A former Justice Department attorney has agreed to receive a public censure from the D.C. Court of Appeals for exposing to The New York Times a warrantless wiretapping program in 2004.

Thomas Tamm's tip helped expose that the Bush administration was bypassing standard legal procedure for intercepting Americans' international phone calls and emails, leading to a national backlash against the program and a Pulitzer Prize for reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau.

Tamm stepped forward as the whistleblower responsible for the leak weeks before President Barack Obama assumed office. Obama had criticized the surveillance program, and the Justice Department in 2011 announced it would not bring criminal charges against Tamm.

But as Tamm got on with his life, the backlogged D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates and prosecutes alleged misconduct by members of the D.C. Bar, kept open its probe.



In late December, the office filed ethics charges against Tamm that could yield disbarment, accusing him of failing to inform superiors in the Justice Department about suspected illegal surveillance and of exposing the "confidences or secrets of his client," the Justice Department.

A petition for negotiated discipline released by the office Thursday recommends a public censure for Tamm, who currently works as a public defender in Washington County in Western Maryland. It's unclear if the reprimand will have any real-world effect on Tamm's career.

"There are no cases in this jurisdiction that are factually similar to this case," the petition says, noting somewhat similar disciplinary cases involved "improper personal motivations … which are not present here."

The document paints Tamm's actions in a positive light, saying, "He was motivated only by his grave concern that the program was unlawful, based upon his belief that it involved warrantless wire and communication surveillance."



"Moreover," the document says, "[Tamm] was careful never to disclose any methods, sources, or specific intercepts about the program to the reporter. Instead, he disclosed only its existence and the fact that it was being conducted without judicial supervision."



Tamm's agreement to a censure, the agreement says, "is driven, in part, by the fact that his stress and anxiety over his discovery of the program, his disclosure to the newspaper and the subsequent investigations related thereto have consumed many years."

Gene Shipp, who leads the attorney-prosecuting office as disciplinary counsel, told U.S. News in January the delay in filing charges against Tamm was the result of a backlog caused by receipt of about 1,000 complaints a year, less than half of which are investigated. Without commenting specifically about the Tamm case – which his office opened in 2009 – Shipp said his employees sometimes get out of the way while other agencies investigate a matter.

Georgetown University law professor Michael Frisch, who represents Tamm, declined to comment Thursday, as did Paul Kemp, one of two attorneys of record for Tamm in the disciplinary proceedings.