[Photo: inquisitr.com]

Earlier this month, Jeffrey Wertkin, a D.C. lawyer at Akin Gump was arrested trying to sell a copy of a whistleblower-induced lawsuit involving a company under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. .  [See financialish article, Akin Gump Lawyer Accused of Trying to Sell Whistleblower Lawsuit.]

Now, FBI agents are now questioning DOJ lawyers about their ex-colleague Wertkin, to determine whether someone inside the Justice Department sold him that information and if he might have sold other secrets while working there.

“They’re going to have to review all his cases,” said Glenn Grossenbacher, a San Antonio whistleblower attorney not involved in the case. “Did somebody give this case to him? Did he take it with him? Are there other cases involved? It’s a Pandora’s Box of questions.”

It isn’t just the FBI that wants answers. Whistleblowers need to know “a Justice Department official is not going to corruptly take advantage of that information for his or her own agenda, reporting back to that whistleblower’s company for a private deal,” said Neil Getnick, chairman of Taxpayers Against Fraud.

The case has riveted the legal community. Justice Department lawyers specializing in False Claims Act cases conduct their investigations in secret after whistleblowers file a lawsuit accusing companies of defrauding the government; in such cases, they have recovered $24 billion over 8 years. Companies usually don’t learn about a suit until the government nears the end of its probe.

SHOCKING TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS HIM.    Wertkin, 40, won a coveted job at the Justice Department in 2010. Working on cases related to health-care, he remained there until April 2016, when he left for a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Washington. His government pay was about $150,000 per year. At a firm like Akin Gump, where Wertkin defended companies sued under the whistleblower law, attorneys with his credentials earn as much as $600,000.

Wertkin cut an impressive figure among friends and colleagues. “Smart as a whip, good-looking, articulate,” said Jeremy Mayer, a political science professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, who was Wertkin’s business partner. “He was always the best-dressed guy in the room.”

Wertkin earned a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College, and a law degree and Ph.D in government from Georgetown University. “Never seemed to need money,” Mayer said.