Attorney in Foggo Case Seeks to “Opt Out” of Security Clearance
A defense attorney in the prosecution of former CIA executive director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and contractor Brent Wilkes on bribery charges has refused to undergo a background investigation or submit to other procedures required in order to obtain a security clearance for access to classified information.
Defense counsel should not be required “to undergo any kind of a process by which my adversary in an adversarial system is going to determine whether or not I can represent my client,” argued celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, who represents Brent Wilkes.
Instead, he indicated, the government should simply provide the defense with all exculpatory material.
But it doesn’t work that way, government attorneys said. In a June 8 pleading (pdf), they asked the court to require imposition of a security clearance, administered by a judicial branch official if necessary, or to take other steps to safeguard up to 15,000 pages of classified discovery materials.
The unusual dispute was first reported by Justin Rood in “Attorney Geragos Accused of Subtle Extortion,” ABC News’ The Blotter, June 11.
The strength of our nation’s data policy isn’t just in the rules we write, but in how effectively we translate those rules into a system that prioritizes the public good. Join us in this movement to design and build more resilient national data policies.
The human cost is measured in deaths. The financial cost is measured in the $52 billion taxpayers pay annually end stage renal disease – double NASA’s budget.
Gilman Louie, Longest Serving Board Chair of the Federation of American Scientists, Named Chair Emeritus
The proposed Office will resurrect the long-closed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the archive of which has been maintained by FAS for decades at https://ota.fas.org/.