The organisation's standing in law is contested nearly everywhere, and most of what circulates about it is claim and counterclaim. One episode is different, because it was settled by prosecution rather than by argument, and the documents are in the public record.
Through the 1970s the church operated a programme, known internally as Operation Snow White, to remove unfavourable material about itself and its founder from government files. It went well beyond litigation and requests under freedom of information law. Members obtained employment inside federal agencies, copied documents and, in at least one instance, entered offices after hours. The agencies penetrated included the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation executed search warrants on church premises in Los Angeles and Washington in July 1977 and removed a very large quantity of internal documents. Eleven senior members were subsequently convicted, among them Mary Sue Hubbard, the founder's wife and the head of the office that ran the programme. It remains the largest documented infiltration of the United States federal government by a private body.
The church's later position has been that the conduct was the work of an office since disbanded and of people since removed. What is not in dispute is the conduct itself, because it was proved to the criminal standard, which is why this episode carries a different evidential weight from the rest of the literature about the organisation.