-Caveat Lector-
Top FBI Officials Facing Inquiry
Retaliation Alleged In Ruby Ridge Probe
By George Lardner Jr. and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 9, 2001; Page A01
The Justice Department's inspector general has opened an investigation of
alleged retaliation by senior FBI officials against agents who uncovered
flaws in the bureau's handling of the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and
its aftermath.
Investigators want to determine whether one agent's career was derailed and
another was threatened for their pursuit of FBI abuses during the 11-day
incident and the shortcomings of the bureau's reviews of who was
responsible.
The probe, officials said, also will delve into broader complaints about a
double standard of discipline at the FBI that many agents say serves to
protect top managers from punishment and has sapped morale.
In particular, they said, the probe will examine the Justice Department's
decision last January not to censure FBI Director Louis J. Freeh or
discipline three other FBI veterans in the Ruby Ridge case. Freeh, who
retired in June, may be interviewed, officials said.
The investigation is at least the sixth review of FBI conduct ordered in
recent months, as news of a spy scandal, misplaced documents in the
Oklahoma City bombing case and missing weapons has spilled from FBI
headquarters.
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine is heading the Ruby Ridge probe, which has
been underway since late spring. Fine's office last month was given broader
powers to monitor the FBI.
Many rank-and-file FBI agents have long complained that top bureau
officials have covered for each other during controversies. A 1999 internal
report found that members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) were far
less likely to be disciplined for most complaints than other employees.
Freeh responded by giving a single panel power over discipline for all
employees, disbanding an SES board.
Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general who was
frequently rebuffed in his attempts to investigate the FBI, said a probe
into allegations of retaliation would focus attention on charges that a
"culture of arrogance" within the bureau thwarts accountability and outside
oversight.
Fine's Ruby Ridge inquiry was triggered by the protests of agents who spent
years examining the inadequacies of the FBI's early reviews of the bloody
siege. The wife of separatist Randy Weaver, their 14-year-old son and a
federal marshal were killed in the siege.
The agents -- John E. Roberts, John Werner and Frank L. Perry -- said they
were outraged when they learned that final recommendations for disciplinary
action against Freeh and three other FBI veterans had been rejected in the
closing days of the Clinton administration.
The agents, who had been detached from the FBI to work on the case for the
Justice Department, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that
they had been subjected to threats and retaliation by senior FBI officials
for conducting an aggressive investigation. Censure, the mildest form of
discipline, was proposed for Freeh.
They were also openly critical of their boss at the FBI's Office of
Professional Responsibility, Assistant FBI Director Michael DeFeo. Perry
said DeFeo fought their recommendation to clear the names of three agents
who, the agents concluded, had been unfairly disciplined in 1994 for
failures at Ruby Ridge.
An FBI spokesman said DeFeo would not comment on the criticism.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and a
Justice Management Division task force recommended the sanctions against
Freeh and the others. But Stephen R. Colgate, then assistant attorney
general for administration, decided on Jan. 3, 2001, to impose "no new
discipline" in the Ruby Ridge case and not to rescind any earlier
punishments.
The prime target of the alleged retaliation was Roberts. He testified that
he came under pressure "almost immediately" after he and Werner were
assigned in May 1995 to determine whether earlier reviews of Ruby Ridge had
unfairly blamed lower-level officials.
Roberts said he and Werner were told by senior FBI executives "that our
assignment to the Ruby Ridge investigation could have an impact on our
careers." Roberts said his wife, an FBI support employee, was hounded from
her job in the Boston division and that his attempts to win a promotion
have been rejected 14 times.
Werner testified that Roberts "has had his career seriously impaired
because of his hard work on a number of high-profile cases," including Ruby
Ridge. Werner said in an interview that he, too, was subjected to threats,
but they had no impact because, unlike Roberts, he stayed out of the FBI's
career development program. He is now retired.
Justice Department officials have declined to comment on the specific
claims of retaliation.
The Ruby Ridge siege in northern Idaho began with a shootout between
camouflaged federal marshals and Weaver; his son, Sammy; and a family
friend, Kevin Harris. Sammy Weaver and U.S. Marshal William Degan were
killed.
The next morning, with hundreds of lawmen surrounding the Weavers'
mountainside cabin, an FBI sniper shot and killed Vicki Weaver as she stood
behind the cabin door, holding it open for others fleeing into the house.
Initial FBI inquiries, which focused on the unprecedented shoot-to-kill
orders the snipers had been given, were conducted by friends of some of the
highest-ranking targets of the reviews -- then-Assistant Director Larry
Potts and his top deputy in the Ruby Ridge crisis, Danny Coulson, who
supervised the siege from FBI headquarters.
The second inquiry asserted that on-site commander Eugene Glenn had issued
the shoot-to-kill orders, without the knowledge of anyone at FBI
headquarters. Of the 12 agents disciplined by Freeh in January 1994, Glenn
received the stiffest punishment, a 15-day suspension and a demotion.
Roberts, then working in the FBI's Boston division, and Werner, a street
agent in Raleigh, N.C., were assigned to the case in response to Glenn's
complaint that he was being made a scapegoat. Glenn said that Potts
approved the shoot-to-kill rules and that Coulson knew about them.
Werner said he and Roberts soon became convinced that senior FBI officials
assigned to the early inquiries had conducted "a sloppy and incomplete
investigation to protect higher-ups." The two agents' work quickly led to
the suspension of Potts, Coulson and several others, as well as a criminal
investigation.
But Roberts said they discovered they were investigating popular executives
who had "a great deal of support from many in the FBI."
Shortly after he was assigned to the Ruby Ridge case, Roberts testified, a
senior FBI executive in the Boston division demanded he quit and return to
the Boston area. When Roberts declined, the executive threatened to have
him removed and began "to take out his anger on my wife, a support employee
in the Boston division" until she requested a transfer.
Roberts said when he told one deputy FBI director about the senior
executive's actions, "the deputy director responded that the senior
executive was his friend." Roberts said "the final decision not to promote
me" was made by "one of the senior executives against whom I made
allegations."
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
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The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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