George Francis Bason, Jr.

George Francis Bason Jr. was appointed to the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia on February 8, 1984, to fill a vacancy. His four-year term expired February 8, 1988. The two proceedings he presided over in the INSLAW case produced the most damaging judicial findings against the DOJ in the PROMIS Software Scandal — findings that were ultimately reversed on jurisdictional grounds but that shaped congressional investigations for years afterward.¹

The Independent Handling Proceeding (June 1987)

In June 1987, after INSLAW filed for independent handling of its bankruptcy case on the grounds that the DOJ could not be trusted to administer it fairly, Bason found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means." The ruling was based partly on testimony from Anthony Pasciuto, Deputy Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees, who initially stated that DOJ Director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee Edward White to force the company into liquidation. Bason also found that Stanton had struck a bargain with C. Madison Brewer to achieve this conversion.¹

The Adversary Proceeding (September 1987)

After a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled on September 28, 1987, that the DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit." He found that C. Madison Brewer had "developed an intense and abiding hatred" for Bill Hamilton and had "devised a strategy to have the government 'ruin' INSLAW," with his "poisonous attitude" infecting other DOJ personnel who administered the contract. Bason further concluded that Lowell Jensen's "biased attitude toward Inslaw contributed to the situation in which Inslaw's complaints about Brewer and the administration of the PROMIS implementation contract went unheeded." Bason awarded approximately $6.8 million in damages and attorneys' fees against DOJ.¹

The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed Bason's adversary ruling in November 1989, with Judge William Bryant finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support" for the bankruptcy court's conclusions. In May 1991, however, the Court of Appeals reversed all lower court rulings on jurisdictional grounds, finding the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction because DOJ possessed PROMIS under a claim of right at the time of INSLAW's bankruptcy filing. The reversal vacated Bason's findings entirely.¹

Non-Reappointment and Retaliation Allegations

Bason sought early reappointment in 1987, while his Inslaw rulings were pending. The selection committee chose not to reappoint him; his term expired as scheduled in February 1988. Bason subsequently alleged that the DOJ had improperly influenced the selection process in retaliation for his rulings. On January 12, 1988, he sent a 14-page letter to Chief Judge Patricia Wald alleging DOJ obstruction of his reappointment. The DOJ moved to recuse him from further Inslaw proceedings on the basis of this letter; Bason denied the motion, and the denial was upheld on appeal. Just before leaving office, on February 1, 1988, Bason filed an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to block his successor, S. Martin Teel Jr., from being sworn in.¹

The Special Counsel's investigation found no evidence that anyone had improperly influenced the selection process, concluding that Bason's allegations rested on speculation and uncorroborated information. The Bua Report found Bason's blanket adverse credibility assessments of DOJ witnesses to be unwarranted and specifically disputed his conclusion that DOJ's financial concerns about INSLAW were pretextual.¹