Opinion ID: 463530
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Cover Letter Issue

Text: 3 The controversial FBI information about Perry was contained in a five-page memorandum which was excised before distribution to protect informants. This memorandum was not compiled for employment purposes, but was the result of an FBI criminal investigation because of allegations, which the United States Attorney declined to prosecute, that Perry had impersonated a federal officer. The memorandum states that what it contains constitutes neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI, and says nothing one way or the other about hiring Perry. 4 In Part I of the original panel opinion the possibility is suggested that a separate letter, characterized as a cover letter, may have accompanied the FBI memorandum to the agencies. That cover letter stated that the FBI report clearly reflects Perry's unstable nature. The majority opinion states, however, that the record does not disclose if in fact this cover letter was actually distributed to the interested federal agencies. Moreover, Judge Marovitz in his conscientious consideration of this case in a series of memorandum opinions makes no mention of the cover letter, but does note that the first page of the memorandum itself clearly sets forth the admonishment that it contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI. 5 Perry now argues in a supplemental brief filed after oral argument that by including the cover letter along with the five-page memorandum as an exhibit to his complaint he at least indirectly alleged its distribution by the FBI to the law enforcement agencies. Perry argues that he also specifically averred that the FBI report was accompanied by the FBI cover letter. He did, but that is a little misleading. What he actually stated in his district court affidavit was that the five-page memorandum, prepared in the Chicago FBI office for Bureau Headquarters in Washington, was accompanied by the cover letter. There is no averment that FBI Headquarters then forwarded the cover letter to the agencies. Quite to the contrary, Perry's affidavit continually refers only to the distribution to the agencies of the five-page memorandum. With the cover letter it would have been six pages. It appears that the present cover letter issue on appeal was prompted only by the reference to it in the original panel opinion. 6 Our own examination of the cover letter reveals that it did not purport to be a cover letter conveying the report to the requesting agencies. It was instead, even as Perry states in his affidavit when considered in context, an in-house memorandum from the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Chicago office, where the report was compiled, addressed to the Director, FBI, Washington, D.C., enclosing the report of the closed investigation of Perry. That was prior to this employment problem. That cover letter found its way into this record because the FBI made it available to Perry along with more than a hundred other FBI documents in response to Perry's request under the Privacy Act. Nothing in the record suggests that this cover letter was or even may have been distributed to the requesting agencies. The FBI, therefore, expressed no opinions to the other agencies about Perry. The FBI internally may have viewed Perry as unstable, but it kept that view to itself. In his post-argument brief Perry concedes that dissemination of the cover letter is not essential to his liberty interest claim, only the five-page memorandum itself. Therefore, we no longer consider the cover letter to be a factor.