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FBI director Louis J. Freeh should resign. And if he doesn't, he should be fired.
The man has overseen a bureau that has bungled investigations of high-profile criminal cases and repeatedly misled probers and judges in legal proceedings -- never more shamelessly than in the matter of Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee. At the same time, Freeh's FBI has tried to run roughshod over the civil liberties of ordinary citizens, demanding access to encryption codes and elbowing its way onto every PC in the country through its Carnivore project. On top of it all, Freeh has been openly insubordinate to his boss, Attorney General Janet Reno.
BURIED DOCUMENTS. Just look at the record. First, there was the Branch Davidian mess in Waco, Tex. Freeh isn't responsible for the raid -- that happened before he got to the FBI. But he is accountable for a six-year cover-up of the actions of government agents during the standoff. His agency buried documents that had been demanded in a civil suit and misled both government lawyers and a federal judge about whether incendiary devices were used by agents at Waco. It took a costly special investigation by former Missouri Senator John Danforth to sort out that mess.
Then there was Freeh's behavior in the various White House scandals involving Bill Clinton and Al Gore. The FBI boss has spent years writing classic Washington cover-your-butt memos to Reno, urging her to dispatch independent prosecutors to investigate this allegation or that. The memos were then leaked all over town in a crude effort to embarrass Reno and, at the same time, polish Freeh's apple with White House critics on Capitol Hill. Imagine what would happen to you if you spent your days publicly second-guessing your boss.
Next came the FBI efforts to peak into our computers. In the name of protecting the nation against crime and terrorism, Freeh's bureau first demanded access to all data-encryption codes. Then earlier this year, the abysmally named Carnivore came to light. The idea: Use highly sophisticated software to search e-mail for specific words and data. The FBI has argued that Carnivore won't subject citizens to unreasonable searches because it can't examine e-mail without court authorization. But a congressional outcry surrounding the question of whether e-mail actually enjoys the same legal protections as snail mail or telephones forced the FBI to put the idea on the back burner.
Still, the Wen Ho Lee fiasco is the worst.
LEE'S SAD STORY. Here, in brief, is the sad story of Dr. Lee, a nuclear scientist at the U.S. lab at Los Alamos, N.M. Eight years ago, the Energy Dept. began an investigation into whether information about a top-secret nuclear device had found its way to China. Five years ago, with its usual fanfare, the FBI grabbed control of the investigation. In 1999, the bureau fingered Lee, claiming he stole the "crown jewels" of U.S. nuclear secrets and passed them on to the Chinese. Lee was never actually charged with espionage, but government prosecutors hinted darkly that he was a latter-day Klaus Fuchs.
At a December, 1999, bail hearing, a senior FBI agent misled a federal judge about Lee's alleged activities. Based on that testimony, Lee was held in solitary confinement for nine months.
Now, the government has given up on the whole case. Lee has been set free. And the judge says the senior government officials responsible for both the investigation and the false testimony "did not embarrass me alone, but...the entire nation."
THREE POSSIBILITIES. One of three things has happened here. The first is that Lee really was a spy for China, and the bungling FBI can't prove it. The second is that someone else has been passing nuclear secrets to the Chinese, and the FBI can't find that person. The third is that the whole Los Alamos scandal was nothing but an anti-Chinese witch-hunt, as Lee himself suggests. No spies. No missing secrets. Just an ugly implication that Chinese-Americans are somehow more loyal to China than to the U.S.
Right on cue, Freeh's apologists are passing the word that he was unaware of the details of the investigation. That won't wash. He's the director. He's responsible. Unlike other executive-branch appointees, Freeh serves a 10-year term, which is due to end in 2003. He should do the next President -- and the country -- a favor and quit now.
Gleckman is a senior correspondent in Business Week's Washington bureau Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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