These categories include individuals who are part of drug trafficking organization leadership, as well as individuals who are lawyers, doctors, or journalists. The DEA’s differing policies have resulted in DEA personnel being able to use high-risk individuals as confidential sources without the level of review as would otherwise be required by the AG Guidelines for high-level and privileged or media-affiliated sources. But it has worked out perfectly if you consider “thwarting oversight” to be an essential part of drug enforcement. It hasn’t gone well… at least in terms of cohesiveness. This has created two sets of policies - the DEA’s and the (supposedly overriding) AG’s. Rather than add the guidelines as its own section of the DEA’s policies, the DEA instead chose to fold in certain recommendations. The problems begin with the DEA apparently cherry-picking which Attorney General guidelines it will follow when dealing with confidential sources. The DEA has already shown complete disdain for its oversight. If you can’t get the DEA to turn over existing documents, it’s highly unlikely Horowitz’s recommendations will be implemented with any expedience. We will continue to audit the DEA’s Confidential Source Program to more fully assess the DEA’s management and oversight of its confidential sources. Nevertheless, we have uncovered several significant issues related to the DEA’s management of its Confidential Source Program that we believe require the prompt attention of DOJ and DEA leadership, as identified in this report. This makes the concluding sentences of this same paragraph seem particularly hopeless. As a result, over 1 year after we initiated this review, the OIG only has been able to conduct a limited review of the DEA’s Confidential Source Program. In each instance, the matters were resolved only after the Inspector General elevated them to the DEA Administrator. Our audit work thus far has been seriously delayed by numerous instances of uncooperativeness from the DEA, including attempts to prohibit the OIG’s observation of confidential source file reviews and delays, for months at a time, in providing the OIG with requested confidential source information and documentation. The opening of the OIG report gives some insight into the months of DEA interference and recalcitrance.
Horowitz has been fighting the FBI and DEA every step of the way, as both agencies have proven not only unwilling to turn over needed documents, but thoroughly resistant to DOJ intervention or threats against their collective wallets. (We’re still an unknown amount of time away for his report on the agency’s use of administrative subpoenas.) And it’s still incomplete. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the DEA’s use of confidential informants has been published.
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