FBI supervisor criticized in 9-11 attacks earns award
Posted on 01/10/2003 3:37:28 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
FBI supervisor criticized in 9-11 attacks earns award
Honor given to chief of law unit that blocked Moussaoui warrant
01/10/2003
WASHINGTON - An FBI supervisor whose headquarters unit denied a pre-Sept. 11 search warrant against Zacarias Moussaoui has won a presidential citation and large cash bonus, incentives the agency's congressional critics say reward incompetence.
The FBI's deputy general counsel, Marion "Spike" Bowman, was among nine current and former FBI officials who last month received a Presidential Rank Award for career senior executives, which carries with it a large cash bonus of 20 to 30 percent of an annual salary.
Mr. Bowman, head of the FBI's National Security Law Unit, was praised for efforts to attract within the FBI "a staff of attorneys to examine diverse and highly complex issues for which little or no formal legal education has been available." FBI Director Robert Mueller recommended to the White House that Mr. Bowman receive the award.
The decision roiled FBI critics who believe Mr. Bowman's lawyers improperly rejected a search warrant request by FBI agents in Minnesota investigating Mr. Moussaoui in August 2001. Mr. Bowman, who declined to comment Thursday, maintains there never was enough evidence for such a warrant under the guidelines of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
An FBI spokesman also declined Thursday to comment on Mr. Bowman's selection for the award or specify the amount of Mr. Bowman's cash bonus.
Sen. Charles "Chuck" Grassley, R-Iowa, complained in a letter to the FBI director, "You are sending the wrong signal to those agents who fought - sometimes against senior FBI bureaucrats at headquarters - to prevent the attacks."
Mr. Grassley asked Mr. Mueller to explain in writing his decision to nominate Mr. Bowman. He told Mr. Mueller that Senate testimony by Mr. Bowman during a closed Judiciary Committee hearing in July raised serious questions about the competence of lawyers in the unit.
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee during its oversight investigation of the FBI, complained last month - just days before Mr. Bowman won the award - that Mr. Bowman's law unit provided "inexcusably confused and inaccurate information" to FBI investigators in Minneapolis during the Moussaoui case.
Mr. Shelby said in an 84-page report that the FBI unit's advice turned out to be "patently false" and led agents in Minnesota on a "wild goose chase for nearly three weeks."
On Thursday, Mr. Shelby said the award showed "no accountability for poor performance at the bureau. ... They continue to reward bad behavior, and the results speak for themselves."
The Senate investigation also criticized Mr. Bowman's unit for blocking an urgent request on Aug. 29, 2001, by FBI agents in New York to begin searching for Khalid Almihdar, one of the hijackers on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon.
An FBI agent, who wasn't identified publicly, testified that Mr. Bowman's lawyers decided information tying Mr. Almihdar to terrorism had been obtained through intelligence channels and thus could not legally be used in a criminal investigation.
"Some day, someone will die ... and the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems," the agent wrote in a hauntingly prescient e-mail to FBI headquarters. He said he hoped that Mr. Bowman's law unit "will stand behind their decisions then."
Incredible this person is being rewarded.
...or is there information missing from this article?
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON - An FBI supervisor whose headquarters unit denied a pre-Sept. 11 search warrant against Zacarias Moussaoui has won a presidential citation and large cash bonus, incentives the agency's congressional critics say reward incompetence.
< snip >
Sen. Charles "Chuck" Grassley, R-Iowa, complained in a letter to the FBI director, "You are sending the wrong signal to those agents who fought - sometimes against senior FBI bureaucrats at headquarters - to prevent the attacks."
Mr. Grassley asked Mr. Mueller to explain in writing his decision to nominate Mr. Bowman. He told Mr. Mueller that Senate testimony by Mr. Bowman during a closed Judiciary Committee hearing in July raised serious questions about the competence of lawyers in the unit.
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee during its oversight investigation of the FBI, complained last month - just days before Mr. Bowman won the award - that Mr. Bowman's law unit provided "inexcusably confused and inaccurate information" to FBI investigators in Minneapolis during the Moussaoui case.
Mr. Shelby said in an 84-page report that the FBI unit's advice turned out to be "patently false" and led agents in Minnesota on a "wild goose chase for nearly three weeks."
On Thursday, Mr. Shelby said the award showed "no accountability for poor performance at the bureau. ... They continue to reward bad behavior, and the results speak for themselves."
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy. 
MICKEY MOUSE! FBI! MICKEY MOUSE1 FBI
Probably not … the Federal Government regularly rewards it bureaucratic, incompetent, idiots – they are very useful to those who wield power. The rewards are intended to assuage any pangs of conscience on the part of the bureaucrat for his guilt in the killing of 3000 innocent lives.
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I wondered what had happened to ol' Spike. We knew he was headed for greatness when we saw college transform his head full of mush into a raving, fangy-toothed liberal democRAT. Just the type who can make it big in the fed'ril gubmint.
Just for the record, there is an alternative explanation for an award going to the man that successfully prevented the Moussaoui investigation from preventing 9-11. He may have been doing exactly what the people who make such awards expected him to do.
Looks like. Thanks for all the related links...
Exactly!
So what is the difference between this and the exoneration of Horiuchi and Potts and that FBI goon that blew the face off of that guy trying to undo his seatbelt?
Enjoy that 30% bonus at our effin expense Bowman.
Why the Government is awarding bonuses at all to any of these sideshow government apparatchik freaks is the real scandal here.
bttt
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