Hear No Evil

...At the time that Horiuchi fired, Kevin Harris—his alleged target—was running into the cabin and would not have been in a fixed upright position...

...But Vicki Weaver was standing in the doorway holding her child...

...government officials signed an international treaty pledging never to use CS gas against enemy soldiers...

...In Senate testimony this past October, Freeh was emphatic that Lon Horiuchi's fatal shot was "constitutional" and that he intended no harm to Mrs...

...Law enforcement officials failed to see the humor in this...

...Attorney General Janet Reno, in all likelihood, would never have authorized gassing the many innocent victims in the Branch Davidian compound had she been properly apprised of the dangers of CS...

...Eugene Glenn, the FBI on-scene commander at Ruby Ridge, loudly groused to the Senate committee about both his own 15-day suspension and the fact that an Idaho state prosecutor is now considering filing charges against FBI officials...

...Moreover, Freeh had fought the Justice Department vigorously over his friend Larry Potts, the agent who supervised both disasters and to whom Freeh nevertheless was planning to give a big promotion...

...Jewell's testimony had been submitted to the committee prior to the hearing, but the Republican co-chairmen never bothered to read it...

...Because potentially, we're the most dangerous agency, given the awesome powers that we have and the constitutional protections that are at issue...

...Asked about these slanders during his testimony, Byerly insisted they had been merely "typographical errors" — eliciting peals of laughter from the hearing room...

...The American Spectator • January 1996 41 If the HRT were just another bunch of hack government employees with big guns and bigger egos, then Horiuchi's second shot might simply be explained away as appallingly bad judgment...

...Freeh divided his time between promising full disclosure to Congress and the American people and grossly distorting why an FBI sniper tried to kill other Americans...

...I know of no rule that requires law enforcement officers to cease and desist firing at a subject when they simply move from one position to another to obtain a strategically better location to continue an engagement...

...Potts, the FBI and the department...

...Yet in response to a question from Sen...

...However, the shot that hit Vicki Weaver—severing her carotid artery—was a perfect kill shot...

...FBI press spokesmen repeatedly complained to the news media during the 11-day siege that Weaver refused to negotiate—but never mentioned the shotgun...

...Yet one of the most remarkable outcomes of Ruby Ridge and Waco is the continuing failure of law-enforcement agencies to come to terms with the horror of those events...

...the FBI battle plan called for gassing the children for forty-eight hours...

...JAMES BOVARD is the author of Shakedown: How Government Screws You From A to Z (Viking) and Lost Rights (St...

...What was the "aggressive behavior" of Weaver and Harris...

...While Freeh has claimed that Horiuchi shot at a man who was running into the cabin at the time, Horiuchi's drawing showed his cross-hairs just above an upright head clearly visible through the window of the open cabin door...

...Similarly, at the Ruby Ridge Senate hearing, it emerged that ATF agent Herb Byerly had lied about Randy Weaver, telling both U.S...

...When they did have the courage to ask appropriate questions, Republican committee members were met with inappropriate and literally laughable responses from those testifying...

...On April 19, 1993, the FBI used CS gas on American civilians, pumping in the potentially toxic gas with a boom attached to a tank and shooting hundreds of ferret gas rounds through the windows of the Branch Davidians' home...

...Patrick Leahy (D-Vt...

...But all that Vicki Weaver did was stand in her doorway, shouting for her husband and his friend to hurry back into their home after the FBI sniper had wounded her husband...

...The FBI report noted, "This female, however, did pose an immediate threat to the circling helicopter...

...But the robot's shotgun was pointed right at the door...

...The FBI originally planned to gas the compound incrementally over a 48-hour period...

...FBI Director Freeh blatantly misrepresented what happened at Ruby Ridge to Congress...

...It was like, 'Now Mr...

...44 January 1996 • The American Spectator Hear No Evil (Continued from page 44) that the FBI investigation was "based on a wink and a nod...

...Republicans suspect that Chojnacki was rehired in return for keeping silent on Waco details that would embarrass high-ranking Clinton administration officials...

...Freeh identified him as a former colleague and said, "The head Inspector General is a good friend of mine...

...A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken in May, before the hearings, found that 34 percent of the public had a very favorable impression of the FBI, with only 9 percent holding an unfavorable impression...

...ATF chief John Magaw, in his appearance before Sen...

...The HRT is trained by expert military snipers, and those snipers recognize that it is extremely difficult to hit a running target...

...But the HRT is too good for that...

...The FBI's attitude toward the American people was best captured by a single image from the Senate hearings—an FBI robot outside the Weaver cabin, holding a 12-gauge shotgun in one arm and a phone in the other...

...Rep...

...By September, another Los Angeles Times survey found, three times as many Americans had a more negative than positive view of the FBI...

...Chalk up another victory for the Democrats and the Clinton administration, who showed once more that stonewalling is their best defense...

...Charles Schumer—who had done everything except call for the public hanging of the surviving Davidians—praised McCollum for his bipartisan spirit...

...Ballesteros merely said that his later opinion was the correct one, and McCollum asked no follow-up questions...

...Shadegg burst out laughing...

...In a memo to Justice Department investigators, FBI Director Louis Freeh wrote, "There is an oft-repeated misconception in the public press that FBI employees must be disciplined" for the shooting death of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge...

...As the Los Angeles Times noted, "The revelations of suspected wrongdoing inside the nation's premier law enforcement agency are more sweeping than the ethics violations that led to President Clinton's firing of former FBI director Bill Sessions and the burning of Watergate related evidence in his fireplace that led to the 1973 resignation of acting FBI director Patrick Gray...

...Idaho lawyer David Nevin, who played a key role in the 1993 federal trial of Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, observed in a November 22 interview, "When you look through the scope [of Horiuchi's rifle] at the door—you can see a wedding ring on the hand of someone standing behind the window of the door...

...Freeh has repeatedly maintained that if there were any danger of the FBI not being able to investigate itself objectively, the Inspector General for the Justice Department should receive the assignment...

...The agency prepared a briefing book about their planned assault of the compound that claimed, "Experience with the effects of CS on children including infants has been extensively investigated...

...Larry Potts told the Senate subcommittee, "I hope that these proceedings will have a positive effect in helping citizens understand the potential danger of armed resistance to lawful authority . . ." The hearings, of course, have had precisely the opposite effect—the public is now more wary of law enforcement than ever...

...To now increase the discipline...

...On July 15, Freeh demoted his close friend and deputy director Larry Potts...

...Freeh's overweening concern for both his friend and the image of his agency—notwithstanding a few score dead bodies—helped to change radically the perception of federal law enforcement in the United States...

...On July 13, the Justice Department announced the suspension of a high-ranking FBI official who had reportedly admitted destroying documents related to the Ruby Ridge case...

...Shadegg, the FBI's Floyd Clarke admitted, "The destruction of the building was part of the ultimate plan which was included" in the briefing book given to Reno on April 12...

...It was clear by the way they asked questions that they did not want any answers that did not comport with a predetermined point of view...

...An April 9 memo by Treasury's Ron Noble noted that "at this morning's meeting with Justice, we hear that Webb Hubbell is so concerned about the potential impact of our review on the criminal case that he planned to raise it directly with the President...

...Lying seems to have become part of the job description for federal lawmen...

...But she had not...

...John Shadegg (R-Ariz...

...The use of deadly force was justified in that she willfully placed herself in harm's way by attempting to assist Harris, and so doing, overtly contributed to the immediate threat which continued to exist against the helicopter crew and approaching HRT [Hostage Rescue Team] personnel...

...Reno responded by claiming that the tanks' entry into the building—they demolished the walls and 25 percent of the compound—had merely been an "inadvertent crushing of a back support...

...Freeh told the Senate, "Special Agent Horiuchi testified that he took the first shot when he observed a man later determined to be Randy 42 January 199 6 • The American Spectator 19, 1993...

...The one certainty that emerged from the hearings is that high-ranking FBI officials still haven't the faintest idea why so many Americans now greatly distrust the agency...

...The trouble in the Waco hearings began on the first day with the testimony of Kiri Jewell, who claimed that David Koresh had forced her to have sex with him when she was only ten years old...

...The dual debacles of Ruby Ridge and Waco have tarnished the image of federal law enforcement agencies worse than anything since the Vietnam war era...

...One Justice Department official told the Washington Post (Continued on page 79) That Jewell was allowed to testify, especially on the first day, was proof of the incompetence of the Republican leadership...

...Justice protested Freeh's plan, eliciting this petulant response from the director: "For you to increase the proposed discipline [of Potts] sends a wrong message to both the public and the employees of the FBI...

...This was not a new allegation —Jewell's father had previously sought to sell this story to tabloid television programs...

...Two other FBI officials were subsequently suspended as a result of the criminal investigation...

...When pressed by Specter as to why he kept ignoring the court verdict and saying that Weaver had not been entrapped, Magaw responded: "Do you believe Randy Weaver—or do you believe the federal agents who have sworn to tell the truth and are carrying out a career in this government...

...A says, 'Yes.' And they say, 'Thank you very much.'" That the FBI conducts rigged investigations of its own misdeeds is well known within the agency itself...

...40 January 1996 • The American Spectator 0 Congressional Hearings into the Waco and Ruby Ridge debacles revealed an unrepentant FBI and a Republican investigation hampered by political timidity...

...the FBI had deceived her about the dangers of using the chemical...

...FBI siege negotiators continually demanded that Weaver come out of his cabin, pick up the phone, and talk to FBI agents at the other end of the line...

...At the end of the hearings, New York Democratic Rep...

...As Horiuchi's sniper team partner, Dan Monroe, bragged to the Senate, "Our fire discipline is as much trained as our fire accuracy...

...In his Senate testimony, the FBI's Charles Mathews III, author of the agency's still-confidential Soo-plus page report on Ruby Ridge, justified Horiuchi's second shot as follows: "The subject that he fired at had not thrown his weapon down, had not said 'I surrender,' had not stopped movement that was consistent with aggressive behavior...

...As his press spokesman Jason Whiting later observed, "There were stacks and stacks of [confidential] documents that went untouched" during the hearings, leaving much of the most controversial information conveniently out of the public eye...

...Potts told the House Waco committee, "No one was harmed by the tear gas," and added, "The FBI personnel acted with incredible professionalism, skill and restraint...

...They ran for the cover of the cabin after the FBI sniper, hiding in the woods zoo yards away, tried to kill them...

...The fact that Jewell was allowed to testify, especially on the first day, was proof of the incompetence of the Republican leadership...

...B took out his gun and then the lights went out and when they went on again, there was a dead body on the floor.' Mr...

...Weaver had never been convicted of anything in his life, and was a suspect in no crime other than the trumped-up minor weapons violation charge that later was ruled to be federal entrapment...

...Christopher Kerr, a 23-year veteran and a board member of the FBI Agents Association, observed in a September Washington Times op-ed, "Few in the FBI ranks were surprised to learn that the recent Ruby Ridge inquiry was `fixed...

...The Republican-driven hearings— in the House on Waco, and the Senate about Ruby Ridge—presented to the American public an image of the FBI far more troubling than what the agency had crafted for itself through the years, even though the mainstream press paid relatively little attention to them...

...one of his aides later noted that FBI tanks had "inadvertently" smashed into the compound eight different times...

...The killing of Vicki Weaver is by far the most controversial aspect of the Ruby Ridge disaster...

...What they could not have anticipated was what a hash the Republicans would make of the hearings...

...In late October the Justice Department sent a team of investigators back to Ruby Ridge to reconstruct Horiuchi's angle of vision for the shootings...

...You can see someone standing back there with great resolution and great visibility...

...Asimilarly casual attitude toward using deadly force against civilians pervaded the FBI's operation at Waco...

...Nevertheless, the hearings had an enormous impact on public opinion...

...As the Senate hearings revealed, FBI Assistant Special Agent Thomas Miller's official report of the shooting falsely claimed that Vicki Weaver had been in the front yard of the cabin pointing a gun at helicopters before she was slain, though she never left the cabin during the time in question...

...If the FBI really thought Vicki Weaver's killing was an accident, it would not have told so many preposterous lies to justify the shooting...

...On August 11, Freeh suspended (with pay) Potts and three other high-ranking FBI officials after learning of their involvement in suspected perjury and/or destruction of documents regarding the case...

...Under vigorous questioning by Rep...

...Available reports indicate that, even in high concentrations or enclosed areas, long-term complications from CS exposures is extremely rare...

...He maintained his weapon and he was running for a better position...

...Shadegg's plea went unheeded...

...If we don't have an accurate shot, we don't take that shot...

...On the night of the killing, Horiuchi was debriefed by an FBI expert and made a sketch of his target for the second shot...

...At least four ATP' agents stated shortly after the raid that they believed the ATF had fired first...

...He also repeatedly cut off Republican members who werefollowing vital lines of questioning, time and again rescuing government agents and Clinton administration officials from difficult interrogation...

...The House Waco Committee (composed of subcommittees from the Judiciary and Government Reform and Oversight Committees) often seemed afraid of discovering any embarrassing evidence...

...In fact, as a Defense Department toxicologist testified at the congressional hearings into the Waco debacle, only two studies were available on the effects of the gas on children...

...Perhaps more than anything else, what destroyed the credibility of the FBI was the absurd political posturing of agency and administration officials in defense of obviously indefensible actions...

...A, you were there when Mr...

...The American Spectator • January 1996 79...

...In truth, the autopsies showed no such thing, since in many cases there was too little left of the corpses to determine the cause of death...

...It is a system interwoven with conflicts of interest and an almost total lack of what passes for due process anywhere else in government...

...A few minutes after the FBI gas attack began, the Davidians fired upon the tank that was injecting the gas into the compound...

...Martin's...

...John Mica (R-Fla...

...will signal, wrongly or not, that there is culpability among FBI employees for the shooting death of Mrs...

...attorneys and marshals before the raid that Weaver had several previous convictions and was a suspect in several bank robberies...

...On November 6 Daniel Klaidman reported in Legal Times that a key FBI official—George Michael Baird—is likely to be indicted on criminal charges for allegedly ordering the destruction of a damning FBI laboratory drawing indicating that, contrary to FBI claims, Horiuchi clearly saw Vicki Weaver before firing...

...Phil Chojnacki, one of the two Waco ATF raid commanders who was fired after the official Treasury Department report claimed he had lied about knowing the "element of surprise" was lost, was given a new job with the agency—serving "as an expert witness to present evidence and facts in civil or criminal trial hearings...

...observed that even if the children in the compound didn't die directly from the CS gas, "We sure as hell tortured them for six hours before they died...

...One of them showed that an infant exposed to CS for two hours had to be hospitalized for almost a month...

...Specter's Ruby Ridge committee, repeatedly maintained that his agents' "conduct was lawful and proper in every respect...

...The FBI's Larry Potts swore, "The autopsies revealed that no one was harmed by the tear gas or had toxic levels of any component of tear gas in their systems...

...Shadegg challenged Janet Reno as to why tanks had repeatedly smashed into the Davidian compound during the final assault...

...Glenn declared it unfair that FBI agents faced the possibility of state or local prosecution, as well as federal investigations, and denounced the FBI investigation of Ruby Ridge as a political cover-up...

...The oversight issue is becoming increasingly important as revelations continue to emerge about cover-ups at the agency...

...According to the Justice Department's official report on Waco, released in October 1993, "While it was conceivable that tanks and other armored vehicles could be used to demolish the compound, the FBI considered that such a plan would risk harming the children inside...

...Yet a video presented at the hearings on July 28 showed FBI tanks destroying massive portions of the Davidian compound even before the fire began...

...Kerr's admission belied the spin-control claim Louis Freeh himself made at the Senate hearings: "We should be scrutinized harder than any other agency in the government...

...But the girl's testimony dominated news coverage of the event during the first few days, allowing Democrats to portray Republican critics of the ATF and FBI as champions of child molesters...

...In January 1993, U.S...

...Though FBI officials admitted that they were far along in the process of destroying the building before the fire started, Larry Potts still insisted, "The FBI agents demonstrated remarkable restraint and did not fire a single shot during the entire standoff...

...and Bill Zeliff (R-N.H...

...However, the fear of Hubbell's White House influence was a palpable factor in Treasury Department conduct...

...Rolland Ballesteros, one of the first agents out of the cattle trailer that morning, told Texas Rangers that the first shots came from agents...

...Glenn said that he had been thrown overboard like a "tuna" to "hungry sharks" to distract attention from the failings of top FBI officials...

...had, and sought to warn the two of what might happen if the girl were allowed to testify on the first day...

...Given the despicable performance of the feds at Waco and Ruby Ridge, is it any wonder...

...Janet Reno likened the 54-ton armored vehicles that crashed into the Branch Davidian compound to "a good rent-a-car...

...Jewell's testimony had been submitted to the committee prior to the hearing, but the Republican leaders—cochairmen Bill McCollum (R-Fla...

...But Horiuchi's shot is now ricocheting and threatens to bring down Freeh and the entire agency's reputation...

...The FBI then greatly accelerated its gassing—effectively injecting all the gas it planned to use over two days in a three-hour period...

...never bothered to read it...

...This will undoubtedly and unjustifiably harm Mr...

...In a long, apologetic question, McCollum asked Ballesteros about his change of opinion...

...McCollum botched an opportunity to settle one of the hottest points of controversy— the dispute over who had fired the first shots in the standoff, the feds or the Davidians...

...To shoot at a running target by aiming at the window of a door facing into a cabin would be an idiotic way to try to shoot Kevin Harris...

...He recanted at the Davidian trial last year, insisting then that the Davidians had shot first...

...BY JAME S BOVARD FBI Director Louis Freeh has staked his reputation on defending an agency sniper who "accidentally" killed Vicki Weaver on August 22, 1992, as she stood in the front door of her cabin holding her baby...

...An August poll taken by the Los Angeles Times after the Waco hearings found that only 16 percent of respondents had a very favorable view of the agency, while the number of those with an unfavorable impression had more than tripled—to 28 percent...