FBI agent slams bosses at Moussaoui trial

Associated Press ^ | Mar. 20, 2006 | MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

[Dubya]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks.

FBI agent Harry Samit of Minneapolis originally testified as a government witness, on March 9, but his daylong cross examination by defense attorney Edward MacMahon was the strongest moment so far for the court-appointed lawyers defending Moussaoui. The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent is the only person charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

MacMahon displayed a communication addressed to Samit and FBI headquarters agent Mike Maltbie from a bureau agent in Paris relaying word from French intelligence that Moussaoui was "very dangerous," had been indoctrinated in radical Islamic Fundamentalism at London's Finnsbury Park mosque, was "completely devoted" to a variety of radical fundamentalism that Osama bin Laden espoused, and had been to Afghanistan.

Based on what he already knew, Samit suspected that meant Moussaoui had been to training camps there, although the communication did not say that.

The communication arrived Aug. 30, 2001. The Sept. 11 Commission reported that British intelligence told U.S. officials on Sept 13, 2001, that Moussaoui had attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. "Had this information been available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would almost certainly have received intense, high-level attention," the commission concluded.

But Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters or the Justice Department to take his fears seriously. No one from Washington called Samit to say this intelligence altered the picture the agent had been painting since Aug. 18 in a running battle with Maltbie and Maltbie's boss, David Frasca, chief of the radical fundamentalist unit at headquarters.

They fought over Samit's desire for a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer and belongings. Maltbie and Frasca said Samit had not established a link between Moussaoui and terrorists.

Samit testified that on Aug. 22 he had learned from the French that Moussaoui had recruited someone to go to Chechnya in 2000 to fight with Islamic radicals under Emir Ibn al-Khattab. He said a CIA official told him on Aug. 22 or 23 that al-Khattab had fought alongside bin Laden in the past. This, too, failed to sway Maltbie or Frasca.

Under questioning from MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he had told the Justice Department inspector general that "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" on the part of FBI headquarters officials had prevented him from getting a warrant that would have revealed more about Moussaoui's associates. He said that opposition blocked "a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks."

The FBI's actions between Moussaoui's arrest, in Minnesota on immigration violations on Aug. 16, 2001, and Sept. 11, 2001, are crucial to his trial because prosecutors allege that Moussaoui's lies prevented the FBI from discovering the identities of 9/11 hijackers and the Federal Aviation Administration from taking airport security steps.

But MacMahon made clear the Moussaoui's lies never fooled Samit. The agent sent a memo to FBI headquarters on Aug. 18 accusing Moussaoui of plotting international terrorism and air piracy over the United States, two of the six crimes he pleaded guilty to in 2005.

To obtain a death penalty, prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui's actions led directly to the death of at least one person on 9/11.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. But he says he had nothing to do with 9/11 and was training to fly a 747 jetliner into the White House as part of a possible later attack.

Samit's complaints echoed those raised in 2002 by Coleen Rowley, the bureau's agent-lawyer in the Minneapolis office, who tried to help get a warrant. Rowley went public with her frustrations, was named a Time magazine person of the year for whistleblowing and is now running for Congress.

Samit revealed far more than Rowley of the details of the investigation.

MacMahon walked Samit through e-mails and letters the agent sent seeking help from the FBI's London, Paris and Oklahoma City offices, FBI headquarters files, the CIA's counterterrorism center, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, an intelligence agency not identified publicly by name in court (possibly the National Security Agency), and the FBI's Iran, Osama bin Laden, radical fundamentalist, and national security law units at headquarters.

Samit described useful information from French intelligence and the CIA before 9/11 but said he was not told that CIA Director George Tenet was briefed on the Moussaoui threat on Aug. 23 and never saw until after 9/11 a memo from an FBI agent in Phoenix about radical Islamists taking flight training there.

For each nugget of information, MacMahon asked Samit if Washington officials called to assess the implications. Time after time, Samit said no.

MacMahon introduced an Aug. 31 letter Samit drafted "to advise the FAA of a potential threat to security of commercial aircraft" from whomever Moussaoui was conspiring with.

But Maltbie barred him from sending it to FAA headquarters, saying he would handle that, Samit testified. The agent added that he did tell FAA officials in Minneapolis of his suspicions.

[cripplecreek]

Able Danger, this and who knows what else. I'm just shaking my head and thinking that we're on our own folks.

[Freee-dame]

They fought over Samit's desire for a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer and belongings. Maltbie and Frasca said Samit had not established a link between Moussaoui and terrorists.

Think what a more sensible warrant procedure might have prevented.

[af_vet_1981]

Able Danger, this and who knows what else. I'm just shaking my head and thinking that we're on our own folks.

It sounds like Pearl Harbor ...

[cripplecreek]

It's kinda sad but it reminds me of the old joke.

My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep, everybody else in the car was screaming in terror.

[Rapscallion]

Despite the conclusions of the 9/11 "Omission" Commission, the CIA and the FBI had both data and documents that should have led them to know beforehand that we would be attacked by the 9-11 terrorists using our own aircraft as flying bombs steered into the icons of America. These agencies were charged with protecting the United States and they failed. They failed to connect the dots and they failed to believe their own analysts.

This I believe and will believe until my last day.

[hosepipe]

[ Able Danger, this and who knows what else. I'm just shaking my head and thinking that we're on our own folks. ]

The mischief Clinton caused in the FBI, CIA, BATF, NSA and god knows where else for eight long long years is yet to be told..

Already promotions of incompetents in the military is making itself known.. i.e. Weasly Clark.. How better to ruin our institutions than getting rid of the good guys and promoting the bad guys..

A story of the Clintons using Marines in full dress uniform as waiters at dinner partys so the leftys could laugh at them, comes to mind(Unintended Consequences).. And a quote that Clinton hates the military..

[Nathan Zachary]

Indeed, and it was all the fault of 10 years of Clinton/ RATS politicizing and weakening our first line of defense, not to mention Clinton's FAULURE to act when he should have and take out Bin Laden.

[roses of sharon]

Duh, it was obvious on 9/11 that intell failed, just as it was obvious in Munich, the cruise ship and airline hijackings, embassies and military base bombings, WTC bombing in 93.............on and on.

Maybe our time in Afghanistan and Iraq will bear fruit on the need to get people inside these Islamic cults in the years to come.

[Marine Inspector]

I'm just shaking my head and thinking that we're on our own folks.

Me too.

[FreeAtlanta]

Clintons using Marines in full dress uniform as waiters at dinner partys so the leftys could laugh at them

Is this true? If so, my anger is boiling over.

[Lancey Howard]

Under questioning from MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he had told the Justice Department inspector general that "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" on the part of FBI headquarters officials had prevented him from getting a warrant that would have revealed more about Moussaoui's associates. He said that opposition blocked "a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks."

OMG! Did you see this??

[hosepipe]

I believe I'm wrong it was in "Unlimited Access" by Gary Aldrich, a Secret Service agent in Clinton White House.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/contributors/garyaldrich.html

[Lancey Howard]

Are these two clowns, Mike Maltbie and David Frasca, still working for the FBI?
It sounds to me like they should do "the honorable thing, like Admiral Boorda".

[dominic flandry]

So were Maltbie and Maltbie's boss, David Frasca, fired for criminal negligence?

Maltbie was reportedly promoted. See following link.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/695867/replies?c=104

Frasca was reportedly promoted. See following link.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/02/43525.shtml

Mueller remains head of the FBI. The President has not gotten rid of anyone who did not do their job except Michael Brown at FEMA.

[roses of sharon]

LOL, a Federal employee getting fired, that is as unlikely as a UAW or NEA employee being fired.

Maybe if your guys get elected, they can save the nation, no, the world from mistakes, forever and ever!

[STARWISE]

Dear Lord ... if this is true, we're gonna have to start organizing neighborhood and regional militias ... to protect us from incompetent and defective government employees who are supposed to be protecting us from terrorists.

[Wristpin]

With the way the Federal Governement works, Maltie-the- obstructor probably received a promotion so they could move him out of the job. That's how they do it at DOD anyway.

[Calpernia]

I don't know if you have any way of finding out more info; but 3 people I knew from Lawton, OK got called up in 2001. They were suppose to go to Malaysia August (2001) for what they said was a looksy. Malaysia had gone dark (not sure what that meant).

Anyway, they never ended up going. The date kept getting changed. By 9/11, it was canceled.

Any of that sound familiar?

[Calpernia]

bump