Fbi Agents Have ‘An Attitude’ About Ruby Ridge Probe Prosecutors Concerned Agents Waiting It Out
Prosecutors leading the investigation into the FBI’s handling of a deadly 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, are worried that federal agents with information about the shootout and subsequent cover-up are hunkering down, with some hoping to wait out the inquiry and others skeptical of whether it is going anywhere.
The concerns were revealed Wednesday when prosecutor Steven W. Pelak asked U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina to help investigators cope with recalcitrant law enforcement witnesses by misidentifying an upcoming court appearance by E. Michael Kahoe, a high-ranking FBI official who has pleaded guilty to obstructing justice in the Ruby Ridge probe.
During a bench conference at a court hearing, out of the public’s hearing, Pelak asked the judge to describe, on the record, Kahoe’s next court date on June 20 vaguely as “a hearing.” In fact, Kahoe, who is cooperating with prosecutors, is scheduled to be sentenced on that date.
Urbina rejected Pelak’s request.
“If there was a need to have some secrecy associated with this proceeding,” the judge said, according to court-maintained tape recording of the bench conference, “the proceeding should have been sealed.
“Now we have a member of the press sitting in the courtroom. You don’t involve the court in issuing a false statement, (where) I say one thing and mean another. I’m not going to do that.”
Pelak made the unusual request, he said, because FBI agents have developed an “attitude” about the Ruby Ridge inquiry while watching prosecutors handle the prosecution of Kahoe.
The FBI veteran was assigned to the bureau’s command center here at the time of the Ruby Ridge siege and admitted destroying an internal FBI critique of the standoff at Randy Weaver’s isolated Idaho cabin.
Three people - a U.S. marshal and Weaver’s son and wife - were killed.
Pelak said agents believe that once Kahoe is sentenced, the Ruby Ridge probe is over. As law enforcement officers, they know that cooperating witnesses never want to be sentenced before their work for prosecutors is done. That is because they want a judge to hear everything they have done before imposing sentence.
The agents also could take a hint from what happens between now and Kahoe’s sentencing. If no other FBI officials are indicted, they could conclude, based on their experience with such matters, that no one else will be charged, especially high-ranking officials.
Three other high-ranking officials are still believed to be under investigation: Larry Potts, the deputy director; Danny O. Coulson, former deputy assistant director for the criminal division; and Gale R. Evans, chief of the violent crimes unit.
“Unfortunately, there’s been an attitude among law enforcement officers that if there’s any sense that higher-ups … will not be punished in a criminal sense, then that information (from other potential witnesses) would not be as forthcoming as it otherwise would be,” Pelak said.
“There’s a perception among many law enforcement officers that a certain sentencing date would indicate that there’s no further investigation and (that) there would no further charges against anyone.”