By John Solomon
Opinion Contributor

Of all the agencies in the federal government that should be immune to special-interest schmoozing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its premier law enforcement agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives top the list.

Their independence from influence, and their integrity in meting out the law fairly, are essential to their success and the trust the American public places in them.

But this week, the DOJ’s internal watchdog put a rare spotlight on gratuities inside the department when it revealed that a former FBI official accepted free sporting event tickets from a television reporter.

Neither the giver nor the recipient was named in the report, and officials sought to gloss over the finding as an aberration.

But, in fact, there is a systemic system of gratuities invading the ranks of the DOJ, one that is sanctioned at the highest levels of the department and that involves some its most sensitive personnel.

Hundreds of pages of rarely reviewed Office of Government Ethics (OGE) filings reveal that over the past three years, DOJ under both Democratic and Republican presidents has allowed hundreds of its employees to accept free travel, lodging and food from special interests across the globe.

The junkets have taken senior DOJ officials and front-line agents to some of the world’s most desirable locations — Sao Paulo, Brazil, in February, Panama City in March, Morocco in May, and Paris in October, to name a few — as well as exotic locations such as the scenic Indian Ocean island of Mauritius and the glamorously modern Arabian Peninsula city of Dubai.

The hosts footing the bill often have a strong policy or investigative interest in the agencies whose employees they schmooze, or were controlled by foreign governments.

Take, for example, the government of Qatar, which spent more than $10,000 to bring two FBI employees and two assistant U.S. attorneys to speak at conferences or training events in Doha in spring and fall of 2017.