FBI lawyers within the agency’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch (NSCLB) have “inappropriately” weighed in on matters typically reserved for federal prosecutors, according to a report released by the Department of Justice Inspector General’s Office on Sept. 29.
The report (pdf) found that “aggressive” attorneys working for the NSCLB had “inappropriately opined on matters related to sufficiency of evidence, certain charging decisions, and discovery obligations.”
According to the report, officials in the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) informed the Inspector General’s Office of the alleged behavior.
However, the report notes that NSD personnel stressed they did not believe that the lawyer’s overzealous behavior regarding prosecutorial decisions was part of an “organizational effort to have greater influence on those decisions.”…