Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the FBI Oversight

Statement

Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the FBI Oversight

GRASSLEY STATEMENT AT THE FBI OVERSIGHT HEARING

Chairman Leahy, thank you for calling this hearing today. There are so many important FBI oversight issues, that it is hard to cover them in one hearing. There's the Inspector General's recent report on the misuse of National Security Letters, which we heard about last week. Then, there are the FBI's failures as a domestic intelligence agency, and the recent calls for a separate domestic intelligence service. I will ask the Director today about one of the most troubling FBI failures. It has to do with foreign and domestic terrorist groups getting together and forming operational ties, and the FBI's retaliation against former Special Agent Michael German for suggesting that the FBI dropped the ball. There are also questions that need to be asked about: the recent verdict in the case of former FBI special Agent Jane Turner, where a jury found that she was retaliated against for filling an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint; the FBI's role in the case of former Agent Lindley Devecchio, who's been charged with four counts of murder in New York; and finally, I still have concerns about what I have learned about the FBI's handling of the investigation into the Anthrax Attacks after 9/11.

First, I will touch on National Security Letters. The Inspector General found that the FBI obtained over 3,000 telephone records with 739 so-called "exigent requests." The problem was these requests weren't really emergencies and the letters had false statements about a subpoena being in process, when no subpoenas had been drafted and none ever came. We have been trying to get unclassified emails from the FBI to find out who knew about the false statements in the exigent letter and when they knew it. The Inspector General said he did not do that kind of detailed investigation. The FBI is doing one, now that it has all become public. But, I'm not sure I trust them to investigate themselves. I'm especially skeptical since a well-known FBI whistleblower, Bassem Youssef, is the current head of the unit in headquarters that issued the exigent letters. He reportedly told his supervisor (who was also his predecessor in that job) about problems with the letters before the recent IG investigation uncovered the problems. According to Youssef, his concerns were dismissed, forcing him to report it to the General Counsel's office. There needs to be a truly independent inquiry, not an FBI whitewash designed to cast blame on a whistleblower.

Second, I want to mention the Michael German case. Former Special Agent Michael German has publicly said that the FBI missed a golden opportunity to infiltrate a terrorist group operating on inside the United States. Remarkably, the opportunity came in the form of a recorded meeting between a white supremacist and an Islamic extremist. Over a year ago, the Inspector General found that the FBI retaliated against German and falsified records related to the case. It appears that the FBI failed to take any of this seriously. It's not clear whether the FBI official who retaliated against German was or ever will be punished. The case on two extremists who were meeting with each other to talk about operational ties doesn't look like it ever went anywhere. The FBI went on television and claimed that, essentially, Agent German was full of hot air. Referring to German's claim about a connection between domestic and foreign terrorist groups, the FBI spokeswoman said, "It did not exist, there was not a coming together of those two separate groups."

However, after years of effort by this Committee, the FBI finally provided a transcript of the meeting, and it flatly contradicts statements made by Bureau officials trying to downplay the incident and discredit Michael German. The transcript clearly shows a white supremacist and an Islamic militant talking about building operational ties between their organizations. Moreover, it is clear that what brings them together was anti-Semitism. According to the transcript these two groups also discussed (1) shooting Jews, (2) their shared admiration for Hitler, (3) arms shipments from Iran, (4) their desire for a civil war in the United States, (5) their approval of suicide bombings, and (6) assassinating pro-Israeli journalists in the United States. This was all the very first time they met.

The FBI's public statements about German's claims were misleading at best, and the transcript makes that clear. My bigger concern, however, is that the FBI seems incapable of mining its criminal cases for valuable intelligence like this and distributing it to the rest of the intelligence community. According to Agent German, this transcript sat in a supervisor's desk drawer for months, while he first raised his concerns and while other FBI supervisors were busy playing defense, claiming to headquarters that the meeting was not even recorded.

Now let me turn to Jane Turner. Agent Turner, who reported the theft of a Tiffany Globe from the World Trade Center site in New York after 9/11, recently won a $565,000 verdict from a federal jury in Minnesota. When a jury finds that FBI supervisors falsified performance evaluations to retaliate against someone for filing an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint, someone ought to be held accountable. The taxpayer ultimate pays the verdict to Agent Turner, but what price is paid by the FBI officials who retaliated?

I'd also like to talk a little about the Devecchio murder charges. A former agent, Lindley Devecchio, has been charged in New York with four counts of murder. The allegations are similar to the scandal in the FBI's Boston office that was exposed a few years ago, involving cozy relationships between informants and their FBI handlers while the informants are engaging in serious crimes. In addition to the current and former agents raising money for DeVecchio's legal defense, I recently learned that the Justice Department is also paying part of the tab. And, I have also heard that the local prosecutors in New York may have some trouble getting the documents from the FBI that they need to try the case. It is important that the FBI not take sides as an institution, just to protect one of its own. The FBI should cooperate fully and let the court process proceed.

Finally, I want to turn to the anthrax investigation. According to depositions in the lawsuit brought by Stephen Hatfill, Director Mueller prevented the lead agent on the case from conducting polygraph examinations to find out who was leaking information to the press. He also ordered the three squads on the case to stop communicating, over the objections of the lead case agent. The allegations in Hatfill's lawsuit are serious and disturbing. If there was a concerted campaign of leaks coming out of the FBI to tar one individual and make the FBI look like it was on the verge of solving the case, that is something that should have been investigated more seriously.

All these issues, and more, need to be addressed by this Committee, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to do so, not only in this hearing but in future hearings as well.

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