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The Worldwide Crisis of Islam => The Truth About Islam => Topic started by: mord on March 29, 2007, 09:39:44 AM
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FBI Agent German blows whistle on White Supremacist Islamist Meeting in U.S.
by Jerry Gordon
I watched the Senate Judiciary FBI oversight hearings, today live and on-line from Washington, DC. FBI director Mueller was being grilled about the alleged misuse, some say abuse, of the National Security Letters authorized by the Patriot Act to conduct domestic counter-terrorism activities. There were also questions regarding the FBI position relative to the 8 U.S. attorneys fired by embattled Attorney General Gonzalez.
In the midst of this was a jarring statement read by Iowa Republican Charles Grassley about an FBI Agent ‘whistle blower” German, by name and a cover up by superiors in the FBI about a meeting between a White Supremacist and an Islamist. Below is an excerpt of the Statement of Senator Grassley about the matter. All FBI director Mueller could say in response to questions by Grassley following this statement was : ‘I’ll get back to you on that.” Grassley had a transcript in his hand of the alleged conversation between these two antisemites and implored Mueller to find out why it was kept in someone’s drawer for ‘months’ until an Inspector General investigation unearthed it. FBI Agent German was trashed by FBI spokespersons as being “unreliable”.
As you will see in the excerpt from Senator Grassley’s statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee the conversation by the terrorists was all about a common hatred - read that as Jews; their unabashed love of Hitler, their common objective of killing Jews, obtaining weapons from Iran, fomenting a civil war in the U.S., lauding suicide bombers, and targeting pro-Israeli jounalists for ‘hits
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A lot of us knew the FBI was terrible at the domestic intelligence game after reading the horror stories in the 9/11 Commission Report. But after 5 years, you would have thought they would have gotten it. Apparently, not. But this is not surprising as FBI Director Mueller and his senior staff are into “sensitivity training” in how to deal with Muslims, sending Special Agents out in Los Angeles to make praising sounds at CAIR fund raisers, letting CAIR chapters like the one out in Louisville get in to see how the local field office does its ‘job,’ holding palaver sessions in Brooklyn with Imams from Wahhabi Mosques with al Qaeda Connections.
But then this is the same FBI whose Counter Intelligence chief David Szady perpetrated the case against the two former AIPAC senior officials Ken Rosen and Steve Weissman who go on trial next month in a Northern Virginia Federal Court on the flimsy grounds of having violated a 90 year old sedition law out of phase since the end of World War I.
Read the Grassley Statement and wonder why the domestic counter-terrorism program is in a shambles.
I was asked not long ago for my candid opinion by two concerned FBI special agents involved in counter terrorism about what I thought about the current program. I told them that it “sucked” and was run over by the “PC Machine” that one of them cited.
Read this excerpt from Senator Grassley’s statement and shake your head in bafflement as to what is going on in the FBI and for that matter in the entire doimestic counter terrorism effort.
Excerpt from U.S. Senator Charles Grassley’s Statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee March 27, 2006
“Second, I want to mention the Michael German case. Former Special Agent Michael German has publicly said that the FBI missed a golden opportunity to infiltrate a terrorist group operating on inside the United States. Remarkably, the opportunity came in the form of a recorded meeting between a white supremacist and an Islamic extremist. Over a year ago, the Inspector General found that the FBI retaliated against German and falsified records related to the case. It appears that the FBI failed to take any of this seriously. It’s not clear whether the FBI official who retaliated against German was or ever will be punished. The case on two extremists who were meeting with each other to talk about operational ties doesn’t look like it ever went anywhere. The FBI went on television and claimed that, essentially, Agent German was full of hot air. Referring to German’s claim about a connection between domestic and foreign terrorist groups, the FBI spokeswoman said, “It did not exist, there was not a coming together of those two separate groups.”
“However, after years of effort by this Committee, the FBI finally provided a transcript of the meeting, and it flatly contradicts statements made by Bureau officials trying to downplay the incident and discredit Michael German. The transcript clearly shows a white supremacist and an Islamic militant talking about building operational ties between their organizations. Moreover, it is clear that what brings them together was anti-Semitism. According to the transcript these two groups also discussed (1) shooting Jews, (2) their shared admiration for Hitler, (3) arms shipments from Iran, (4) their desire for a civil war in the United States, (5) their approval of suicide bombings, and (6) assassinating pro-Israeli journalists in the United States. This was all the very first time they met.”
The FBI’s public statements about German’s claims were misleading at best, and the transcript makes that clear. My bigger concern, however, is that the FBI seems incapable of mining its criminal cases for valuable intelligence like this and distributing it to the rest of the intelligence community. According to Agent German, this transcript sat in a supervisor’s desk drawer for months, while he first raised his concerns and while other FBI supervisors were busy playing defense, claiming to headquarters that the meeting was not even recorded.”
Posted by Jerry Gordon @ 9:09 pm ET | Plink | Trackback | 3 Comments »
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More on this ??? http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1205/121205c1.htm
DAILY BRIEFING
December 12, 2005
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Report: FBI mishandled counterterrorism case
By Chris Strohm
[email protected]
The Justice Department's inspector general has found that FBI agents mishandled a counterterrorism case in 2002, falsified records to cover up their mistakes and retaliated against a whistleblower for exposing the problems.
The IG's draft report on the case -- obtained by Government Executive -- also sheds rare light on problems with how the FBI internally handled allegations from the whistleblower, then-special agent Michael German.
But in another twist, German remains critical of the IG despite the report. He contends IG officials distorted some facts and failed to fully investigate whether the bureau missed an opportunity to infiltrate a terrorist conspiracy. He has asked the IG to do a more complete investigation before issuing a final report.
Congressional aides now are reviewing the situation to determine what action they should take, not only in relation to the counterterrorism case and subsequent cover-up, but also with regard to how the FBI and inspector general responded to German's allegations. Options under consideration include writing letters to the FBI and to the inspector general, and calling officials to Capitol Hill for briefings.
The incident could have far-reaching implications for the FBI, which made counterterrorism its top priority after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and publicly pledged to protect whistleblowers.
The FBI and the Justice IG declined to comment for this story.
The Tampa Case
In January 2002 - just four months after 9/11 - the FBI began investigating the possibility that a U.S. right-wing extremist group and an overseas Islamic terrorist organization were joining forces to launder money and funnel it to terrorists abroad.
A meeting that month between an FBI informant and a person with suspected links to terrorism in Orlando, Fla., indicated that such a conspiracy was in the works, prompting the bureau's Tampa Division to launch a formal counterterrorism investigation, the IG report stated.
In March 2002, the Tampa Division asked German, a seasoned special agent, to go undercover in the investigation. During the next few months, however, German found widespread problems with how the investigation was being managed.
He also discovered that the informant had violated FBI policy during the January meeting by leaving a recording device unattended. The informant did not have permission to do that, and the violation meant that parts of the meeting could not be used in the investigation.
German formally filed his whistleblower complaint in a letter to his supervisors in September 2002.
IG On the Case
The inspector general concluded in a draft 40-page report that the Tampa Division mismanaged the investigation.
The draft report, completed in mid-November, stated that the case agent in charge of the probe failed to prepare reports and document investigative activities in a timely manner. The IG also found that the case agent acted improperly by backdating FBI reports. The agent began adding false dates to reports after German wrote his September 2002 letter, the inspectors found.
The IG found that supervisors in the Tampa Division were aware of problems with the investigation but did not take prompt corrective action. And the IG found that dates on at least three documents were falsified using correction fluid. The IG said, however, it could not conclude who falsified those forms.
The IG concluded that FBI agent Jorge Martinez, who served as chief of the bureau's Undercover and Sensitive Operations Unit from 2001 until 2004, had retaliated against German for raising the allegations by excluding him from training programs.
Internal Confusion
The IG report also highlights a complicated and, at times, messy process inside the bureau in response to German's allegations, including a lack of coordination between offices responsible for investigating and resolving complaints.
The Tampa Division and the FBI's Inspection Division both conducted internal reviews into German's charges. The Inspection Division is responsible for ensuring the bureau follows its own rules and conducts investigations properly.
German also met with representatives from the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, which is responsible for investigating and adjudicating allegations of criminal conduct and serious misconduct by FBI employees. OPR, however, declined to investigate German's allegations, according to the IG report.
The Tampa Division and the Inspection Division both concluded that the agent in charge of the counterterrorism case failed to prepare reports and document investigative activities in a timely manner.
Only the Inspection Division recommended disciplinary action against the case agent. The FBI did not act on this recommendation until February 2004, when the bureau placed the agent under a "developmental plan," the IG stated. The Inspection Division also concluded that Tampa managers failed to take necessary corrective action, but did not recommend any punishment.
Neither review reached conclusions on whether the case agent had falsified dates on reports. The IG noted confusion between the Inspection Division and OPR on the matter. Members of the Inspection Division team said they thought OPR already had investigated whether the case agent was falsifying dates. But OPR officials said they thought the Inspection Division team would investigate that issue and report any findings to them.
Managers in the Tampa Division also told FBI headquarters that the January 2002 meeting between the informant and the person with suspected terrorism links was not recorded, the IG found. But German had a partial transcript from the recording of the meeting, which he showed to OPR.
On the same day that German showed the transcript, the Tampa Division issued a clarification saying the meeting was indeed recorded and that FBI policy had been violated by the informant, the IG stated. German said he suspects that somebody within OPR tipped off the Tampa Division that he had a transcript.
The IG concluded that OPR should have investigated German's allegations, as well as the circumstances surrounding the clarification on the recording.
Whistleblower's Critique
In a 26-page response to the draft IG report, German noted the significance of some of the findings.
"These are important findings that demonstrate a dangerous lack of internal controls within the FBI that calls the integrity of every FBI investigation into question," he wrote. "The administration, Congress and the American public should be gravely concerned about these findings under the current national security threat situation."
But German, who resigned from the bureau in 2004, also was highly critical of some of the inspector general's work. He contended that parts of the investigation weren't thorough. The IG also took too long to do its investigation, he argued.
"The failure of the OIG to properly address this matter and to protect me from retaliation compelled me to resign from the FBI in order to bring this case to the attention of members of Congress and the American public, and only that public pressure compelled the OIG to act," German wrote.
He also maintained that he was retaliated against in more ways than the IG found. He asked the IG to re-evaluate its conclusion with regard to retaliation.
One congressional aide noted that German has meticulously documented his allegations, and is not seeking any compensation or reinstatement. "Frankly, he's one of the most credible whistleblowers I've ever seen," the aide said.
Terrorism Nexus?
One of the biggest areas of dispute between the FBI, IG and German is whether the Tampa case actually involved a terrorist plot.
The Tampa Division claimed in late 2002 that it could not find a "viable" terrorism connection. The IG and Inspection Division also said they did not find evidence of links to terrorism in the case.
German, however, said there was an "extraordinary amount of evidence" in FBI records to show a terrorism connection. He said it was only after he raised his allegations that Tampa managers argued that there was no link to terrorism.
German criticized the IG for failing to conduct an independent evaluation to determine if there was a terrorism connection. He asked the IG to either conduct such an investigation of case files before the report is final, or acknowledge in the report that it did not investigate whether there was a terrorism connection.
"The refusal to undertake an independent review . . . seriously undermines the integrity of this OIG report," German wrote. "More importantly, however, the OIG refusal to look at the evidence directly affects the national security of the United States and our allies."
A Public Plea
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a memo in support of whistleblowers.
"The freedom to expose any impropriety within the bureau, without suffering reprisal, is fundamental to our ability to maintain high standards of organizational performance and conduct and to expeditiously root out inefficiency and malfeasance," Mueller wrote. "This critical freedom cannot be impaired by fear or reprisal or intimidation."
More than four years since Mueller issued the memo, German said the FBI still does not have adequate protection for whistleblowers and runs the risk of losing valuable, experienced agents, such as himself.
"There's nobody that wants the FBI to reform more than the agents out there doing the work, but unfortunately the way the system's set up they can't do anything about it," he said. "What I hope happens with all of this is that the public realizes there are still enormous problems with the way the FBI handles counterterrorism and compels Congress to reform the FBI, because it won't reform itself. Period."