishandling classified information or any related crime.
Duncan’s three co-defendants have reached plea deals with the government. Two of them, Liam Montgomery Collins and Paul James Kryscuk, are set to be sentenced March 27.
According to the DOJ, the defendants discussed using homemade Thermite, a combination of metal powder and metal oxide which burns at over 4000°F to burn through and destroy power transformers. They also allegedly conspired to manufacture illegal firearms.
DOJ Blunders
DOJ lawyers leaking sensitive evidence is a rare, but not unheard of, occurrence.
Last November, Headline USA revealed that the DOJ exposed the FBI’s own alleged confidential human sources.
The DOJ’s apparent blunder occurred in its Sept. 26 motion to dismiss a lawsuit from neo-Nazi prison inmate Bill White’s against the Bureau of Prisons—a lawsuit involving allegations that the BOP retaliated against White for his legal filings, and that the U.S. government is punishing him for refusing to cooperate in an ongoing murder investigation.
The DOJ had been seeking sanctions against White for naming confidential informants in his court filings.
However, the DOJ’s own filings against White have also exposed the identities of alleged FBI informants, including ones that weren’t previously public. And ironically, the DOJ outed the alleged informants in the same case where White faces sanctions.
Indeed, attached to the DOJ’s motion to dismiss are unredacted records of White’s email correspondences with Paul Angel, the editor of americanfreepress.net. In those email exchanges disclosed by the DOJ, White named numerous alleged informants, including Robert Campbell, Michael Blevins, Hal Turner, Elisha Strom and Chris Drake.
After the DOJ disclosed the alleged FBI informants in its Sept. 26 motion to dismiss, White responded with a court filing that apparently discusses the same alleged informants. That filing from White was quickly stricken from the record, and U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn ordered the inmate to explain by Nov. 14 why he shouldn’t face sanctions.
In his Nov. 14 response, White informed the judge that he only named the alleged FBI informants because they were already disclosed by the DOJ.
The DOJ has not responded to White’s Nov. 14 filing, and Judge McGlynn has yet to rule on the matter.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
