Reply #89: Louis Freeh -> Thomas Pickard -> Robert Mueller

[DrDebug]

An interesting aspect of 9/11 is what happened to the Director of the FBI during that period. It can be argued that Louis Freeh was not the right person to cover up 9/11 and that Robert Mueller was, because of prior experience with Noriega and the BCCI. The person which gets overlooked of course is Thomas Pickard because he ran the FBI while 9/11 was being organized / planned.

Louis Freeh (- June 25, 2001)

The FBI Blamed Ashcroft

Newsweek reported an "extraordinary confrontation" between the attorney general and then-FBI director Louis Freeh at the annual meeting of FBI Special Agents in Charge in May 2001. Ashcroft and Freeh met before their appearance and the attorney general laid out his priorities, "'basically, violent crime and drugs,' recalls one participant. Freeh replied bluntly that those were not his priorities, and started to talk about terror and counterterrorism. 'Ashcroft didn't want to hear about it,' says a former senior law enforcement official." The New York Times and Washington Post reported that Thomas J. Pickard, acting director of the FBI in the summer of 2001, told the 9/11 Commission that Ashcroft had "little interest" in terrorism.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF...

Ashcroft temporarily appoint Thomas Pickard who we shall discuss last because he is the most interesting. One week before 9/11 on September 4, 2001, Robert Muller becomes Director of the FBI

Robert Muller (September 4, 2001 -)

Robert Mueller was responsible for the prosecution of Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama, who was the CIA's main money launderer for CIA operations in Panama. Even Congress knew of Noriega's CIA connections. Senator Kerry said that Noriega "had been on the payroll and an employee of the CIA for many, many, many years" Noriega was taken down by the CIA and prosecuted because he was found to be taking a much larger cut out of CIA drug profits than was agreed upon. During the trial, the presiding judge ruled that Noriega could not enter into evidence any documents proving his relationship to the CIA over the years. Mueller helped cover up this major issue by silencing Noriega.

http://www.fourwinds10.com/NewsServer/ArticleFunctions/...

Robert Mueller assumes the job of FBI Director. He had been nominated for the job in July 2001 after Louis Freeh’s unexpected and sudden resignation. Thomas Pickard was interim director for three months. Mueller held a variety of jobs in the Justice Department for over a decade prior to his nomination. Most notably, he led Justice Department investigations into the 1991 collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) (see July 5, 1991) and the 1988 bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Mueller was heavily criticized for his role in the BCCI investigation. For instance, a bipartisan Congressional BCCI investigation led by Senators John Kerry (D) and Hank Brown (R) stated, “Unfortunately, as time has passed it has become increasingly clear that the Justice Department did indeed make critical errors in its handling of BCCI ... and moreover masked inactivity in prosecuting and investigating the bank by advising critics that matters pertaining to BCCI were ’under investigation,’ when in fact they were not” and also “(hindered) other legitimate investigative efforts, and (failed) to admit that it had made any of these mistakes.”

Mueller himself noted in 1991 that there was an “appearance of, one, foot-dragging; two, perhaps a cover-up,” but denied the cover-up claims. A Wall Street Journal editorial notes that “Even George W. Bush bumped up against the outer fringes of the BCCI crowd during his tenure with Harken Energy and in his friendship with Texas entrepreneur James Bath,” and opines, “On general principles, our view is that it would be a mistake to appoint as FBI head anyone who had any role in the failed BCCI probe. Too many important questions remain unanswered...”

FBI Director Mueller describes reports that several of the hijackers had received flight training in the US as “news, quite obviously,” adding, “If we had understood that to be the case, we would have perhaps one could have averted this.” It will later be discovered that contrary to Mueller’s claims, the FBI had interviewed various flight school staffs about Middle Eastern militants on numerous occasions, from 1996 until a few weeks before 9/11. Three days later, he says, “There were no warning signs that I’m aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.” Slate magazine will contrast this with numerous other contradictory statements and articles, and will award Mueller the “Whopper of the Week.”

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?se...

Let's throw in John O'Neill again:

John O'Neill and his lost briefcase: O'Neill lost his briefcase on Aug. 19th 2001, in a Miami conference room. The briefcase was returned in a few hours, nothing was missing. In an interview with french authors Brisard + Dasquie (Forbidden Truth), he complained about the sabotage within the FBI and implied a plot against him by FBI-director Thomas Pickard or Louis Freeh.

http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/ONeill,John.shtml

He still says or, however Thomas Pickard is the strange person in this story.

He did give a warning to Ashcroft which was of course ignored

July 12, 2001: Ashcroft Reputedly Uninterested in Terrorism

On July 5, the CIA briefed Attorney General Ashcroft on the al-Qaeda threat, warning that a significant terrorist attack is imminent, and a strike could occur at any time. <9/11 Commission, 4/13/2004> On this day, acting FBI Director Tom Pickard briefs Ashcroft about the terror threat inside the US. Pickard later swears under oath that Ashcroft tells him, “(I do) not want to hear about this anymore.” Ashcroft, also under oath, later categorically denies the allegation, saying, “I did never speak to him saying that I didn’t want to hear about terrorism.” However, Ruben Garcia, head of the Criminal Division, and another senior FBI official corroborate Pickard’s account. Ashcroft’s account is supported by his top aide, but another official in Ashcroft’s office who could also support Ashcroft’s account says he cannot remember what happened. Pickard briefs Ashcroft on terrorism four more times that summer, but he never mentions al-Qaeda to Ashcroft again before 9/11. Pickard later makes an appeal to Ashcroft for more counterterrorism funding; Ashcroft rejects the appeal on September 10, 2001 (see September 10, 2001). <9/11 Commission, 4/13/2004> Pickard later says, “Before September 11th, I couldn’t get half an hour on terrorism with Ashcroft. He was only interested in three things: guns, drugs, and civil rights.”

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=152184...

It appears from these stories that maybe Mueller was send in as his replacement because Pickard had the same issues with Ashcroft as Freeh. However there is also this:

ewing2001
911- The final dots Pt.2 -Top 20 LIHOP- Suspects?

#4 Thomas Pickard, Bristol Myers Squibb

On June 25, 2001, Pickard was appointed Acting Director of the FBI by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Thomas Pickard took over the job of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, but held this position only for a couple of weeks before Richard Mueller became Director on September 4, 2001. (1)

John O'Neill complained about sabotage by Pickard. But because O'Neill's story was never discussed in public, Pickard was never asked about this point. What exactly "went wrong," causing Pickard to ignore the various warnings about a possible terrorist attack and the memos from Williams about the flying lessons by Muslims and the arrest of Moussaoui, Habib Zacarias? (2)

We should take a look at Pickard's career to find a possible answer on this. Pickard started his career as an agent in the FBI's New York office in 1975 and went on to work on a number of high-profile cases. Pickard went undercover and offered congressmen bribes as part of the 1979 Abscam probe and supervised the FBI's role in trials in the first World Trade Center attack and the arrest of Ramzi Youssef, charged with plotting to blow up U.S. airliners. He helped oversee the investigation into the explosion of TWA Flight 800, the espionage investigation of former FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts and the capture in Pakistan of Mir Aimal Kasi, who was convicted of killing CIA workers at a traffic light outside the agency's headquarters.

Now this specialist Pickard claims he never heard about the memos by Williams and Rowley. Even with all these connections? The Washington Post seemed to believe this too: "The Phoenix memo was circulated only among counterterrorism divisions in New York and at Washington headquarters. It was not shown to then-acting director Thomas J. Pickard or other senior FBI managers, officials said." (3)

But the question is why these memos were not shown to Pickard? In November 2001 Pickard retired and started a job at Bristol Myers Squibb as new Head Of Corporate Security in January 2002. (6)

Did Pickard let the attack happen on purpose?
If so, under whose influence?
Did he also know about a possible anthrax attack?
Is that the reason he later started a job in the pharmacy?
Did he let the anthrax attack happen as well?

Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Mueller_III
2. http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00068.htm
3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=artic...
4. http://www.bms.com/news/press/data/pf_press_release_222...
5. http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Pickard,Thomas.shtml
6. http://www.bms.com/news/press/data/pf_press_release_222...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/du...

One weird thing about the anthrax suspect while we are on that subject:

The FBI's biggest anthrax suspect, Stephen Hatfill, in 2002, was connected with Sep11 th related individuals and companies like Battelle, Jerome Hauer, Porton Down, USAMRIID and Dr. Thomas Inglesby (Johns Hopkins Institute), who claimed, that in June 2001 one of the hijackers was infected with cutaneous anthrax.

http://netti.nic.fi/~hyk/911-tietosanakirja.pdf

Versar, Paul Bremer's bio-terrorism company becomes "interesting" as well.

There were also quite a number of other FBI agents who died on 9/11. What division did they work for? Why didn't Ashcroft want to solve 9/11?