Kemp said he expected to file a response to the charges within the next two weeks. He declined to comment about the substance of the allegations, but said that it was “a shame this thing comes about 11 years after the facts that give rise to it.”
A DOJ lawyer since 1998, Tamm joined the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review in 2003, where his work included asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic surveillance warrants. According to the ethics charging papers, Tamm became aware of warrant applications that were given “special treatment” in a secret process that involved the attorney general and the chief judge of the surveillance court.
When Tamm told colleagues about the program, they said it was “probably illegal.” Tamm in 2004 contacted The New York Times about the program. The Times won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for its reporting on the surveillance program, which permitted the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States without a warrant. In a 2008 Newsweek article, Tamm for the first time publicly discussed his decision to leak information to the New York Times about the surveillance program. The FBI had raided his home the previous year and Newsweek reported that it was part of a criminal investigation.”I chose what I did. I believed in what I did,” Tamm told Newsweek.
