Ronald LeGrand

Ronald LeGrand was the Chief Investigator for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In late April 1988, he telephoned Bill Hamilton, president of INSLAW, to request a full briefing on the disputes between Inslaw and the DOJ. Hamilton and his wife subsequently briefed LeGrand at Inslaw on the morning of May 11. Two days later, LeGrand telephoned Hamilton with information from a trusted senior Justice Department career official. This source, who had been in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department since the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon, told LeGrand to convey to the Hamiltons that "What you think happened, did happen. You are not crazy. But you do not know squat about how dirty the INSLAW case really is. If you ever learn even half of it, you will be sickened. INSLAW is a lot dirtier for the Department of Justice, in its breadth and depth, than Watergate. The Justice Department has been compromised at every level on the INSLAW case."¹

The source also stated that Lowell Jensen engineered Inslaw's problems and relied on Miles Matthews, James Knapp, and James Johnston. Miles Matthews allegedly stated in the presence of LeGrand's source that "Lowell [Jensen] wants to get INSLAW out of the way and give the business to friends." The source further indicated that John Keeney, Mark Richards, and Philip White knew "all about" Jensen's malfeasance, and that while Richards and White were "pretty upset," they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath. The source also believed that documents related to Project Eagle were shredded inside the DOJ, but suggested Inslaw should subpoena paperwork prepared by a Jensen subordinate regarding the purchase of large quantities of computer hardware for which senior DOJ career staff saw no justification.²

The source also informed INSLAW through LeGrand that the Criminal Division had served as the nerve center for the scheme to drive INSLAW out of business by engineering sham contract disputes. LeGrand's communication was a significant turning point for the Hamiltons, as it provided internal corroboration of their suspicions regarding the theft of the PROMIS software.¹ However, the Special Counsel's investigation found that LeGrand provided little corroboration of Hamilton's allegations during a sworn statement to House investigators.

LeGrand informed House investigators and the Special Counsel that, as far as he knew, none of the information provided to him by his source was obtained first-hand. The Special Counsel interviewed LeGrand's source, a long-time career employee of the Department of Justice, who stated that he had no first-hand knowledge of any misconduct by anyone in relation to PROMIS or Inslaw, and had not heard any credible rumors about such misconduct. This source indicated that the subject of Inslaw came up during a friendly conversation with LeGrand in 1987 or 1988. He suggested contacting Miles Matthews because Matthews was responsible for procurement in the Criminal Division and the source disliked or distrusted him. The source denied ever mentioning Jensen, Richards, White, Johnston, or Knapp to LeGrand, and did not believe any of these individuals would be involved in any type of cover-up. Furthermore, the source denied that any statements attributed to him in Hamilton's affidavit were accurate, and he never said or believed any of the comments attributed to him, never had reason to believe that identified DOJ officials were involved in wrongdoing, or that Project Eagle documents were improperly shredded. The Special Counsel's investigation ultimately found no credible evidence of a conspiracy involving Jensen or other senior DOJ officials.²