RUSH: Okay, now on to Louie Freeh, fulfilling a commitment made to you on Monday. There's a review of his book, "(My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror)," in the Washington Times today by Joseph C. Goulden, and the interesting passage from this review... Let me give you the first paragraph then go to the interesting passage.
"Oh, let's cut right to the chase. Your primary interest in 'My FBI,' the memoir by the FBI director during the Clinton administration, is not drug-smuggling cases, however interesting they might be, or even the inspiring story of how a kid from Jersey became a star FBI street agent, a federal prosecutor, a federal district judge and, finally, FBI director. So proceed directly to page 245, 'Bill and Me,' which recounts Louis Freeh's side of the most interesting feud I've seen in Washington since LBJ squared off with Bobby Kennedy in the 1960s....![](http://a1204.g.akamai.net/7/1204/1401/05063012011/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/9870000/9874858.jpg)
Mr. Freeh made the first of several moves to keep his distance from Bill Clinton. He declined to come to a White House movie viewing and meet actor Tom Hanks (Mrs. Freeh, a Hanks fan, was [upset about it]). Even more infuriating to the president, he refused a personal White House pass because [Freeh says] 'I wanted every visit I made... to be part of some public record.' This refusal, he heard, 'offended Bill Clinton mightily.' "Worse was to come. In November 1997, Mr. Freeh sent Attorney General Janet Reno a 27-page memo about allegations of illicit fund-raising during the 1996 campaign. Much 'soft money' came into the Clinton-Gore camp 'from alarming sources, including the People's Republic of China.' Miss Reno refused Mr. Freeh's recommendation that an independent counsel run the case. Then the president made a mistake. In an offhand remark to the press, he claimed that had the FBI briefed the White House, he would have ensured that there was no 'undue influence' involved. But as Mr. Freeh writes, two FBI agents had briefed Rand Beers, a senior National Security Council staff member. To Mr. Freeh, it was 'inconceivable' that such explosive material would not have reached the president. He writes, 'It's not in my character to lose my temper.' So he vented his anger by helping to 'draft a press statement that said, in effect, the White House was lying.'"
He had sent this 27-page memo to Janet Reno saying, "Hey, there's some funny money coming into this campaign. We need to look at it," and Reno said, "No, I got it handled here, in my office," and then Clinton said, "We didn't know anything about this. Nobody warned us about this."
Rand Beers had been told.
I still maintain that we get way into the out years and this current generation of media sycophants who love Bill Clinton have retired or passed from the scene, we're going to learn shocking details about what went on in the eight years of this administration, and this Freeh book, book by Louie Freeh, it's just opening the book and starting on the first few pages. We've got lots of pages and chapters I am sure yet to be written. Let's go to Meet the Press sound. Tim Russert talking to Louis Freeh, the question:
"Before the September the 11th attacks FBI agents were still using old 386 and 486 computers, had no Internet access or FBI e-mail. After the attacks, FBI headquarters staff had to send photographs of the 19 hijackers to the 56 field offices by FedEx because they lacked scanners. 'Top managers, including Louis Freeh, didn't use computers and weren't chagrined about it,' says the justice department's inspector general. Ron Kesler in his book 'The Bureau' said that you had the computer removed from your office.'"
What about it, Freeh? FREEH:
Well, that's ridiculous. First of all, he was never in my office. The computer was behind my desk. We had an abysmal information technology system, and I take a lot of responsibility for that. But it wasn't just the technology. Let's look at the attorney general guidelines before September 11th. If on September 10th, bin Laden was going to hold a rally in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park an FBI couldn't go and stand in the crowd and listen to him because attorney general guidelines, which were put in place actually appropriately many years ago because the FBI did illegal things that it shouldn't have done. Those guidelines would have prevented an FBI agent, Louis Freeh, from standing there and listening to a fatwa about killing Americans anywhere. The reality of it is we've treated terrorism like a crime before September 11th, and when in Khobar we didn't prosecute that case, we didn't vigorously prosecute that case. The reason I think that's so important is this wasn't a Hezbollah group. This was the Iranian government that did this, and we reached the point where the Iranians knew that we knew they had murdered those young men, and we did nothing.
RUSH: And we did nothing, and we showed our weakness -- and again, here's this reference to the way the Clinton administration fought terrorism. They fought it legally. "Yeah, we're going to indict. We're going to send it to grand juries. We're going to make what they say off the record and private, can't be shared with any other intelligence agency."
The next question: "Mr. Burger said that they did in fact act on information and that you later acknowledged that you withheld indicting Iranians 'til President Clinton left office, that you slow-rolled the investigation and that was not responsible."
FREEH:
Well, that's nonsense. We presented the case to the US attorney in the District of Columbia who, by the way, had never prosecuted a criminal case, and she looked at it, and she said, "Louie, I don't think you have a case here."
I said, "With all due respect, I used to do this for a living. We have a case,"
and James Comey when he was appointed as a prosecutor by John Ashcroft. He indicted the case in eight weeks with the same evidence. Now, your other point: We prosecuted this case very hard. We couldn't get an indictment during the Clinton administration, and in terms of Sandy Berger's work, let me tell you what he did. Talk about ineptness and compromising an investigation? He writes a letter --
the president of the United States writes a letter-- to the Iranian president in 1999, a letter that says: "We think you may be involved in the murder of our 19 Americans at Khobar. Please help us or you won't get better trade assistance or foreign relations by the United States."
They never told me they were writing that letter, Tim. The president of the United States never told the attorney general and the chief investigator that they were writing that letter. To make it worse, and to show the ineptness, the letter was supposed to be delivered to President Khatami. They gave it on the Omanis to deliver it. It was misdelivered. It was delivered to the spiritual leader, who went berserk. It compromised the Saudis because it was clear from the letter that the Saudis had told us about the Iranians. The Saudis were never told about the letter. This is how they prosecute the case. It would be the equivalent of the attorney general writing John Gotti a letter and saying, "Mr. Gotti, we know a couple of your capos are involved in major racketeering cases. Could you please cooperate with us?"
but not telling the US attorney and the FBI that was investigating the case that such a letter was being sent.
RUSSERT:
Would you be willing to debate Sandy Berger about this issue?
FREEH:
RUSSERT:
FREEH:
RUSH: Well, I would love to hear that. But let's go back to this letter for a second. Okay, so we know that the Iranians blew up our guys at the Khobar Towers, right? So we send this letter. Here's the tough-on-terrorism Bill Clinton:
"You better help us or -- or else. You better help us, because if you don't, if you don't, why, we're not going to give you favorable trade status."
Why does Sandy Burglar have any credibility at all?
Why does Madeleine Albright have any credibility at all?
These people!
You talk about inept and incompetent and botched things up -- especially Burglar!
Burglar now with this, you know, purloining of documents in his underwear and socks and pants from the National Archives. But that's Louis Freeh, and he is not backing down at all, and it sounds like he has got the goods and he is eager to get the word out.
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