Trump Justice Department officials improperly provided reporters details of investigations into Covid-19 deaths at New York and New Jersey nursing homes shortly before the 2020 presidential election, the DOJ inspector general found.
Reporters at the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal received “non-public DOJ information” regarding the Covid-19 nursing home investigations in violation of DOJ’s confidentiality and media contacts policy, according to the IG report.
Bloomberg Law obtained a copy of the IG report Tuesday under the Freedom of Information Act, which provided additional details about the incidents disclosed last week in abbreviated form.
The department’s internal watchdog has referred the findings to the deputy attorney general and DOJ’s professional misconduct review unit for appropriate actions against the officials who are attorneys.
According to the report, a senior official in DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs proposed leaking DOJ investigative information to the New York Post in October 2020 regarding its investigations into nursing home deaths in New York and New Jersey.
The New York Post then published an article saying DOJ was seeking more New York nursing home data after finding Covid-19 death undercounts which cited two Justice Department letters that hadn’t yet been sent to their intended recipients.
One day later, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the New Jersey investigations citing statements provided by an unnamed “Justice Department official.”
The report also found that Civil Rights Division leadership directed the special litigation section “to focus specifically on New Jersey and New York despite having been provided data indicating that the nursing homes with the most significant quality of care issues were in other states.”
“Further, emails among senior official expressing urgency about the Department’s actions from June through October 2020 and related direction from those officials to career personnel,” the report said, “suggest that the then upcoming 2020 election may have been a factor in the timing and manner of these actions and announcing them to the public.”
The IG’s office also referred its findings to the US Office of Special Counsel to review possible Hatch Act violations.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:
See Breaking News in Context
Bloomberg Law provides trusted coverage of current events enhanced with legal analysis.
Already a subscriber?
Log in to keep reading or access research tools and resources.