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In sum, we found that Burke violated Department policy when he
provided the Dodson memorandum to Fox News reporter Levine without
Department approval, and that his explanations for why he did not
believe his actions were improper were not credible. We believe this
misconduct to be particularly egregious because of Burke’s apparent
effort to undermine the credibility of Dodson’s significant public
disclosures about the failures in Operation Fast and Furious. We further
believe that the seriousness of Burke’s actions are aggravated by the fact
that they were taken within days after he told Deputy Attorney General
Cole that he took responsibility for his office’s earlier unauthorized
disclosure of a document to The New York Times, and after Cole put him
on notice that such disclosures should not occur. Burke also knew at
the time of his disclosure of the Dodson memorandum that he was under
investigation by OPR for his conduct in connection with the earlier
disclosure to The New York Times. As a high-level Department official,
Burke knew his obligations to abide by Department policies and his duty
to follow the instructions of the Deputy Attorney General, who was
Burke’s immediate supervisor.
We found Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum
to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a
U.S. Attorney. We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated
Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member
of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the
Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a
member.