Methodology in action.

Each case study follows the same structure: What was the pattern? What was the Phase Two investigation? What was the documented finding? What made it hold?

What this section may cover

• The Church Committee (1975). How a formal investigative body moved from pattern — reported abuses, scattered press coverage — to public record — COINTELPRO files, NSA program documents — to durable finding.
• The Office of Special Investigations (OSI). How the U.S. Department of Justice built war crimes cases from immigration records, archival cross-referencing, and witness testimony — never from name patterns. The cleanest demonstration of the institutional distinction.
• The Corporate Historical Commissions (Quandt, Reimann). How documented asset-transfer records and commissioned independent historians produced findings about postwar corporate continuity that the firms ultimately had to admit.
• The IWG Declassification. How the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act produced the evidentiary record on postwar intelligence recruitment — an example of legislation forcing the public record into existence.
• The Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art (1998). Institutional accountability through documented provenance — how a soft-law standard moved museums from plausible denial to plausible admission about specific objects.

Status

Entries publish as each case study completes its Phase Two review. The work is to find what the documentary record actually supports — not to assemble a curated narrative. Updates announced through the Plausible Denial editorial cycle.