The New J. Edgar Hoover
Bovard, James
James Bovard The New J. Edgar Hoover Clinton FBI director Louis Freeh runs an agency inclined to destroy evidence of its botched investigations. Now he is pushing the most ambitious program of...
...Saranow had close social ties with the Marciano brothers, owners of Guess...
...In fact, the agency had nothing with which to build a case...
...The New York Times described the settlement as a"near rout" of the government, and declared, "The biggest winner in the case may be Louis Farrakhan...
...questioning Louis Freeh on the same subject, asked: "Where would you have drawn the line to differentiate that tax protester from any other person that's just mad about paying taxes...
...President Clinton called him "a brilliant investigator, a tough prosecutor, a born leader," and the Economist gushed that Freeh "boast[ed] perfect qualifications for the job...
...He also revealed that he had been named in a search warrant in a federal investigation of fraud in the rare coin business...
...This is a peculiar guide for law enforcement in a free society...
...marshal admitted that the conflict began when a marshal shot and killed one of the Weavers' dogs...
...But other federal officials testified at the trial that no helicopters were flying in the vicinity of the Weavers' cabin at the time of the FBI sniping...
...I know how If the FBI actually had the goods on Shabazz, of course, then letting her off the hook with a promise to see a therapist makes a mockery of Freeh's "tough on crime" rhetoric...
...The report notes that the FBI fought disclosing a two-page document summarizing its critique of the action of the U.S...
...Shabazz later claimed her confession had been "coerced...
...Gene Glenn, an FBI official who helped manage Ruby Ridge and received a heavier sanction (fifteen days of unpaid leave) than did Potts, formally protested the promotion on May 3, accusing FBI officials of engaging in a cover-up to protect Potts...
...attorney's office, whose reports were sent east for further review...
...If Freeh does not actually hold the freedom of the American people in contempt, he seems to have little grasp of why the FBI's arrogance has angered so many citizens...
...In press accounts, Potts was the only name that came up again and again among Freeh's friends at the FBI...
...In 1989, an undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) approached Weaver and sought to get him to sell some sawed-off shotguns...
...The task force produced a 542-page report evaluating the government's action on Ruby Ridge...
...marshals—outfitted in full camouflage and ski masks, and toting sub-machine guns—came onto the property and shot one of Weaver's dogs...
...Guns and Butter Freeh has also been on a crusade to increase the agency's budget...
...Freeh announced that only minor sanctions would be imposed on the agents involved in the killing of Vicki and Sammy Weaver...
...I don't distinguish between those...
...Weaver's home was little more than a rickety cabin built with wood left over from local sawmills...
...T he opening statement by the U.S...
...His implication is that the only decent attitude an American should have toward his government is blind trust, if not blind adoration...
...The marshal's death sent the government into a frenzy...
...I've spent, without getting—this is not a guilt thing here, OK—I've spent thousands of dollars...
...The government will provide $500 million to help the companies pay for the development and installation of the new technology and equipment...
...The commander of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team was Freeh justified the FBI shooting of Randy Weaver because sniper Horiuchi "observed one of the suspects raise a weapon in the direction of a helicopter carrying other FBI personnel...
...Encryption software allows individuals to send messages between computers that cannot be read by third parties...
...Alfonse James Bovard is the author of Shakedown (coming from Viking Penguin this September) and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St...
...The FBI is not only asking the industry to dumb down existing software, it wants to prohibit it from developing new technologies that might interfere with the government's ability to intercept various oral and electronic communications...
...It is especially ludicrous for an FBI chief to express amazement at people's fear of the government, when the FBI itself trampled many citizens' rights in the 1950s and 1960s with burglaries, illegal wiretaps, character assassination, and intimidation—and when the FBI refuses to admit any misconduct in more recent debacles such as Ruby Ridge...
...Freeh had been making a name for himself since 1975, when he first joined the FBI and worked on several prominent Mafia cases...
...The probe had been instigated by Ronald Saranow, chief of the Los Angeles office of the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS...
...Freeh toured east Europe and Russia extensively last year at government expense, ostensibly to discuss nuclear terrorism and the threat posed by smugglers of parts and nuclear material...
...In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Freeh emphatically repeated that FBI officials were guilty of "no misconduct" in the case...
...preaching the need for international law enforcement to nations that, by U.S...
...Robert Scott (D-Va...
...As Weaver lifted the latch on the shack's door, he was shot from behind by FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi...
...This is the same explanation that U.S...
...Send me.'" Though by all accounts hard-working and dedicated, Louis Freeh appears to be turning into the kind of Beltway insider Americans instinctively distrust...
...Fitzpatrick was a government informant who had been busted on cocaine charges in 1993, and faced five years in prison if convicted...
...Horiuchi shot Vicki Weaver in the temple, killing her instantly...
...Weaver refused to become an informant against the group...
...however, the sniper claimed at the trial that he was shooting at Kevin Harris, the family friend staying in the cabin, who was near the door and not even accused of aiming at the helicopter...
...Freeh declared, "The question is whether someone running into a fortified position who is going to shoot at you is as much a threat to you as somebody turning in an open space and pointing a gun at you...
...to see which one could evoke the closest personal association with the nominee...
...The case has become still more prominent since the bombing at Oklahoma City, due to the widespread perception of federal abuses and cover-ups at Ruby Ridge that has been a major cause of the militia movement...
...The new law also gives the attorney general authority to approve or disapprove new technology used by phone companies and other communication makers...
...Weiss's affidavit declared that, although Freeh and Hellerer were aware of the problems with the witness's statements, they "agreed that we should proceed to elicit [the witness's] version of events" for court testimony...
...I mean I'm basically set to go...
...His grab for greater influence comes at a time when his beleaguered agency is facing public hostility and skepticism wider than in the final years of J. Edgar Hoover...
...In October 1993, Freeh lavishly praised FBI agents for demonstrating "great excellence" during the Waco confrontation: "I am quite satisfied with the operational aspects, planning aspects, chain-of-command aspects and leadership aspects of that operation...
...The BATF targeted Weaver because they wanted to use the threat of criminal charges against him to force him to become an informant for the government against the Aryan Nation, a racist group with violent tendencies...
...The Clinton administration has also announced plans to reinterpret the guidelines under which the FBI conducts surveillance of domestic political organizations...
...Gorelick told the Senate Judiciary Committee that even "without a reasonable indication of a crime, a preliminary indication can be undertaken...
...The subjects were never given a chance to drop their arms to show that they did not pose a threat...
...FBI transcripts of thirty-eight calls that Fitzpatrick made to Shabazz reveal that Fitzpatrick did most of the talking, and kept returning the conversation to the killing of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam minister whom Betty Shabazz—Malcolm's widow and Qubilah's mother—has long believed was involved in her husband's murder...
...However, it turned out that the child did not have a machine gun...
...CP The specter of children running around on school buses with machine guns no doubt served Freeh's purpose in whipping up support for a proposed assault-weapons ban in Congress...
...Potts denies that he read them...
...The subjects simply did what any person would do under the circumstances...
...jeans, a Jordache competitor...
...Actually, an Idaho jury ruled that Weaver had been entrapped, and convicted him only of failing to show up for the trial in 1991...
...Thanks to Freeh's lobbying efforts, the Digital Telephony and Communications Privacy Improvement Act was passed last year...
...Four hundred government agents, armed with night-vision scopes, automatic weapons, and sniper rifles, swarmed in the mountains around the cabin...
...It took three years before Freeh, the federal prosecutor in charge of the investigation, dropped all charges against the company and closed the investigation...
...Assaultweapons have played a minimal role in violent crime in recent years...
...In his letter to the head of the Justice Department's Office of Responsibility, Glenn complained that the FBI's review of the Ruby Ridge case was incomplete and compro32 The American Spectator August 1995 mised by flaws that "reveal a purpose to create scapegoats and false impressions...
...Janet Reno announced Potts's promotion on May 2. The move led to denunciations by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal...
...Freeh justified the sniper attack by saying, "The suspects neither surrendered nor dropped their weapons...
...government prosecutions of the decade...
...Apparently, since he was in the vicinity of Randy Weaver, that was sufficient reason for the FBI to attempt to kill him...
...Paying to Have Our Phones Tapped One of the most alarming aspects of Freeh's lust for power has been his push to expand the FBI's ability to tap telephones...
...Attorney Rudolph] Giuliani did more to make his successes possible than Freeh...
...Freeh told Congress that preserving the ability to intercept communications legally is "the number-one law enforcement, public safety and national security issue facing us today...
...he merely had a .22 semi-automatic rifle, which fires only one bullet with each pull of the trigger...
...Judge Lodge issued a lengthy list detailing the Justice Department's misconduct, fabrication of evidence, and refusals to obey court orders...
...The FBI claimed that Weaver had been convicted of the original weapons violations charge...
...and White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum...
...When [U.S...
...Saranow was in a conflict-of-interest situation...
...A court official then sent him the wrong day to appear in court, and when Weaver did not show up, Justice Department attorney Ron Howen, who knew he'd been sent incorrect information, secured a warrant for Weaver's arrest...
...However, it turned out that the child did not have a machine gun...
...A Justice Department task force, including FBI officials, investigated the FBI's handling of the Weaver case and recommended that criminal prosecution be considered for several FBI officials...
...Roy Neel, president of the United States Telephone Association, complained that to assure access at any given time, all telephone companies will have to post someone as a "law enforcement liaison" at all times—or risk a $10,000 a day fine or even being shut down entirely...
...From Dillon's comment, Lindquist was concerned that someone from the Bureau might be contemplating destroying the document so that it would not have to be produced...
...Sadly, I am astounded at these developments, as I think most Americans are...
...He left in 1981 to become a federal prosecutor in New York, and distinguished himself with further attacks on the Mob, as well as by solving a prominent mail-bombing case...
...Time reported, "Throughout the seven month investigation, Freeh says, Fitzpatrick's FBI handlers were overseen by bureau supervisors and the U.S...
...30 The American Spectator August 1995 called in from Washington, D.C., and ordered federal agents to shoot to kill...
...It requires telephone and cable television companies to modify their equipment by 1998 to make it easier for the FBI to conduct wiretaps...
...He pressured congressional lawmakers to force the nation's telephone companies to change their technology to make wiretaps far easier, even though there was little or no evidence that the FBI needed additional access into people's communications in order to carry out wiretaps...
...Just as distressing, the Justice Department report indicated that FBI officials openly considered destroying evidence relating to the Weaver case...
...Lindquist advised strenuously against such action...
...Shortly after Freeh's installation as director, newspaper reports listed Potts as "a longtime Freeh intimate" (Washington Post), an "old pal" (Time), and the one specific person to whom Freeh had "close ties" (New York Times...
...Randy Weaver lived with his wife and four children in an isolated cabin in the Idaho mountains...
...Freeh was also satisfied that Horiuchi's second shot—the one that killed Vicki Weaver—was justified, and that the killing was accidental...
...Freeh was also a supervising attorney in the prosecution of E. Robert Wallach, an associate of Reagan attorney general Edwin Meese, who was convicted in 1989 for his role in the Wedtech scandal...
...Freeh's allegation that Weaver was "running into a fortified position" is an absurdiMasaitis that he would rather see a mistrial than produce the marshals' critique in discovery...
...The legislation allows for the use of illegal wiretaps in court, and also permits "roving wiretaps"—covering a large number of pay phones in the hopes of catching some lawbreaker...
...Freeh showed similar willful blindness in evaluating his agency's performance at Waco, where Potts commanded the final attack on the Branch Davidian compound...
...Martin's...
...In the wake of his tenure thus far, it seems Freeh's views on police abuse are manufactured solely for export...
...Some east Europeans were openly skeptical of Freeh's advocacy of undercover sting operations and wiretaps—trademarks of the old Soviet Bloc regimes...
...Yet the Idaho jury found Weaver innocent of almost all charges, and ruled that Kevin Harris—who shot and killed a U.S...
...Freeh has been either manipulative or naive when he speaks of public concern about government abuses...
...Freeh responded quite seriously, "No, we wouldn't have the resources to do that...
...In response, Kevin Harris, a family friend who was living at the cabin, was also present, shot one of the marshals...
...Claiming they "provide a source of strength and power to American criminal elements," he called for a ban on these weapons, "not just a ban on importation, but a ban on domestic manufacture and a ban on distribution of these weapons of death...
...Who will go for us?' `Here I am, I said...
...Yet, as Dan Freedman noted in the San Francisco Examiner, "There was irony in the top law enforcement official of a violence-ridden nation like the U.S...
...He has skillfully played the Oklahoma City bombing to his advantage, pretending to be sorely in need of money for his anti-terrorism crusade, while instead indulging his appetite for bureaucratic self-aggrandizement...
...attorney at Weaver's trial painted him as part of a vast conspiracy to overthrow the U.S...
...There is widespread and justified fear among both liberals and conservatives that the Clinton administration could use the new wiretap authority to go after vast numbers of critics of government policy who pose no threat of violence...
...For the police, more than any other segment of society or government, the rule of law must always remain sacrosanct...
...Imagine the witness then privately admitting to the prosecutors that he has just told a false cover story and offered them a revised story so preposterous that a child could see through it...
...No wiretap against alleged terrorists has been requested since 1988...
...In a speech in Poland on the Holocaust, Freeh declared, "Those trusted to protect the people become the instruments of terror...
...Wallach's conviction was overturned in 1991, when an appeals court concluded that the government had ignored or covered up blatant perjury by its main witness...
...Freeh told the National Press Club in December 1993, "The Bureau's behavior and performance [at Waco] was not only exemplary but showed the greatest restraint and they did the best possible job under the most difficult circumstances...
...Imagine them vouching for the witness's truthfulness in their summations...
...Now he is pushing the most ambitious program of federal surveillance since the Watergate era...
...On December 20, 1994, FBI agents entered Shabazz's apartment without a warrant, lied to her about the reason for their visit (they claimed to be investigating Fitzpatrick), and pressured her into signing a confession...
...Potts Rehabilitated The most controversial aspect of Freeh's handling of the Ruby Ridge case was his recommendation of a promotion for Larry Potts, the senior official in charge of the Idaho operation...
...I've got everything...
...The Freeh-Potts connection could become crucial cabin were not aggressive, but rather protective or defensive...
...attorney in the case...
...that turned into one of the most abusive U.S...
...he merely had a .22 semi-automatic rifle, which fires only one bullet with each pull of the trigger...
...Weaver, a "white separatist," did not favor or endorse violence against any race...
...Ominously, there is probably a higher percentage of people now who believe that government is an immediate threat to their rights and liberties than the percentage in 1775 who actively supported the American Revolution against the British...
...standards, appear relatively tame when it comes to crime...
...World Be Freeh If Freeh is not afraid of the NRA, he is certainly not afraid of the CIA, as he's moved to expand the FBI's counterintelligence efforts...
...28 The American Spectator August 1995 Meanwhile his easy way around Washington's corridors is helping to nourish a sense of self-righteousness...
...were initiated based solely on the information brought to the Government by the Marcianos and championed by Ronald Saranow while Mr...
...Last November, he issued a special report to FBI employees—also hyped to major media—that claimed budget cuts were gravely endangering FBI agents, who did not have sufficient ammunition for target practice...
...In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in April, Freeh warned, "An even more difficult problem with court authorized wiretaps looms: powerful encryption that is becoming more commonplace...
...Attorney Kim] Lindquist tried to explain to Dillon the serious repercussions that would occur if the government failed to produce the critique in discovery but later produced it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, Dillon responded that the document had come from someone's desk and was not in any official file that would be searched for a FOIA request...
...Freeh's wording implies that the bullet first hit the "intended target" and then hit The American Spectator August 1995 31 Vicki Weaver...
...I mean, are you going to subject them all to wiretaps to find out...
...But phone companies estimate that the actual cost of installing wire devices on every phone line will be much higher, and could cost consumers billions of dollars per year...
...However, the bullet first passed through Vicki Weaver's head before hitting Kevin Harris...
...Freeh's letter implies that the "intended target" was Randy Weaver...
...Freeh later bragged in a speech back home that he had met with five heads of state during his foray...
...He has reassigned 70 agents to pursue environmental crime, and 156 agents to pursue health-care fraud—two areas sure to win brownie points with the Clinton administration...
...By late March, the official line, as reported in the New York Times, had changed entirely: "Justice Department officials in Washington said today that senior officials played no role in the decision to pay Mr...
...attorneys' handling of the dishonest witness...
...If Waco is Freeh's idea of FBI restraint, what could he possibly consider an excess...
...Yet while crying poor, Freeh has had no difficulty finding money to finance his own pet projects...
...Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick fanned such flames when she told a House International Relations Committee that tax protesters could be one type of "criminal" targeted by the expanded wiretap authority...
...But Weaver had never fired upon the FBI agents—he was merely a wounded man trying to struggle into his home and the arms of his family...
...The specter of children running around on school buses with machine guns no doubt served Freeh's purpose in whipping up support for a proposed assault-weapons ban in Congress...
...But other federal officials testified at the trial that no helicopters were flying in the vicinity of the Weavers' cabin at the time of the FBI sniping...
...I don't need anything from you...
...D'Amato, President Bush nominated him for a federal judgeship in 1990...
...And a look into a handful of Freeh's early courtroom efforts makes it unlikely that he will be a fit judge of the public interest in most cases...
...Freeh declared, "Every citizen—to say nothing of public officials—should try to imagine the dangers, the sheer lunacy, of FBI agents not even having enough bullets...
...Freeh's tough-on-crime posture gets the Capitol Hill pols to roll over—he ignored the Clinton administration's budget request for his agency last year, and instead lobbied for, and won, a larger appropriation...
...Freeh said he was 'aware' of the investigation though he 'did not review all the details.' Nevertheless, 'I'm satisfied that we were well within the law,'" Freeh said...
...The American Spectator August 1995 35...
...Deval Patrick, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, rejected the recommendations in the report, deciding that excessive force had not been used...
...Weaver was depicted as a man who had been conspiring for eight years to have a violent confrontation with federal agents...
...Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page observed, "The case smacked of entrapment, even an FBI set-up to help divide blacks into pro-Malcolm X, pro-Farrakhan factions...
...Marshals...
...The American Spectator August 1995 29 to do what I need to do...
...Freeh stated in a letter a few weeks later to the Wall Street Journal, regarding the shot that killed Vicki Weaver, that it "wounded its intended target and . . . also accidentally struck and killed Vicki Weaver...
...I've got time invested...
...Then, on May 1, the night before Shabazz's trial was scheduled to begin, the government offered to drop the murder-for-hire charges—which could have landed her in prison for 90 years—if Shabazz would agree to undergo three months of psychiatric counseling and as spend two years on probation...
...F reeh justified the FBI shooting of Randy Weaver because sniper Horiuchi "observed one of the suspects raise a weapon in the direction of a helicopter carrying other FBI personnel...
...He declared on May 13, for example, "To my amazement, there are voices that . . . claim repression by government—and fear of government...
...But a May report by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts revealed that the FBI and other federal agencies have failed to use existing legal authority against domestic terrorist groups...
...The FBI's case, however, unraveled quickly...
...Fourteen-year-old Sammy Weaver ran out and fired his gun in the direction the shots had come from...
...According to at least one lawyer involved in the case, Freeh was no mere passive accomplice in the prosecution strategy...
...At a preliminary court hearing, Fitzpatrick stated that he had been paid $34,000 for making secret tapes of his discussions with Shabazz, and expected to be paid another $11,000 for trial testimony to convict her...
...The report observed: Because of the critical nature of the [FBI] critique [of the U.S...
...government...
...Federal Judge Edward Lodge condemned the FBI: "The actions of the government, acting through the FBI, evidence a callous disregard for the rights of the defendants and the interests of justice and demonstrate a complete lack of respect for the order and directions of this court...
...he merely believed that the races should live separately...
...House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the Potts appointment "will further slow down the terrorist legislation and will mean even greater concern over civil liberties, which I don't think is inappropriate...
...I had this sense the government was always right," as Freeh told the American Lawyer last year about his opposition to student protests during his college years...
...The next day, August 22, Randy Weaver walked from his cabin to the little shack where his son's body lay...
...News & World Report, in a piece entitled "The Year's Class Acts," gushed that "few who worked for [U.S...
...Though federal officials have thus far refused to release the report, copies have leaked out to the New York Times and Legal Times, which published an excerpt in March...
...When Louis Freeh appeared at his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was as popular a nominee for the post of FBI Director as the Clinton administration could have wished...
...Consistent with Freeh's distortions in the name of gun-control was a story he told at that National Press Club luncheon: "An 11-year-old was arrested in St...
...Randy Weaver surrendered after eleven days...
...He had so much political support going into the hearings, in fact, that, as Associated Press reported, senators at the confirmation "vied...
...Telephone companies will also be required to provide instant access to phone lines in response to any authorized government demand...
...marshals on the witness stand first offered to the Idaho jury...
...marshal after the marshal shot and killed Weaver's 14-year-old son Sammy—had acted in self-defense...
...Though the federal and state governments imposed a record 1,154 wiretaps last year, not a single one was in pursuit of arsonists, bombers, or gun law violators...
...When the FBI first proposed the new controls, the ACLU's Jan Lori Goldman observed, "It is wrongheaded and dangerous to require theindustry to put surveillance first by slowing innovation and retarding efficiency...
...Sam Nunn, with whom he had organized hearings on organized crime...
...Fitzpatrick and that such agreements were virtually always made by the local office of the FBI...
...Dirty Jeans In 1985, the Internal Revenue Service launched an investigation of blue jeans manufacturer Jordache Inc...
...At a May commencement address, the 45-year-old Freeh actually compared himself to the prophet Isaiah, quoting the Old Testament in reference to his law-enforcement work: "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send...
...Stuart Taylor of the American Lawyer gave this dramatically rendered description of the case: Imagine a big case in which prosecutors in the proudest U.S...
...On the recommendation of Sen...
...But the agency in fact had nothing with which to build a case...
...Weaver refused, but the agent was persistent, and Weaver eventually relented, selling the agent two shotguns and thereby violating federal firearms law...
...Gingrich noted, "We have to understand that there is, in rural America, a genuine—particularly in the West—a genuine fear of the federal government and of Washington, D.C., as a place that doesn't understand their way of life and doesn't understand their values...
...Why would Randy Weaver have thought that the government was interested in his surrender, after they had shot him in the back with no provocation on his part...
...Federal agents launched an 18-month surveillance of Weaver's property, until on August 21, 1992, six U.S...
...According to two senior FBI officials on the scene, he signed off on the shoot-without-provocation orders...
...Former federal judge Robert Bork condemned this behavior, saying that reliance on the testimony of a perjurer "which corrupted Wallach's trial was . . . a well-considered stratagem" by U.S...
...And in 1991, U.S...
...Freeh has repeatedly portrayed these sweeping new wiretap powers as instrumental in the fight against terrorism...
...He had attended two Aryan Nation meetings, but claimed he stopped going because he didn't share the group's values...
...He struggled back to the cabin, where his wife Vicki stood in the doorway, holding a 10-month-old baby in her arms and calling for her husband to hurry...
...Freeh has also won favor with Clintonites and the media with his repeated assaults on the Second Amendment...
...Freeh, in a move that demonstrates his astute handling of the press, granted Time magazine an exclusive interview in January to put his spin on the Shabazz case...
...for a hundred years...
...Neel said, "It forces the telephone companies to become the agencies of law enforcement, and that is a dramatic change...
...Three million documents and more than one hundred computer tapes were confiscated from Jordache's New York and New Jersey facilities in 1986, solely on the basis of information provided by the Marcianos...
...The revised guidelines will give the FBI a green light to infiltrate far more private and political groups...
...Marshals], the Bureau resisted its disclosure...
...Louis should be condemned no matter what, it should also be noted that semi-automatic rifles have been common in the U.S...
...Abuzz Over Shabazz Nothing illustrates Freeh's cavalier attitude better than last year's botched scheme to entrap Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of slain Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X. Although it is not known why the agency targeted Shabazz, she was telephoned in May 1994 by Michael Fitzpatrick, a former Jewish Defense League member convicted in a 1977 bombing of a Soviet bookstore in Manhattan...
...But the Justice Department confidential report notes that the FBI never even requested a surrender from the suspects: "Although we believe that Harris and the Weavers knew that law enforcement was present, no call out or surrender announcement followed the first shot...
...If the FBI actually had the goods on Shabazz, of course, then letting her off the hook with a promise to see a therapist would be making a mockery of Freeh's "tough on crime" rhetoric...
...The leaked Justice Department report stressed "the reality that the subjects were retreating to their home and had not returned fire when shot upon...
...Freeh's FBI conducted its own investigation of its handling of the Weaver debacle, and produced what can onlybe described as a complete whitewash...
...The transcripts reveal that when Shabazz tried to back away from the plot, Fitzpatrick told her, "I've gotten everything together that I need...
...it is vital to prevent fraud or abuse of financial transactions, and is widely used worldwide...
...Law enforcement agents have been fretting that new developments such as call-forwarding make it too difficult for them to snoop on citizens' phone lines...
...their intent was to retreat from the area without violence and they attempted to do so...
...That is intolerable and will not be allowed to recur...
...A congressional report later concluded that the IRS may have engaged in a wholesale destruction of documents in order to cover up its attack on Jordache...
...Thus, their actions as they ran into the that the orders "contravened the constitution of the United States," Freeh recommended that the only penalty Potts receive be a letter of censure—the same penalty Freeh received when he reported losing an FBI cellular telephone...
...attorneys...
...The FBI's pattern of deception continued even with its official press statement on Freeh's action...
...FBI Supervisory Agent Michael] Dillon reportedly told Deputy Marshal for determining the future credibility of the FBI...
...After hours of cross-examination, however, a U.S...
...His father hollered for him to come back to the cabin, but when he was running back, a federal agent shot him in the back and killed him...
...Freeh's position on guns contains a great deal of posturing...
...marshal, Freeh asserted that "the deputy marshals did not try to provoke a confrontation...
...One FBI SWAT team member later told Justice Department officials that he remembered the rules as, "If you see 'em, shoot 'em...
...Regarding the shooting of the U.S...
...Imagine them persuading the rabidly pro-prosecution judge to bar the defense from putting evidence before the jury that conclusively proved the witness's perjury...
...attorney's office in the land are presented in midtrial with strong evidence of perjury in their star witness...
...Saranow accepted a job offer from the Marcianos at the time he was involved in prosecuting the Jordache case, and in sworn testimony even described himself as a Marciano "front man...
...Louis several days ago when a police officer observed him dismantling an automatic weapon which the 11-year-old said he was taking on the bus to kill the bus driver, because the bus driver had reported some misconduct the day before...
...News & World Report noted that there was "grumbling that Freeh's upcoming tour of Moscow and a half dozen other European capitals has all the trappings of a state visit...
...Freeh's doctrine essentially means that if a government agent shoots and wounds a private citizen, then the government agent must be presumed to have an unlimited right to kill the private citizen—because otherwise the citizen might shoot back at the government agent...
...Though the shooting occurred before he took command of the agency, Freeh has been heavily involved in whitewashing the FBI agents involved in the killing of Vicki Weaver and her son...
...He had the backing of Sen...
...Clinton's budget proposal last year officially recommended the banning of all semiautomatic weapons—which could have meant the confiscation of 35 million rifles and pistols...
...Despite the finding by the Justice Department There is widespread and justified fear among both liberals and conservatives that the Clinton administration could use the new wiretap authority to go after vast numbers of critics of government policy who pose no threat of violence...
...In several recent cases—the Ruby Ridge shootout in Idaho, the FBI sting of Qubilah Shabazz to concoct a plot to kill Louis Farrakhan, and a number of wiretapping innovations that Freeh has pushed on his own initiative—a troubling profile emerges...
...As a report by the House Government Operations Committee later noted, "The investigations of Jordache...
...In December 1993, Freeh told a National Press Club luncheon that "in a civilized society like ours, there's simply no place for assault weapons...
...F reeh is also seeking to control private citizens' ability to use encryption in their computer communications...
...Plotting Against Weaver If one episode crystallized doubts about Freeh's leadership and credibility, it was his handling of the FBI's 1992 raid on Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho...
...Imagine the prosecutors putting the witness back on the stand to tell this story while omitting the details most devastating to its plausibility...
...But his real goal seems to be an enlargement of the bureaucracy and a radical expansion of the FBI's powers...
...Freeh had come highly recommended by Robert Fiske, who later became Whitewater special counsel...
...and "you could use informants and you 34 The American Spectator August 1995 could collect information, and then determine whether you have reasonable indication for a full-fledged investigation...
...As much as any issue, this jeopardizes the public safety and national security of this country...
...A federal magistrate threw Shabazz's confession out of court, since the FBI had violated Shabazz's constitutional rights in the process of obtaining it...
...They ran for cover...
...Freeh found that twelve FBI officials had "exhibited errors of judgment, neglect of duty, inadequate performance and failure to exert proper managerial oversight," but the heaviest penalty that Freeh imposed on them was fifteen days' unpaid leave—less, David Johnston of the New York Times noted, than the penalties given to agents for using official cars to drive their children to school...
...And while children taking guns on school buses in St...
...When the case was remanded back to federal district court, Baruch Weiss—one of the attorneys involved in the first prosecution—filed an affidavit claiming that Freeh, along with the Justice Department's Mark Hellerer, both knew and "personally approved" the other U.S...
...Freeh became lead U.S...
...Yet the anti-terrorist legislation recently proposed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing radically expands federal wiretap authority...
...As things fell apart, Louis Freeh's name began vanishing from press accounts of the case...
Vol. 28 • August 1995 • No. 8
