Posted on 04/17/2002 9:12:46 PM PDT by glorygirl
DALLAS- Danny Defenbaugh, the special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI office who was heavily criticized in a report last month for withholding information in the Timothy McVeigh trial, announced his retirement Wednesday.
Defenbaugh, 51, said he would step down at the end of April after a 32-year career. He was named head of the Dallas FBI office in 1998, after leading the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.
"It's been a long time," Defenbaugh said, declining to comment further.
In a March 19 report, the Justice Department recommended Defenbaugh and three other agents be disciplined for the FBI's failure to turn over thousands of pages of documents to McVeigh's lawyers until days before his scheduled execution.
Defenbaugh was not pressured to step down as a result of the report, FBI spokeswoman Lori Bailey said.
"This was his call," she said. "All he said was he's had a great career and he's ready to retire and ready to move on."
The 192-page report found no evidence that FBI agents meant to hide information.
The report said most of the mislaid or destroyed paperwork contained no significant or new information for McVeigh's defense team. However, it acknowledged that the lengthy investigation did not determine whether all destroyed documents had been disclosed.
Defenbaugh released a statement March 19 accepting the criticism. "I made decisions concerning the documents based on my honest evaluation of the situation, my many years of experience and out of my desire to do the right thing," he said.
The inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, recommended disciplinary action for four FBI supervisors for what he called a "significant neglect of their duties."
The disciplinary action wasn't specified. Bailey said Wednesday that no disciplinary action has been taken against Defenbaugh or Dallas supervisory agent Mark White, who was also named in the report.
The inspector general also recommended discipline, to a lesser degree, for William Teater, a squad supervisor for the FBI unit responsible for parts of the investigation, and for Richard Marquise, who became head of the Oklahoma City office in 1999.
Three of the supervisors discovered problems with FBI documents as early as January 2001, but no one notified FBI headquarters, Justice officials or the chief prosecutor in the McVeigh trial until five months later, the report said.
Convicted in the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more, McVeigh had been scheduled to be executed on May 16 of last year. But the delayed turnover of documents resulted in an extraordinary delay in his execution until June 11. Most of the documents in question were created by the FBI in April and May 1995.
From weegee's link to the Houston Chronicle.
Ain't the knowledge that among the feral-gummint's guardians of Our Individual Liberty -- Our Beloved FRaternal Republic's Founding Principle -- "seniority" and the Peter Principle enjoy such a close relationship.
We may all sleep better tonight knowing that Our Liberty is in such hands!
Note Charles Grassley's comments in this article.
But Defenbaugh like many other corrupt (my opinion) FBI bureaucrats (Freeh, Potts, Shapirop, Kennedy, COulson) gets to ride into the sunset with pension and perks fully in tact and no jail time-his reward for carrying out coverups for the FBI and DOJ and WHite House.
or again,
The "national model" that was functioning at its Defenbaugh best on September 11 2001.
God save Our Beloved FRaternal Republic FRom the effect of the own-arse-covering Peter-Principled protectors of Our Founding Principle, eh?
PS: What did Charley Grassley say? Post it please?
"U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, a frequent FBI critic who has pushed for tough discipline in the McVeigh papers case, said Agent Defenbaugh has been allowed to "get out the exit door before the curtain falls.""Director Mueller is making a serious effort to reform the FBI, and I appreciate his work," Mr. Grassley said in a prepared statement. "However, much remains to be done to ensure that senior FBI officials are held accountable to the same standards as the rank-and-file agents."
Former colleagues of Agent Defenbaugh in Dallas and elsewhere said they feared his unexpected retirement might have been unfairly linked to the politics currently surrounding the bureau. "
Since no disciplinary action has been meted out, the FBI continues to show their arrogance. Not only are they above the law, they ignore their own IG's recommendations. Sheesh!
Isn't this like asking Clinton to reform the Catholic Church?
Mueller also came under some criticism in 1992 by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D.-CT), then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Dodd's office was looking at Mueller for having shredded documents linking senior Reagan-Bush officials to illicit transactions involving BCCI and the personal profiteering of Republicans close to the Bush Regime in schemes financed by BCCI.
The report said most of the mislaid or destroyed paperwork contained no significant or new information for McVeigh's defense team.
if "most" paper work contained "no" significant information, then could you assume "some" paperwork contained "some" significant information?
However, it acknowledged that the lengthy investigation did not determine whether all destroyed documents had been disclosed.
what was the point of the whole deal if "investigation did not determine whether all destroyed documents had been disclosed"??
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