[Boot Hill]

All the agents I've ever come in contact with were the most ethical and honorable men and women I've ever known, but this Harp guy sounds like a real gem. Twenty-five thousand agents, 2% rotten apples equals the potential for 500 Lon Horiuchis. If there is an institutional bias for the worst to rise to the top, then what we've seen so far from FBI snafu's is only a mere hint of what is to come.

Regards,

Boot Hill

[mewzilla]

Well, while we're on the subject of the FBI, did you catch Brit hume tonight on FOX talking about a Lackawanna area lady who claims she knew agents were doing something in the area? She saw them in their car, steaking out what she thought was probably a drugs suspect, but she knew they were FBI because they were always reading the Washington Post while sitting in their car. How's that for blending in, huh?

[Boot Hill]

PING

[OldCorps]

Agreed, most FBI agents are honorable...in the field (away from Washington). When it comes to cases of public interest, the FBI sadly gels into a self perpetuating interest group. The top leadership of the FBI should all be dismissed. They alone are responsible for Ruby Ridge, Waco (enough lies told here to keep a confession booth in operation for years).

This destruction of reputations because the FBI is feeling heat to solve a case is cowardly. When you get rid of the thugs and liars at the top, the honorable men of the FBI will be able to do the job.

[Vidalia]

" Twenty-five thousand agents, 2% rotten apples... "

Your estimation is low...

[hgro]

F umbling

B umbling

I diots

[Lurker]

The FBI guys I've met aren't the kind of folks I would let mow my lawn when I was out of town, let alone trust them with a badge and a gun.

The FBI shouldn't be reformed, it should be dismantled.

The only worse federal agency I have ever dealt with was BATF. I flat out refused to work with those incompetent boobs.

L

[zerosix]

I also know of some agents who I consider to be straight arrows. That having been said, how anyone in their right mind can look at the facts behind (1)Ruby Ridge; (2)Waco; (3)Richard Jewell; (4)Elian Gonzales and now (5)this Hatfill and not conclude that there are some very, very rotten apples in the FBI barrel.

One can also read about what happened to Gary Aldrich and his partner. Considering that it happened in the Clinton Whitehouse is not at all surprising but to hear Gary tell it, not one person in the Bureau stood up for him or is his friend today. He said that when one works that many years with many of the same people, they become like family and losing all of them was very hard not only on him but also his wife.

[Vidalia]

" They continue to have access to weapons from the "evidence pile" inclusive of plastique explosives etc. which hundreds have used for personal use and financial gain."

I will recant this number of agents. Only the dirty bastards that we had to deal with used the stuff, and luckily we got to it before it got to us.

The rest is documented fact headed to the courts on the proper date.

[aSkeptic]

Ashcroft should apologise, personally, to Hatfield. This angers me so much. I'd sign a petition if one brought it to my attention.

[yooper]

"FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi ."

Criminal.

I'm pro-law enforcement big-time, but the failure of our government to prosecute Lon Horiuchi is a major league scandal. I don't care what orders he was under, what he did was wrong and he should have known it and refused the orders. He didn't, and he is therefore a murderer who shouldn't be receiving his pay from our tax dollars.

[MissAmericanPie]

These guys must really have the goods on the power in D.C. because there is no getting rid of them it seems.

[cynicom]

I have met some honest ones. However, when it becomes a case of you or them, you lose, no matter whether good agent or bad agent. There are far too many people in the FBI that are above the law.

[mrustow]

Look at the following, which was published one month earlier, by Nicholas Stix. And at least Stix gives credit by name to the Washington Post reporter who did so much of the work.

FBI Terrorizes Hatfill

Meanwhile, information released by the National Whistleblower Center and the Justice Department concluded that Van Harp, the director of the FBI's Washington, D.C. field office, and the agent in charge of the anthrax investigation, was guilty of misconduct, in botching an internal investigation into the Bureau's handling of the 1992 incident at Ruby Ridge.

In 1992, Rudy Ridge, Idaho, was the site of two of the darkest days in Bureau history. On August 21, U.S. Marshal William Degan and Sammy Weaver, the 14-year-old son of white separatist Randy Weaver, died in a gunfight. The following day, an FBI sharpshooter shot and killed Randy Weaver's wife, 42-year-old Vicki Weaver, while she was holding the Weavers' baby. The sharpshooter had been ordered to shoot to kill. The shoot-to-kill order, issued by FBI officials Richard Rogers and Larry Potts, violated FBI rules of engagement, and was later ruled illegal by a federal judge.

Rather than being prosecuted, dismissed, or suspended, most of the FBI supervisors responsible for Ruby Ridge were promoted.

A secret, 1999 report by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, cited Harp for having "committed misconduct" by "helping to prepare an incomplete report on the 1992 Ruby Ridge siege that had the effect of protecting high-level FBI officials," according to reporter Dan Eggen, writing in the August 24 Washington Post. Eggen reported that, "The report by Justice Department attorney Richard M. Rogers recommended a letter of censure or suspension for Harp, but Stephen R. Colgate, then the assistant attorney general, rejected that recommendation in January 2001, sources said." Colgate protected all higher-level FBI officials who were responsible for the Ruby Ridge fiasco from being brought to justice.

Eggen noted that groups such as the National Whistleblower Center have complained -- as have FBI agents -- that the FBI has a corrupt organizational culture, in which bad agents and officials rise to the top, through covering up each other's mistakes, while blaming underlings.

Dan Eggen reported that, "In a written statement, Harp said that leaks about his role in the Ruby Ridge inquiries violate 'all sense of propriety' and ignore reviews that exonerated him."

At Steven Hatfill's Sunday news conference, Harp was hoist on his own petard. Hatfill's civil attorney, Victor Glasberg, observed that "Mr. Harp was soundly criticized in a report for ... by the Justice Dept's Office of Professional Responsibility, claiming that he had engaged in substantial misconduct, relative to the Ruby Ridge matter. Well, it turned out that this report ended up getting leaked, and here's Mr. Harp. In a written statement, Harp said that leaks about his role in the Ruby Ridge inquiries violate all sense of propriety. Well, I don't know if that's true. It may, but I'll tell you this: The investigation that Mr. Harp is conducting of Steve Hatfill has as many leaks as the Titanic going down. So, he should take his own instructions...."

[Travis McGee]

This Soviet-style institutional culture, in which agents like Harp are promoted because of institutional loyalty, rather than devotion to our Constitution and laws...

This says it all.