Biden DOJ Wants Identity Of NoVA Woman's Employer Kept Secret

NORTHERN VIRGINIA — The U.S. government wants to keep secret the employment details of a Northern Virginia woman accused in the traffic death of a British teenager in 2019.

Harry Dunn, 19, was struck and killed on his motorcycle when Anne Sacoolas drove head-on into his motorcycle in August 2019 near RAF Croughton, a military base in England known to be used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Last Friday, lawyers for the U.S. government filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria where the Dunn family filed a lawsuit in 2020, arguing that the details of Sacoolas’ employment should not be released in the interests of “national security.”

On Aug. 27, 2019, Sacoolas was driving a British Volvo SUV on the wrong side of the road when she crashed into Dunn. Sacoolas and her family left England soon after the crash. In the nearly two years since the crash, Sacoolas has not disputed that she was driving on the wrong side of the road when she collided with Dunn.

British prosecutors announced in December 2019 that Sacoolas would be charged with causing death by dangerous driving and that it was starting extradition proceedings against her. But in January 2020, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused the extradition request.

When they realized Sacoolas would not face justice in the U.K., Dunn’s parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, filed a lawsuit in September 2020 against Sacoolas and her husband Jonathan in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Dunn’s parents are seeking both compensatory and punitive damages against Anne and Jonathan Sacoolas.

In its July 23 motion for a protective order, the U.S. Justice Department said disclosure of the Sacoolas’ employer could “reasonably be expected” to have an effect “on national security.”

The identity of the employer of Sacoolas and her husband remains unclear. Sacoolas has been referred to as a "diplomat's wife" in numerous news articles.

However, during a court hearing in February in the civil case, Sacoolas's lawyer, John McGavin, said she worked for a U.S. "intelligence agency" and that this had been "a factor" in her decision to leave the U.K. after the collision.

A moment later in the court hearing, McGavin corrected himself, saying she worked for the U.S. State Department, the BBC reported.

RELATED: NoVA Woman Who Fled UK After Crash Could Face 'Virtual Trial'

U.S. government employees stationed overseas are provided detailed information about the laws in the countries where they are working. For employees stationed in the U.K., a great emphasis is placed on ensuring they are aware that the left side is the legal side of the road on which to drive.

In their motion, U.S. Justice Department lawyers argued that the details of who Sacoolas was working for in the U.K. should play no part in the civil case because “information concerning the United States Government has little to no relevance to an adjudication of any remaining issues in this case.”

“Specifically, although the United States takes no position on the ultimate disposition of this private lawsuit, it has a substantial interest in certain limited information at risk of disclosure in further proceedings in this litigation because of the effect disclosure of such information may reasonably be anticipated to have on the national security of the United States,” the Justice Department said.

Lawyers for the Dunn family, in a filing with the court on Monday, argued that the Justice Department’s proposed protective order “contains imprecise, broad language that could be used to exclude information that is both relevant to Plaintiffs’ case and does not implicate the Government’s interests.”

“Contrary to the Government brief, this is not a case where Ms. Sacoolas has fully accepted responsibility simply by admitting that she was on the wrong side of the road,” the Dunn family lawyers wrote.

Radd Seiger, adviser and spokesperson for the Dunn family, said in a statement Monday that "as any parent might imagine, losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to you.”

“But having to deal with the U.S. Government’s abuse and denial of justice as Harry’s family have had to since he died is unprecedented for us here in the U.K.," he said. “Their conduct is and continues to be frankly unAmerican and against the core values of decency and compassion that we know most Americans hold dear to their hearts, including those who work for the intelligence agencies, many of whom have come forward to us privately to tell us how ashamed they are of their employer.”

Lawyers for Anne Sacoolas had not responded to a request for comment at the time this article was published.

One-Sided Relationship

Among the Justice Department officials who signed the motion for a protective order was Raj Parekh, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and an appointee of the Biden administration.

In an ironic twist, Parekh supervises hundreds of Justice Department attorneys, including many who are seeking the extradition of foreign nationals to the United States.

The most prominent case currently under Parekh’s direction is the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, from the U.K. to the United States to face charges under the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917.

David Davis, a Conservative member of the U.K. Parliament, wrote in an op-ed on Saturday that his government appears to have a one-sided relationship with the United States on the issue of extradition.

“[T]he UK is one of most amenable nations in the world to the surrender of its citizens to overseas courts — but we do not insist on corresponding arrangements with other governments,” Davis wrote in his July 24 column for the Daily Mail.

“The most egregious current example is America’s refusal to send intelligence officer Anne Sacoolas back to Britain to face justice after being charged with causing death by dangerous driving over the death of a teenage motorcyclist on a road in Northamptonshire,” Davis wrote.

Prior to leaving for their three-year assignment at RAF Croughton, the Sacoolas family reportedly lived in Vienna, a few miles from CIA headquarters in Langley.

Around Sept. 15, 2019, less than three weeks after the crash that killed Dunn, Sacoolas and her family reportedly left the country on a military flight to avoid prosecution. Upon returning to Northern Virginia, Sacoolas, a native of Aiken, South Carolina, and her family rented a house in Herndon.

Sacoolas’ employment with the U.S. government could have been significant if it had been known prior to her leaving the U.K., CNN reported Monday. At the time, it was reported that Sacoolas was "a diplomat's wife." The U.S. and U.K. agreed in the mid-1990s, according to the article, that U.S. intelligence officers posted to RAF Croughton would not be able to claim diplomatic immunity for any criminal incidents that occur outside the U.S. base.

Sacoolas is scheduled to be deposed by the Dunn family’s lawyers on Aug. 24 as part of the lawsuit against her and her husband. Dunn’s parents were deposed in the civil proceeding in early July.

At Sacoolas's deposition, “she will be questioned regarding her activity as she drove from the base to the accident scene, and Plaintiffs are deeply concerned that the Government’s motion will needlessly thwart a legitimate inquiry on this and other relevant subjects,” the Dunn family lawyers wrote in their court filing on Monday.

Seiger, the spokesperson for the Dunn family, said the July 23 motion filed by the Justice Department “is not an attempt to protect state secrets or national security."

"It is an attempt to keep Harry’s family from the truth and minimize what happened to him,” he said.