U.S.

Department of Justice

Office of the Inspector General

January 9, 2020

Jerry Dunleavy
jdunleavy@washingtonexaminer.com

Subject: Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Request [19-OIG-266]

Dear Mr. Dunleavy:

This responds to your Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of

the Inspector General (OIG). Specifically, your request seeks the OIG report
entitled “Investigative Summary: Findings of Misconduct by an FBI Deputy
Assistant Director for Unauthorized Contacts with the Media, Disclosing Law
Enforcement and Other Sensitive Information to the Media, and Accepting a Gift
from the Media.” The report responsive to your request has been reviewed. It has
been determined that certain portions of such report be excised pursuant to the
Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(6) and (7)(C). Consequently, please
find enclosed that information which can be released pursuant to your request.

If you are not satisfied with my response to this request, you may
administratively appeal by writing to the Director, Office of Information Policy
(OIP), United States Department of Justice, 441 G Street NW, 6th Floor,
Washington, DC 20530-0001, or you may submit an appeal through OIP's
FOIAonline portal by creating an account on the following web site:
https://foiaonline.regulations.gov/foia/action/public/home. Your appeal
must be postmarked or electronically transmitted within 90 days of the date of
my response to your request. If you submit your appeal by mail, both the
letter and the envelope should be clearly marked “Freedom of Information Act
Appeal.”

For your information, Congress excluded three discrete categories of law

enforcement and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA.
See 5 U.S.C. 552(c) (2006 & Supp. IV 2010). This response is limited to those
records that are subject to the requirements of the FOIA. This is a standard
notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be taken as an
indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist.
 You may contact our FOIA Public Liaison, Deborah Waller at (202) 616-
0646 for any further assistance of your request. Additionally, you may contact
the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives
and Records Administration to inquire about the FOIA mediation services they
offer. The contact information for OGIS is as follows: Office of Government
Information Services, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601
Adelphi Road-OGIS, College Park, Maryland 20740-6001, e-mail at
ogis@nara.gov; telephone at (202) 741-5770; toll free at 1-877-684-6448.

Sincerely,

Jeanetta M. Howard
Jeanetta M. Howard
Government Information Specialist
Office of the General Counsel

Enclosure

2
 x Office telephone records for (202) 324-6088
x Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Reports, OGE Form 278
x FDP Security Financial Disclosure Forms
x Commercial searches (Targus) on telephone numbers
x Open source searches on news articles
x IG Subpoena records from
x IG Subpoena records from
x Public Access to Court Electronic Records
x United States Office of Government Ethics
x Code of Federal Regulations

Paarmann’s Contacts with Members of the Media

The OIG’s analysis of Paarmann’s FBI communication records from 2012 to 2017 show that he
had extensive contacts with members of the media, including participating in rounds of golf,
meeting privately for drinks or dinner, and attending a house warming party. In addition, as
discussed in greater detail later in this report, FBI records reflected that Paarman disclosed court
sealed and LES information to the media and attended (free of charge) the 2015 Radio
Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

FBI Policies on Contacts with Media

The FBI Media Policy in effect both at the time of these events and currently authorizes only
four employees at FBI Headquarters to speak directly to the media without prior authorization.
Those four employees are the Director, Deputy Director, Associate Deputy Director, and the
Assistant Director of the Office of Public Affairs (OPA). All other headquarters employees are
required to coordinate with OPA prior to any contact with the media. In FBI Field Offices, only
the head of the FO and a designated Public Affairs Officer are authorized to speak to the media.
The policies require these authorized FO officials to coordinate with OPA on stories with
national interest.

Specifically, the FBI Media Relations at FBIHQ and in Field Offices Policy Guide, dated
October 13, 2015, states:

“At FBI headquarters, the Director, Deputy Director, Associate Deputy Director,
Assistant Director for Office of Public Affairs, and Office of Public Affairs personnel
designated by the Assistant Director are authorized to speak to the media. FBI
executives, including the Executive Assistant Director, Assistant Directors, Deputy
Assistant Directors, and Section Chiefs are authorized to speak to the media and must do
so in coordination with the Office of Public Affairs at FBI headquarters. Other FBI
headquarters personnel such as managers and SMEs, subject-matter experts, must only
speak to the media at OPA, Office of Public Affairs' request in coordination with an
approval by the Office of Public Affairs at FBI headquarters.”

U.S. Department of Justice Page: 4

Office of the Inspector General Case Number: 2017-006480
Date: May 23, 2019
In addition, FBI Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) Information Policy Guide, dated, December
15, 2014, states that LES information must not be released to, or discussed with, the media and
that release of information to the media must be coordinated with the FBI Office of Public
Affairs (OPA)

Further, all employee contacts with the media, including those not authorized and not part of the
employee’s official duties, are governed by FD-291 (Rev. 9-15-2015) FBI Employment
Agreement. That Employment Agreement provides:

3. I will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files
or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any
unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI.

4. Prior to making any disclosure, I will seek a determination of whether the information
may be disclosed. I agree to be bound by the guidelines governing prepublication review
found in the FBI's Prepublication Review Policy Guide (0792PG) as those procedures
may from time to time be amended. I understand that, in this context, “publication”
includes disclosure of information to anyone by any means. I will submit for review the
full text of any proposed disclosure addressed by the FBI's Prepublication Review Policy
or this employment agreement as required by the policy at least thirty (30) working days
prior to the proposed publication.

Paarman’s Discussions with OPA

During his OIG interview, Paarmann stated that, at an unknown time,

told Paarman to “develop friendly,
cordial relations with the media so that it wasn’t adversarial every time we talked to them and
basically be able to educate them on counterterrorism so that they could do their jobs better in
portraying that to the American public.” Paarmann added that “I told , who was the
of OPA at the time, because he’s the one that asked us to develop friendly relations with the
media. I regularly advised him or his subordinate, that, hey, I’m
talking to this guy or talking with that guy, so they knew I was doing it. I took it to mean, since
they had asked us to do it and since my boss had directed me to do it, that it was authorized.”

However, during his OIG interview on May 21, 2018, stated that OPA would not have
asked Paarmann to develop his own relationships with the media absent the presence of a public
affairs officer or someone in Paarmann’s chain of command, and stated that he knew of
no instance in which Paarmann was told to make unilateral contact with members of the media.
stated that it may have been a philosophy that the FBI wanted to have open channels with
the media to separate fact from fiction and mitigate inaccurate or damaging information.
However, said he was not aware of any golf outings being arranged for that purpose, nor
would he have recommended such a thing added it was not OPA’s policy or practice to
encourage Paarmann or anyone else to engage in that type of unilateral interaction without OPA
presence. stated the practice of an FBI employee, outside OPA, reaching out to a
member of media directly is not a practice that he would ever encourage or support.

U.S. Department of Justice Page: 5

Office of the Inspector General Case Number: 2017-006480
Date: May 23, 2019
presence. stated the practice of an FBI employee, outside OPA, reaching out to a
member of media directly is not a practice that he would ever encourage or support.

Conclusion

The OIG investigation concluded that Paarmann’s extensive contacts with the media over a
period of years, without authorization in advance for the contacts, were violations of the FBI’s
Media Relations Policy. Both and stated they did not give Paarmann unilateral
authorization to establish relationships, including social relationships, with members of the
media independent of OPA, as Paarmann had claimed. Additionally, the OIG found no
documentary evidence reflecting such approval or authorization. Moreover, the OIG found no
evidence that Paarmann had a pre-existing personal relationship with any of these journalists,
and Paarmann did not make any such claim to the OIG.

The OIG also identified numerous instances where reporters with whom Paarmann had been in
contact with, wrote or contributed to news stories shortly after communicating with Paarmann
about ongoing FBI investigations known to Paarmann. Those articles cited to information that
was provided from anonymous law enforcement officials involved in the investigations. In some
instances referenced below, the OIG discovered FBI text messages which made it clear that
Paarmann had improperly disclosed sealed and/or law enforcement sensitive information to those
reporters. When confronted by the OIG during his interview with those disclosures, Paarmann
acknowledged making them. However, in those instances where the text messages identified
telephone or other communications between Paarmann and reporters regarding ongoing FBI
investigations, but did not explicitly reflect the nature of the conversation that Paarmann had
with reporters. Paarmann denied providing non-public or law enforcement sensitive information
to reporters, including any of the lengthy, unauthorized telephone calls with the reporters. Given
Paarmann’s willingness to divulge sensitive law enforcement information on multiple occasions
as discussed in investigations below, to these same reporters during the same time periods, his
numerous contacts close in time to the news stories referenced above by these reporters, his
knowledge of the FBI investigations about which these stories concerned, his extensive contacts
with these reporters over an extended period of time, and his failure to disclose his contacts to
FBI personnel as required by FBI policy, the OIG believes it more likely than not that Paarmann
violated FBI policy by providing law enforcement sensitive information to these reporters on
multiple occasions in addition to those instances described below.

Paarmann’s Unauthorized Disclosure of Court Sealed Information

FBI Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) Information Policy Guide, dated, December 15, 2014,
states that LES information must not be released to, or discussed with, the media and that release
of information to the media must be coordinated with the FBI Office of Public Affairs (OPA).

U.S. Department of Justice Page: 13

Office of the Inspector General Case Number: 2017-006480
Date: May 23, 2019
The OIG investigation concluded that Paarmann engaged in misconduct in violation of 5 CFR §
2635.202 and Section 3.2 of the FBI Ethics and Integrity Program Policy Guide when he
accepted and did not pay for a ticket valued at far in excess of $20 for the 2015 Radio-Television
Correspondent’s Association Dinner in Washington, DC, as a guest of
. In addition, Paarmann violated federal ethics rules when he failed to report having
accepted the gift from , as he was required to do as a public financial disclosure filer
under Office of Government Ethics regulations.

In response to reviewing a draft of this report, Paarmann maintained that he had no reason to
think his attendance at the dinner was a thing of value and that he believed he was representing
the FBI and promoting the FBI’s relationship with the media by attending the dinner. We do not
credit Paarmann’s explanation, and find it concerning that a senior FBI official, with over 20
years of experience, would claim not to have been aware that an exclusive annual dinner gala
event hosted by a private organization in a large ballroom and attended by hundreds of guests
was “a thing of value.” Moreover, his acknowledgement that he attended the dinner precisely
because of his FBI position demonstrates the conflict of interest that resulted from his decision to
accept, without consulting FBI ethics officials, this gift from a journalist whose job it was to
report on the FBI.

Prosecution was declined . The

OIG has completed its investigation and is providing this report to the FBI for appropriate action.

U.S. Department of Justice Page: 21

Office of the Inspector General Case Number: 2017-006480
Date: May 23, 2019