-Caveat Lector-
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Tuesday May 15 3:10 PM ET
Senators Criticize FBI
By CAROLYN SKORNECK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI (news - web sites) has had ``too many failures, too
many blunders'' of late - including its failure to turn over thousands of
documents to Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites)'s attorneys - and that is
undermining the confidence of the American people, the Senate Intelligence
Committee chairman said Tuesday.
``Any kind of failure at the FBI, anything that happens at the FBI that calls
into question something they did or failed to do leads to a lot of mistrust
with the American people,'' Sen. Richard Shelby (news - bio - voting record),
R-Ala., said after his committee met privately with FBI Director Louis Freeh.
Freeh told the senators that information in the newly found documents ``won't
have any bearing on the case,'' Shelby said. Reflecting a wariness of such
pronouncements, the senator added, ``We'll have to wait and see.''
``It's something that should not have happened, and it shows, probably, a
lack of diligence somewhere in the FBI,'' Shelby said. As the bureau's
director, Freeh is responsible, Shelby said, but he said others in the FBI
who failed to meet deadlines or follow orders ``ought to be brought to task.''
Freeh announced May 1 - a week before the FBI revealed the McVeigh documents
- that he would retire in June.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (news - bio - voting record), R-Utah, who chairs the
Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) that oversees the FBI, said of the
McVeigh documents: ``There's no question these mistakes should not have been
made in a high-profile case, or any case.''
``Every criminal defendant has the right to these types of materials and
we've got to live up to our responsibilities,'' said Hatch, who was not in
the Freeh hearing. ``We must see that those rights are protected.''
The FBI could be heading for some tough times in Congress after years of
almost unquestioned support.
Shelby called for ``a broad review of the FBI, its mission, its problems and
some solutions,'' Hatch plans Judiciary Committee hearings on the McVeigh
matter and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., intends to propose creation of a
separate inspector general for the FBI, supplanting the Justice Department
(news - web sites)'s IG there. The new IG would report to the Governmental
Affairs Committee. Durbin is on both that panel and the Judiciary Committee.
The Intelligence Committee briefing was ostensibly about longtime FBI agent
Robert Hanssen, arrested in February on charges of spying for Moscow for 15
years.
But the talk moved to the McVeigh case, and, of particular concern to Shelby,
the case of the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, Ala., that killed four black girls.
``From what I've learned recently, the FBI had information which they never
furnished first to our former attorney general, Bill Baxley, when he reopened
the bombing case'' in the 1970s, ``and only recently furnished it to the U.S.
attorney's office in Birmingham.''
The information - including hundreds of hours of tape recordings - helped win
the May 1 murder convictions of Thomas Blanton Jr., 62, a former Ku Klux
Klansman.
The three-decade withholding of information infuriated Baxley, who convicted
ex-Klansman Robert Chambliss when he reopened the probe in the 1970s.
``What excuse can the FBI have for allowing Mr. Blanton to go free for 24
years with this smoking gun evidence hidden in its files?'' Baxley wrote in a
May 3 commentary in The New York Times.
-
*COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107,
any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use
without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational
purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ]
Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists!
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
