February 1988: Inslaw Submits Complaint to Justice Department Oversight Section

The software company Inslaw submits allegations about the Justice Department’s conduct in the dispute over the enhanced PROMIS application to the Public Integrity Section (PIS), a departmental oversight component. The allegations follow on from the findings of a bankruptcy court favourable to Inslaw (see September 28, 1987 and January 25, 1988). In the complaint, Inslaw charges the department with:
Procurement fraud. Inslaw claims that Attorney General Edwin Meese and former Deputy Attorney General Lowell Jensen schemed to ensure that enhancements made to the PROMIS software by Inslaw would be obtained for free by the department, which would then make them available to a businessman named Earl Brian;
Violation of automatic stay debtor protection provisions invoked by the bankruptcy court. Inslaw says that by using the enhancements it made to the software after the bankruptcy case was filed, the department violated federal bankruptcy law. The bankruptcy court found that the department committed such violation, an act that could constitute an obstruction of the bankruptcy proceedings; and
Attempts to change Inslaw’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, for the company’s reorganization, into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, for the company’s liquidation. Inslaw says that the department unsuccessfully attempted to have an official named Harry Jones detailed from the US Trustee’s office in New York to Washington to take over the Inslaw bankruptcy to get Inslaw liquidated. Inslaw also says unsuccessful pressure was exerted by departmental official Thomas Stanton on US Trustee William White to convert the bankruptcy case into a Chapter 7 liquidation.
The PIS says it will examine some of the allegations, but in the end it will not open a formal preliminary investigation (see February 29, 1988). [US Congress, 9/10/1992]