https://fas.org/irp/congress/1998_rpt/sgo-sir/2-18.htm
Throughout its investigation, the Committee has firmly
believed it is important for the American people to be made
aware of as much of the information set forth in this section
of the report as possible. Yet, getting to the bottom of such
matters and also sharing the Committee's findings has been an
extremely difficult process. The first difficulty derives from
the nature of the information itself. Some of the information
provided to the Committee requires the protection of sources
and methods used to gather it, which has placed significant
limits on the Committee's ability to discuss these matters
publicly. That protection is a legitimate concern, but it has
come at the cost of curtailing public knowledge and debate. The
Justice Department for the most part would not reveal matters
that were the subject of its ongoing criminal investigation.
While Justice's concern is understandable, it limits
Congressional oversight and makes it even more important that
prosecutorial decisions be handled in a way that ensures public
confidence.
The second difficulty is more complex and, ultimately, more
troublesome. The Committee dealt at length with various law
enforcement and intelligence agencies in developing portions of
the information set forth above and observed a recurring
problem: the failure to share relevant, classified information.
The failure meant that no one agency had a complete picture of
all the relevant information in a particular area and, indeed,
a given agency might be unaware of all the relevant information
it held within its various sections or departments. The
clearest example of this involved the FBI and the Justice
Department. In two major instances FBI headquarters and Justice
were unaware of crucial information located in FBI field office
files, information months and sometimes years old. The
information came to light only as a result of persistent
Committee probing. These lapses are currently the subject of a
Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG)
investigation. The Committee has cooperated with OIG
investigators and will continue to monitor their progress. The
inability of the Bureau to locate certain intelligence
information denied the campaign finance criminal task force
timely access to important classified materials. By the time
the information was surfaced and passed along, some or all of
it might have grown stale.
It is the Committee's hope that, for the sake of future
criminal investigations, steps are taken by intelligence and
law enforcement agencies to ensure that such lapses do not
reoccur. In that regard, the Committee intends to review any
recommendations made by the OIG on improving how such
information is shared.
these problems have been going on since the 90's