Sen. Chuck Grassley’s release last week of an FBI memorandum discussing the Bureau’s ability to render computerized records invisible to other agents raises huge constitutional and corruption concerns. On Monday, The Federalist analyzed the revelations from that recently declassified document, explaining that material coded “Prohibited Access” in the FBI’s Sentinel case management system will not appear in search results, meaning that users of Sentinel would not know that information relevant to their search even exists. 

If Sentinel users do not know that relevant evidence exists, the DOJ cannot possibly provide exculpatory or impeachment evidence to criminal defendants or fulfill their discovery obligations in civil cases. Nor could the DOJ and FBI find all responsive documents for Freedom of Information Act requests, or in response to congressional inquiries or investigations by the inspector general. And the FBI cannot possibly properly investigate criminality if its agents do not even know of potentially relevant evidence.

From the scant evidence available to date, we know that these concerns are not merely hypothetical. Documents related to the Trump/Russia-collusion investigation were coded “Prohibited Access.” That coding prevented agents in the Washington Field Office from identifying potentially relevant evidence concerning whether Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr lied to Congress about her role in the Crossfire Hurricane hoax.

We also know that the U.S. attorney screening material related to Ukraine corruption and the Biden family did not know that the FBI could render material invisible in Sentinel. Likewise, senior DOJ officials familiar with the investigation into the Russia collusion hoax had no knowledge of the “Prohibited Access” functionality. Whether those investigations were similarly stymied is currently unknown because there is so little we presently understand about the FBI’s use of “Prohibited Access.”