Methods and operations

The seized records describe a methodology built around the placement of Church members inside the targeted agencies in routine clerical positions, with operational support from outside personnel. Gerald Bennett Wolfe, a Church member, took a job as a typist at the IRS in Washington in 1974. Over the following two years he removed thousands of pages of internal IRS documents relating to the Church, photocopied them, and returned the originals. His operational handler outside the IRS was another Church member, Michael Meisner. Similar placements were made within the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence Office, and several foreign agencies.

Beyond document removal, the records document the placement of listening devices in agency offices (including in an IRS conference room used for an enforcement meeting concerning the Church), the entry of agency offices outside business hours, the use of false credentials to gain access to restricted areas, and an effort to obstruct an unrelated grand-jury proceeding that touched on Church matters. The Guardian Office maintained an internal training program for the operatives, with written instruction in approach techniques and operational security.

The targets identified in the Stipulation of Evidence include the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Customs Service, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Labor, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Medical Association, and several state and foreign agencies. The scope was characterized by the U.S. Attorney's office in the subsequent prosecution as among the largest infiltrations of federal agencies by any non-state organization in U.S. history.

The records establish that the operation was concentrated on document-holdings about the Church and its leadership specifically. The Stipulation of Evidence does not assert that the core functions of the targeted agencies were materially disrupted; the operational interest was the agencies' files on the Church, not their broader operations.