Sandra Spooner

Sandra Spooner was the Deputy Director of the Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, within the DOJ. She became a figure in the PROMIS Software Scandal due to allegations concerning missing documents related to the Inslaw case.

During its investigation, the House Committee on the Judiciary learned from the DOJ that certain requested documents compiled by Sandra Spooner were missing. The Committee noted that, based on the DOJ's numbering system, numerous additional documents appeared to be missing, raising questions about whether they might have been destroyed, especially given the allegations of criminal conspiracy against high-level DOJ officials. The Committee also noted that the question of unauthorized document destruction arose in the context of a former DOJ employee who alleged that Department employees illegally destroyed Inslaw-related documents by shredding them.¹

The Special Counsel's investigation, however, found no evidence that anyone intentionally destroyed any documents requested by Congress. The circumstances surrounding the missing file and its reconstruction persuaded the Special Counsel that it was lost and not destroyed. Spooner herself discovered and reported the missing file, which was a binder of privileged documents she had compiled from her trial materials. She directed her secretary to locate it, and when it could not be found, she sent an office-wide notice. She also advised the Committee investigators that a file was missing and provided them with other privileged documents. The Special Counsel found Spooner to be extremely credible and genuinely concerned about the loss of the file, believing it was misplaced rather than stolen. The report concluded that the suspicion of intentional destruction was far-fetched and found no evidence to implicate anyone else.¹