Politics

Feds Probe Feds

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 20, 2001 / 2:43 PM EDT / CBS

The FBI is under the microscope, facing a barrage of investigations into everything from alleged threats against whistleblowers to lost weapons.

It's quite a switch for an agency that is used to doing the investigating and operates largely in secret. The scrutiny is coming from all directions. Congress, the Justice Department and outside experts are looking into a series of bungles that have dogged the FBI in recent years.

Robert Mueller, the newly installed FBI director, said the bureau would admit its mistakes, correct them and hold agents and senior officials accountable under his leadership.

He'll inherit a dizzying array of inquiries when he takes over Sept. 4.

The G-Men

From Bonnie and Clyde to Ruby Ridge and Hoover to Freeh, click here to learn more about the history of the FBI.

There are now six planned or ongoing reviews of the 24,000-member bureau, including two by Attorney General John Ashcroft, two others by the Justice Department's Inspector General, one by former CIA and FBI director William Webster and the one proposed in Congress, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

Ashcroft in June directed a high-level Justice Department group called the "Strategic Management Council" to propose reforms by Jan. 1. The group, chaired by the deputy attorney general, should recommend actions aimed at "improving and upgrading the performance of the FBI," Ashcroft said in a memo calling for the review.

All of the probes seem prompted by the same string of recent missteps:

More than 4,000 FBI documents were withheld from lawyers for Timothy McVeigh, forcing Ashcroft to delay the execution. The FBI blamed the problem on glitches with computers and record-keeping.
Robert Hanssen, a veteran FBI counterintelligence agent, was arrested in February for allegedly spying for Moscow for 15 years. Hanssen has pleaded innocent to 21 espionage charges. Two separate investigations of the FBI's internal security are trying to determine how Hanssen eluded detection.
An FBI audit found that hundreds of computers, a few containing classified data, and hundreds of weapons — some of which were used in crimes — had gone missing.

In addition the Justice Department is probing whether the FBI retaliated against agents investigating the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff in which other agents were accused of misconduct. Last year, there was the outcry over the case of Wen Ho Lee, jailed for several months on a series of espionage charges only to plead guilty to a single count.

FBI officials were bracing for the release Monday of portions of a review highly critical of the bureau's handling of the Lee case.

The series of mishaps has plunged the bureau into uncharted waters. The agency that was for years lauded by Congress and alternately respected and feared by the executive branch is now on the other end of the looking glass.

Top G-Men

The FBI was created in 1908, but agents reported to high-ranking Justice Department officials until President Woodrow Wilson named the bureau's first "director":

William J. Flynn
(1919-1921)
William J. Burns
(1921-1924)
J. Edgar Hoover
(1924-1972)
L. Patrick Gray
(1972-1973)
Clarence M. Kelley
(1973-1978)
William H. Webster
(1978-1987)
William S. Sessions
(1987-1993)
Louis J. Freeh
(1993-2001)
Robert Mueller
(2001-)
(FBI)

FBI officials say the bureau is cooperating fully with investigators.

"While it's a significant burden, FBI employees understand the need for this oversight and at the same time are fulfilling their law enforcement and national security responsibilities," said spokesman Mike Kortan.

The scrutiny and a steady stream of headlines extolling the latest blunder have taken a toll on morale, observers say.

"It's something very different from what they are accustomed to," said Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department official who investigated problems with the FBI laboratory. "The spotlight is on the FBI."

Not all of the inquiries have gone smoothly. Inspector General Robert Fine's Ruby Ridge investigators initially encountered problems obtaining documents from the FBI early in the Hanssen investigation, said sources familiar with the probe, speaking on condition of anonymity. They said the bureau now is cooperating.