Fbi Lab Testimony ‘Incomplete,’ Freeh Says
FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has acknowledged that he gave “incomplete” testimony to Congress earlier this month, a startling admission that deals yet another setback the bureau’s increasingly tarnished image problem.
In letters released Monday, Freeh conceded that he had been in error when he told a House subcommittee that the FBI was “solely and directly” following the recommendations of the Justice Department’s inspector general when it disciplined a bureau chemist for making allegations of sloppy procedures and deliberate deception at the FBI’s crime lab.
Instead, he said in letters to the inspector general and the chairman of a House subcommittee, the truth was that whistleblower Frederic Whitehurst was disciplined for refusing to cooperate with an internal FBI investigation into leaks about the inspector general’s long-anticipated upcoming report on the lab.
The revelations come at a time when the FBI and now Freeh - have been harshly criticized not only for their ability to handle high-profile criminal cases, but also for alleged intrusion into politically charged matters in Washington.
In recent years, the FBI has been attacked for overstepping its authority in failed gun battles both at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. The bureau also has been criticized for its failure to determine the cause of the crash of TWA Flight 800 and its treatment of Richard Jewell, a security guard incorrectly profiled as the man who planted a bomb at the summer Olympics in Atlanta.
On Monday, attempting to clarify the situation from its standpoint, the FBI released this statement:
“Director Freeh totally rejects any contention that he deliberately misled the Congress or the public during recent testimony before the House.
“Freeh has candidly admitted that he failed to mention an important point in the testimony. When this was pointed out to him, he promptly corrected the record. Freeh regrets his inadvertent omission.”
The Freeh letters, released by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who chairs a Judiciary subcommittee that oversees the FBI, are pivotal because Whitehurst’s credibility will likely influence the veracity of many of his allegations about the lab.
Whitehurst has maintained that the FBI used sloppy lab procedures and changed some analyses, and that some lab technicians tilted their findings to help boost prosecutions. The allegations triggered the ongoing inspector general’s review of the lab, expected to be completed in April.
Already, while Freeh has maintained that no criminal cases will be compromised, senior officials in the Justice Department have begun alerting lawyers in as many as 50 criminal cases that there may be problems with their evidence.