Posted on 10/23/2003 4:57:11 AM PDT by randita
Posted on Thu, Oct. 23, 2003
U.S. officials: Bug not political
By Joseph A. Slobodzian and Nancy Phillips Inquirer Staff Writers
The extraordinary decision to bug Mayor Street's office was a necessary step in a continuing federal investigation and was not politically motivated, the region's top federal law enforcement officials said yesterday.
U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan and FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Lampinski said federal authorities never intended for the bug to be discovered weeks before a close election.
"Certainly nobody wanted to have any negative impact on the election," Meehan said in the lobby of the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel, where he was attending a national law enforcement conference.
"No one regrets more so than the investigators on this case that this device was uncovered in the midst of an election," Lampinski added.
The officials said charges were not imminent.
"This began substantially well before the election cycle and will... be ongoing long after the election," Lampinski said.
Since the discovery of the listening device by city police on Oct. 7, Street and other Democrats have voiced suspicion that the investigation is politically motivated and is designed to influence the outcome of the election on Nov. 4.
Street, in a meeting yesterday with the Inquirer Editorial Board, said investigators would find nothing to link him to any wrongdoing.
"People could have listened to my conversations in that office for 31/2 years - no corruption, no sex and no profanity," Street said. "That's what they would get. Very, very boring."
Meehan and Lampinski, citing federal court secrecy rules, declined to reveal the focus of their inquiry or to say who was suspected of criminal activity.
"No one ought to draw any conclusions regarding any person," Meehan said. "We are following conduct, and where that conduct is going, that's where we will go."
Law enforcement officials have said that the mayor is a subject of a long-running and wide-ranging federal inquiry into possible corruption involving municipal contracts.
Besides bugging Street's office, federal authorities have taken custody of three handheld computers used by the mayor for e-mail. They also have seized records of several city agencies, along with papers belonging to Center City lawyer Ronald A. White, a close Street ally who has done legal work for the city.
The authorities also have taken documents from the home and office of Imam Shamsud-din Ali, a Muslim cleric and longtime Street supporter, and they have taken papers from several companies that do business with city government.
Asked why the FBI had decided to bug the mayor's office in late September as the campaign moved into its final stretch, Lampinski said that, in general, search warrants and warrants for electronic surveillance are "controlled by the facts and evidence in a case."
Prosecutors must convince a judge that they have probable cause to believe that they will uncover evidence of a crime, and a judge will reject an application for a warrant if the facts cited are old or "stale," he said. For that reason, he added, investigators cannot afford to sit on evidence they have gathered.
The two men vehemently rejected suggestions that politics or racial motivations were behind the probe.
"Categorically false," Lampinski said.
"We are professionals," Meehan added. "This investigation is being conducted by career prosecutors; these people are Democrats and Republicans."
Meehan, who broke away from a meeting with U.S. attorneys and FBI officials from across the country to talk to reporters, was at times terse and testy as he defended the professionalism of his office.
"I care about this city and I care about public integrity," Meehan said.
Asked about allegations that law enforcement officials had released details of the investigation to the media, he said: "I don't know where the leaks are coming from, but the leaks aren't coming from Jeff Lampinski and Pat Meehan."
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in town to give a speech at the conference, was rushed into the hotel by a sizable security force and did not speak with reporters.
In a letter to Ashcroft this week, the three Democratic members of Congress representing Philadelphia decried the timing of the investigation and demanded a meeting with the attorney general during his visit.
Stanley V. White, chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, said Ashcroft declined to meet the congressmen.
Ashcroft is to return to the city today to address a meeting of the International Chiefs of Police at the Convention Center.
Contact staff writer Nancy Phillips at 215-854-2254 or nphillips@phillynews.com. Contributing to this article were Inquirer staff writers Mario Cattabiani, Thomas Fitzgerald, Emilie Lounsberry and Craig R. McCoy. It also contains information from the Associated Press.
© 2003 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.philly.com
The Mayor is the Chief of Police's BOSS. So, I assume that if the Mayor wants it swept....it gets swept.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.