Good O' Boy Roundup Report - March, 1996


V. DOJ Employee Participation in the Roundup

Thirty-six persons attended a Roundup while employed by the Department of Justice and eight current Justice employees attended the Roundup prior to their Justice employment. [ / We made every effort to identify both current and former DOJ employees who attended Roundups. For current employees we ensured that the components queried each employee. When it was determined that several components had not satisfactorily questioned their personnel, they were instructed to recanvass. For former employees several methods were used. First, each attendee interviewed, including Rightmyer, was asked if he or she had seen any DOJ personnel at the Roundup. Most people attended the Roundup with friends so even if a person had retired since attending, someone else was certain to be aware of his or her attendance. Second, the names on Rightmyer's mailing list were compared against lists of current and past DOJ employees. Where past or current employees had the same names as those on the mailing list and it could not be ruled out that the person on the mailing list had been employed by DOJ, the past or current employee was contacted. Through these various procedures we were able to identify several persons who had left DOJ after their attendance at the Roundups. ] Each of these individuals was interviewed at length about their attendance at the Roundup, their perceptions as to whether the Roundup was a racist or all-white event, their knowledge of any racist activity at the Roundup, and their knowledge of any possible criminal behavior at the Roundup. [ / Five of these individuals are no longer employed by the Department of Justice but cooperated fully with the OIG. ] Because we were not content to accept at face value the potentially self-serving accounts of Justice participants, many individuals who spent a significant amount of time with the Justice attendees were also interviewed to obtain additional evidence on the Justice employees' conduct at the Roundup.