Reply #22: Remember back in summer 2001 (pre 9/11), a shakeup in the FBI

[Peace Patriot]

involving big Congressional hearings, and an investigation? I can't recall what all that was about. (Why was an investigation of the FBI necessary? Or was it?) The upshot was Freeh was ousted. I remember this because I was following the Chandra Levy case that summer (which consumed the airwaves leading up to 9/11), and I thought it very peculiar that Congr. Gary Condit (Levy's lover) sat on the House Intelligence Committee, which oversees the FBI, and was privy to many gov't secrets and methods, including the on-going investigation of the FBI. The FBI, of course, was investigating Levy's disappearance, and Condit's relationship with her--along with DC police. Levy had (apparently) applied for a job with the FBI. Condit called "friends" of his in the FBI when her parents contacted him about her whereabouts. He may even have been involved in the first (no warrant) search of her apartment. Levy's computer disappeared into the FBI Lab for about 3 months, before they came out with a revised timeline on her disappearance. First time-line had her disappearing in the morning. Three months later, they said they had (finally!) gotten into her computer, and had gotten the info, that, a) she did a MapQuest search for Rock Creek Park, and b) was using her computer in the early afternoon. This is interesting, because, in June, Condit released his schedule for the week of her disappearance. On the day she disappeared (5/1/01), there is a big hole in his schedule, from 12 noon to 3 pm. At the beginning of that hole was a meeting with Dick Cheney. Ergo, Levy disappearing during the "hole" time period (rather than the morning) means that Dick Cheney was Condit's only alibi during her disappearance hours. In late July/early August, Newsweek reported Cheney's version of that meeting (short--20 minutes, routine, aides present), through aides who ALSO said that no one--not the FBI, not the DC police, and apparently no one else in the media--had asked Cheney or anyone in Cheney's office about that meeting, not even to verify that it had occurred. And here we have Newsweek accepting Cheney's version of it 3 months later.

I thought that exceedingly odd--that no one had asked Cheney to verify that Condit was with him, or how long he was there. (I also formed a dim opinion of Newsweek at that time, for being a Cheney dump--letting him get away with planting his version of the meeting, after 3 months to think about it--and only after his function as an alibi for Condit during the 12-3 period had become public.) (I figured the "20 min." thing was Cheney cutting Condit loose--not much of an alibi for a 3 hr. period. Condit was a critical "yellow dog" Democrat vote for the Bushites. Three days after Levy's disappearance, and this meeting with Cheney, Condit voted FOR the Bushite's first tax cut for the rich, in an extremely close vote.)

Something else that happened that summer is that FBI agent Colleen Rowley was trying to get into Zacharias Moussoui's computer--and was given a rare FISA warrant denial, not by a judge, but by her superiors in the FBI in DC.* And a third thing that happened was the FBI forcing out FBI agent John O'Neill, who had been following the Yemen Al Qaeda money trail. (He went to work in charge of security at the WTC, the week it was hit. He died in the attack.)

So, Louis Freeh is not high on my list of reliable people.

---------------------------------------


*(And one of the oddest stories I know: Nicholas Berg--who was beheaded supposedly by Al Qaeda in Iraq, during the period when the Abu Ghraib photos were coming out (May '04, six months before the selection) had been previously interviewed by the FBI--just after 9/11--about the presence of his name and email account in Moussoui's computer. IF Rowley had gotten into that computer, prior to 9/11, that's one of the things she would have found. Berg told the FBI (according to his father) that he had met Moussoui purely by coincidence, on a bus to a college class, and had let this complete stranger use his computer. The FBI went away, apparently satisfied with this story. Then, after the invasion of Iraq, the U.S./Bush/FBI--all claiming to be highly security conscious--permitted Berg (whose name was linked to a suspected 9/11 hijacker)--to enter war-torn Iraq and wander around looking for business for his small telecommunications firm. He was picked up by U.S. forces, held for 10 days, then released onto the street (in the middle of the Falluja uprising), where he was supposedly kidnapped and beheaded in the famous video. The video, of course, was freeper food--they used it to counter the Abu Ghraib revelations, as if to say 'these people deserve torture--look what they do, beheading nice American businessmen.' (--no matter to them that most of tortured are/were innocent of any crime.) FISA warrants are almost never denied. With all the "hair-on-fire" warnings of an imminent attack on the U.S. by Al Qaeda that were being fired off at the impervious White House in summer '01, by frantic intelligence agents and other officials (and foreign gov'ts), you'd think a plea by an agent with an Al Q suspect in custody would have reached high levels, and would have been easily okayed. Not in Louis Freeh's FBI.)