DOJ watchdog finds 5 senior FBI officials acted improperly by staying at Dodgers game

Five senior FBI officials violated gift policies by staying to watch a Los Angeles Dodgers game after attending a security briefing, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found.

The five officials reportedly accepted an offer after the meeting had concluded to sit and watch the Oct. 15, 2018, playoff game at a table in the stadium’s club area with a view of the playing field.

“The officials held an executive management meeting at the table, discussed sensitive law enforcement information during the executive management meeting, and ate food from a buffet in the club that had a market value of more than $60 per person,” the OIG said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We found that two of the five FBI senior officials were primarily responsible for these violations. The OIG additionally concluded that one of the FBI senior officials violated FBI policy by consuming alcohol while on duty at the sporting event,” the watchdog added.

The FBI has since said it has reassigned the more senior official “primarily responsible” for the policy violations, according to the OIG.

The FBI was initially reported to be conducting the investigation in June, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported that tickets for that particular area would have cost between $100 and $138. While the bureau is frequently involved in developing security plans for sporting events that could be targets for terror attacks, it was unclear why multiple senior officials were present.

The incident also occurred in the midst of a federal investigation into reports that the team may have bribed foreign officials to help smuggle players from Cuba to the U.S., a probe led by the FBI’s Miami offices but also involving other offices, the Journal reported in 2019.