The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) likes to say its initials stand for "fidelity, bravery and integrity." Longtime Bureau watchers, however, have often used unkinder nicknames. Fumbling Bunch of Idiots is one of the printable ones. The FBI was so backward in its approach to technology for so many years that at its parent Justice Department, it was said the Bureau's motto was "Yesterday's technology tomorrow."
It may well be that Bruce Ivins, the scientist who killed himself last week after reportedly being told he would soon be indicted for the 2001 anthrax attacks, was indeed the sole perpetrator of the horrific acts that killed five and grievously sickened 17. The FBI will release its evidence publicly later today...now that they've been leaking it for the past week. But note well that that evidence will never be tested in a court of law, and we will never hear Ivins's story from his own lips.
One longtime career Justice official told me, "The government is well within its rights to tell the public, we believe you don't need to worry about any such future attacks, but it doesn't seem right to leak all this stuff about a dead guy."
The AP's Pete Yost, who has covered the FBI and other legal and investigative issues for 20-some years, has written an excellent piece that reveals some of the "aggressive tactics" the Bureau used on Ivins. (See also today's Wash Post's revelation that Ivins and his wife and son were accosted while shopping by agents who informed his wife that her husband was a killer.) With the caveat that Ivins or his attorney was the source of most of these anecdotes, some do seem to have crossed the decency line.
But Yost also points out that such high-pressure tactics have notably failed the agency in the past. He reminds us that such hounding of Richard Jewell in the Atlanta Olympics bombing case was completely misplaced. And for years FBI agents were convinced that another Ft. Detrick scientist, Stephen Hatfill, was the anthrax killer. The harassment of Hatfill--aided by Attorney General John Ashcroft's infamous labeling of him as a "person of interest"--required a government payout of nearly $6 million before they could move on to pursuing charges against Ivins.
Other law enforcement agencies have often resented the G-Men for their headline grabbing; many times other agencies, such as the ATF, actually found the critical piece of evidence that solved the case, but the FBI reaped the glory. The FBI recently celebrated its 100th birthday with much hoopla and the issuance of a fancy coffee-table type book. But one of the many self-laudatory emails issued at the time listed the Top Ten Moments in FBI History--and only one had occurred in the past 30 years. As Yost's piece underscores, maybe it's time for the fibbies to stop bragging and go back to detective school.
-- Beverley Lumpkin
UPDATE: The FBI just released the search warrants, affidavits in support of the warrants, and returns on the warrants from its investigation into the anthrax mailings.
UPDATE 2: For those who don't want to wade through all the documents, the best one is the October 31, 2007 affidavit in support of a search warrant on Bruce Ivins's home, office and vehicles. It was signed by Postal Inspector Thomas F. Dellafera, as part of the Amerithrax task force.
As a local investigator who has worked on many law enforcement cases with the FBI, I want to point out that many of the Bureau's faults lie with the ridiculous bureaucracy under which they are forced to operate. The upper echelon appears to have an unhealthy penchant for micro-management, which results in slow-moving investigations. Because they are trained to believe in this red tape morass, many of the field agents see nothing wrong with the system and fall back on the party line explanation that they are "thorough" (sorry, it's nonsense -- being thorough and reasonably efficient are not mutually exclusive). Most of the agents I've worked with over the years are fine investigators and the country would benefit as a whole if they would let them off their leash just a bit.
I want to add that this is not exclusive to the FBI, though they do seem to be at the top of the red tape heap among federal law enforcement agencies.
Posted by: Mac | Aug 07, 2008 at 02:56 PM