The Senate investigates the sting

The list is long. Weinberg worked from February to July 1978 without headquarters approval, and the one written application was vague. When the target changed to political corruption in the autumn of 1978, nobody at headquarters approved the change. Nobody reviewed Weinberg’s informant file. [1]

Weinberg got a bonus by misrepresentation, took gifts, lied about them under oath and, by the weight of the evidence, shared in a $100,000 bribe the operation paid Errichetti. He devised the asylum scenario himself. There were unrecorded meetings with Errichetti on three dates, and tapes were not numbered or logged. [1][2]

And on selection: every approved target but one came from a middleman’s claim, the agents went looking for Republicans and non-local officials without any factual basis, and “at least one (and apparently more) clearly innocent public official was brought before the hidden cameras.” [3]

The committee was equally clear about what it could not find. No one at a bribe meeting had been targeted before a middleman raised the name. No lead was abandoned for an improper purpose. No defendant was “merely playacting”: each understood the payment was a bribe. Nine juries had convicted every defendant before them, and every appellate court to that date had found the convictions free of constitutional violation. [1]

It found no evidence that the leaks were politically motivated, though it did not accept that they were a minor problem. [1]

Its recommendations were for more control, not less undercover work: a law authorizing undercover operations under Attorney General guidelines, a review committee reporting to the Judiciary committees, and written notice clearing innocent people hurt by an operation. [2]