>>> Was Abscam the stepping stone to Able Danger?
August 2001
Between July 10th (when the FBIHQ and O'Neill received the Kenneth Williams Phoenix-Memo) and early August, John Pickard takes over the job of NY-FBI director Louis Feesh.
Pickard was involved in the TWA flight 800 investigation and the embassy bombings in Africa. In 1979 he worked undercover on the money laundering case code named "ABSCAM". http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/pickard103101.htm
Brian Ross (NBC)
Ross solidified his reputation for investigative reporting by breaking stories such as the 1980 ABSCAM story, for which he was honored with a National Headliner Award. In 1989 he broke a number of stories on the Colombian drug cartel, including the highly publicized story that Israeli mercenaries were training Colombian assassins. His exclusive report in March, 1990, that Iraq was trying to buy trigger mechanisms for nuclear weapons, just months before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, made headlines worldwide.
Ross was the first reporter to name Mohamed Atta and describe him as the ringleader of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.