Posted on 05/28/2002 10:22:30 AM PDT by kattracks
Misleading FBI affidavits submitted during the Clinton administration to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court resulted in the court's sharp reprimand of Attorney General Janet Reno, in an episode that likely contributed to the FBI's later reluctance to approve a search warrant application for the laptop computer of "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.
In the fall of 2000, the seven judges on the surveillance court ordered Reno to appear in their secure courtroom, the New York Times reported Monday.
"The judges, in a letter signed by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth, had complained to her of a serious breach. Misleading affidavits had been submitted to the court, which approves warrants to eavesdrop on people suspected of being foreign agents or international terrorists."
Attorney General Reno acknowledged to the judges that the problem was "serious," the Times said.
The problem affidavits had been prepared by Michael Resnick, who is described by the paper as the F.B.I. supervisor in charge of coordinating the surveillance operations related to Hamas.
Resnick's track record with affidavits in terrorism cases was so bad that the court told Reno it would no longer accept applications for search warrants and other surveillance requests that he prepared.
The court's reprimand in the Hamas cases prompted then-FBI Director Louie Freeh to review surveillance applications for various al Qaeda suspects, where he uncovered similar problems.
As a result of the affidavit problem, Reno turned Resnick's case over to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, short-circuiting his career at the FBI, where he had previously been described as a "rising star."
The episode prompted the bureau to adopt a "play-it-safe" approach when it came to seeking information on terrorists like Moussaoui, according to intelligence sources interviewed by the Times.
In a 13 page letter delivered last Tuesday to FBI Director Mueller and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Minneapolis agent Coleen Rowley complained that a midlevel manager at FBI headquarters in Washington blocked her office's attempts to secure the Moussaoui search warrant.
"She said that the headquarters supervisory agent had perceived that pressing the application for the warrant was an unnecessary career risk," the Times reported, drawing a parallel with the Resnick case.
While Rowley has not specifically named the person who she says blocked the Moussaoui warrant, Senators Pat Leahy, D-Vt., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., have identified David Frasca as in bureau official responsible.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
And from the article: "...pressing the application for the warrant [re: Moussaoui] was an unnecessary career risk..."
What imcompetent cowards. The solution to the problem of submitting "misleading" affidavits is to stop lying... not to stop protecting the nation.
Better that lies had never been started. Possible that Lamberth et al. were so disgusted (as we all were) with the tactics of the Clinton Whitehouse, they found it hard to believe anything put forward by them. This reprimand was handed down in the Fall of 2000, at a time when the judicial establishment had tolerated about all they could take.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Abraham Lincoln, June 1858
Thank you for nothing, Old York Times.
The people of the United States are entitled to assume that their President is telling the truth. The pattern of misrepresentation and half-truths that emerges from our investigation reveals a presidential policy cynically based on the premise that the truth itself is negotiable.
It is a sad chapter in American history, but I cannot condone what I have heard; I cannot excuse it, and I cannot and will not stand for it."
Congressman Caldwell Butler (Republican) speaking about Nixon in 1974
WTC93 was ignored by Xlinton. etc.etc.etc.
Betcha this revelation doesn't see the light of day!
What in the world according to Clinton-Reno would motivate Resnick to lie to catch real international terrorists? If Resnick was a "rising star" he did not need to jeopardize his career with written falsehoods under oath in an area that Clinton only wanted to go away.
The story says that Freeh also discovered that the internal misconduct also affected Al Quaida. But could it have been mostly domestic terrorists, those terrible Christians, like those in Waco? And them crazed Militiamen? Now these are bad guys the bosses really wanted to catch.
If I remember the Rawlins memo correctly, she states in a footnote that agents were disciplined for Ruby Ridge and Waco affidavits. Here was an inside career path for Resnick. Let's connect these dots and see if they lead to an FBI that needs fixing or, more likely, corrupt interference by Clinton's proxys.
Can anybody advance the ball further?
Resnick's track record with affidavits in terrorism cases was so bad that the court told Reno it would no longer accept applications for search warrants and other surveillance requests that he prepared.
Typical NewsMax re-reporting (do they ever print any original news?) What was wrong with the affidavits? It may not be what we automatically assume.
In one of her footnotes she states that agents' careers were ruined by affidavits filed in Ruby Ridge and Waco. A subsequent post reports that judges charged with issuing search warrants in terrorist investigations personally rebuked Reno for false applications filed by US Attorney Michael Resnick in matters involving Hammas. This report also states that this caused Freeh also to investigate and he found irregularities in applications involving Al Quida.http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/690732/posts This is what Rowley says about the same (?) matter:
Numerous high-ranking FBI officials who have made decisions or have taken actions which, in hindsight, turned out to be mistaken or just turned out badly (i.e. Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc.) have seen their careers plummet and end. This has in turn resulted in a climate of fear which has chilled aggressive FBI law enforcement action/decisions. In a large hierarchal bureaucracy such as the FBI, with the requirement for numerous superiors approvals/oversight, the premium on career-enhancement, and interjecting a chilling factor brought on by recent extreme public and congressional criticism/oversight, and I think you will see at least the makings of the most likely explanation. Another factor not to be underestimated probably explains the SSA and other FBIHQ personnel's reluctance to act.
I would prefer to see Rowley's version borne out although I am not ready to accept her characterizations of overreaction to Ruby Ridge and Waco and wonder where she is coming from in these statements. But that aside, she may have performed a real service if the country should learn that the FBI foul up was caused not by fosselized burocrats but by Clinton - Reno political meddling. Take a look at this post:http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/690732/posts
Waco and Ruby Ridge can be explained easily. The government took the power to infringe the right to keep and bear arms. The people being attacked fought back.
The solution is for the government to stop infringing the right. It was not bureaucracy that killed people at Waco and Ruby Ridge, it was unbridled tyrannical power.
Nobody had to lie about Koresh having arms. He had them.
Nobody had to lie about Weaver making a "short-barrelled" shotgun out of a "long-barrelled" shotgun. He did that.
The fact that government agents want to believe that some "SNAFU" created the problem is simply an indicator that the deaths will continue.
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