{"id":14390,"date":"2020-03-03T09:33:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T14:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=14390"},"modified":"2020-03-03T09:36:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T14:36:47","slug":"ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/03\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruby Ridge, the FBI, and Louis Freeh – My 1995 Cover Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Here is my all-time favorite magazine cover story – my 1995 tribute to FBI boss Louis Freeh.\u00a0 This story came out five months after Freeh publicly denounced me<\/a> in a letter to the Wall Street Journal. Freeh was outraged over a piece I did on the FBI’s killing at Ruby Ridge.\u00a0 One of Randy Weaver’s lawyers told the Idaho Statesman that this pending American Spectator story may have helped spur the Justice Department to re-open their investigation of Ruby Ridge.\u00a0 The following month, the Justice Department announced a $3 million payment to the Weaver family to settle the wrongful death lawsuits for the federal killings of Weaver’s wife and son.<\/p>\n

Here is the full text of that 1995 cover story. The article covered FBI abuses that extended far beyond Ruby Ridge:<\/p>\n

The American Spectator<\/p>\n

August, 1995<\/p>\n

LENGTH: 9934 words<\/p>\n

HEADLINE: The New J. Edgar Hoover
\nClinton FBI director Louis Freeh runs an agency inclined to destroy evidence of its botched investigations. Now he is pushing the most ambitious program of federal surveillance since the Watergate era.<\/p>\n

BYLINE: James Bovard
\nJames Bovard is the author of Shakedown [coming from Viking Penguin this September] and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty [St. Martin’s].<\/p>\n

When Louis Freeh appeared at his confirmation hearings before the Senate
\nJudiciary Committee, he was as popular a nominee for the post of FBI Director
\nas the Clinton administration could have wished. Freeh had come highly
\nrecommended by Robert Fiske, who later became Whitewater special counsel; and
\nWhite House counsel Bernard Nussbaum. He had the backing of Sen. Sam Nunn, with
\nwhom he had organized hearings on organized crime. President Clinton called him
\n“a brilliant investigator, a tough prosecutor, a born leader,” and the Economist
\ngushed that Freeh “boast[ed] perfect qualifications for the job.” He had so much
\npolitical support going into the hearings, in fact, that, as Associated Press
\nreported, senators at the confirmation “vied . . . to see which one could evoke
\nthe closest personal association with the nominee.”<\/p>\n

Freeh had been making a name for himself since 1975, when he first joined the
\nFBI and worked on several prominent Mafia cases. He left in 1981 to become a
\nfederal prosecutor in New York, and distinguished himself with further attacks
\non the Mob, as well as by solving a prominent mail-bombing case. On the
\nrecommendation of Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, President Bush nominated him for a
\nfederal judgeship in 1990. And in 1991, U.S. News & World Report, in a piece
\nentitled “The Year’s Class Acts,” gushed that “few who worked for [U.S.
\nAttorney Rudolph] Giuliani did more to make his successes possible than Freeh.”<\/p>\n

Freeh’s tough-on-crime posture gets the Capitol Hill pols to roll over–he
\nignored the Clinton administration’s budget request for his agency last year,
\nand instead lobbied for, and won, a larger appropriation. But his real goal
\nseems to be an enlargement of the bureaucracy and a radical expansion of the
\nFBI’s powers. He has skillfully played the Oklahoma City bombing to his
\nadvantage, pretending to be sorely in need of money for his anti-terrorism
\ncrusade, while instead indulging his appetite for bureaucratic
\nself-aggrandizement.<\/p>\n

His grab for greater influence comes at a Time when his beleaguered agency is
\nfacing public hostility and skepticism wider than in the final years of J. Edgar
\nHoover. In several recent cases–the Ruby Ridge shootout in Idaho, the FBI sting
\nof Qubilah Shabazz to concoct a plot to kill Louis Farrakhan, and a number of
\nwiretapping innovations that Freeh has pushed on his own initiative–a troubling
\nprofile emerges. If Freeh does not actually hold the freedom of the American
\npeople in contempt, he seems to have little grasp of why the FBI’s arrogance has
\nangered so many citizens.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile his easy way around Washington’s corridors is helping to nourish a
\nsense of self-righteousness. At a May commencement address, the 45-year-old
\nFreeh actually compared himself to the prophet Isaiah, quoting the Old Testament
\nin reference to his law-enforcement work: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord
\nsaying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ ‘Here I am, I said; Send me.'”
\nThough by all accounts hard-working and dedicated, Louis Freeh appears to be
\nturning into the kind of Beltway insider Americans instinctively distrust.<\/p>\n

And a look into a handful of Freeh’s early courtroom efforts makes it
\nunlikely that he will be a fit judge of the public interest in most cases.
\nDirty Jeans In 1985, the Internal Revenue Service launched an investigation of
\nblue-jeans manufacturer Jordache Inc. that turned into one of the most abusive
\nU.S. government prosecutions of the decade. Freeh became lead U.S. attorney in
\nthe case. The probe had been instigated by Ronald Saranow, chief of the Los
\nAngeles office of the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS. Saranow had
\nclose social ties with the Marciano brothers, owners of Guess? jeans, a Jordache
\ncompetitor. Saranow accepted a job offer from the Marcianos at the Time he was
\ninvolved in prosecuting the Jordache case, and in sworn testimony even described
\nhimself as a Marciano “front man.”<\/p>\n

As a report by the House Government Operations Committee later noted, “The
\ninvestigations of Jordache. . . were initiated based solely on the information
\nbrought to the Government by the Marcianos and championed by Ronald Saranow
\nwhile Mr. Saranow was in a conflict-of-interest situation.” Three million
\ndocuments and more than one hundred computer tapes were confiscated from
\nJordache’s New York and New Jersey facilities in 1986, solely on the basis of
\ninformation provided by the Marcianos. It took three years before Freeh, the
\nfederal prosecutor in charge of the investigation, dropped all charges against
\nthe company and closed the investigation. A congressional report later concluded
\nthat the IRS may have engaged in a wholesale destruction of documents in order
\nto cover up its attack on Jordache.<\/p>\n

Freeh was also a supervising attorney in the prosecution of E. Robert
\nWallach, an associate of Reagan attorney general Edwin Meese, who was convicted
\nin 1989 for his role in the Wedtech scandal. Wallach’s conviction was overturned
\nin 1991, when an appeals court concluded that the government had ignored or
\ncovered up blatant perjury by its main witness. Stuart Taylor of the American
\nLawyer gave this dramatically rendered description of the case:<\/p>\n

Imagine a big case in which prosecutors in the proudest U.S. attorney’s office
\nin the land are presented in midtrial with strong evidence of perjury in their
\nstar witness.<\/p>\n

Imagine the witness then privately admitting to the prosecutors that he has
\njust told a false cover story and offered them a revised story so preposterous
\nthat a child could see through it.<\/p>\n

Imagine the prosecutors putting the witness back on the stand to tell this
\nstory while omitting the details most devastating to its plausibility. Imagine
\nthem persuading the rabidly pro-prosecution judge to bar the defense from
\nputting evidence before the jury that conclusively proved the witness’s perjury.
\nImagine them vouching for the witness’s truthfulness in their summations.
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

According to at least one lawyer involved in the case, Freeh was no mere passive
\naccomplice in the prosecution strategy. When the case was remanded back to
\nfederal district court, Baruch Weiss–one of the attorneys involved in the first
\nprosecution–filed an affidavit claiming that Freeh, along with the Justice
\nDepartment’s Mark Hellerer, both knew and “personally approved” the other U.S.
\nattorneys’ handling of the dishonest witness. Weiss’s affidavit declared that,
\nalthough Freeh and Hellerer were aware of the problems with the witness’s
\nstatements, they “agreed that we should proceed to elicit [the witness’s]
\nversion of events” for court testimony. Former federal judge Robert Bork
\ncondemned this behavior, saying that reliance on the testimony of a perjurer
\n“which corrupted Wallach’s trial was . . . a well-considered stratagem” by U.S.
\nattorneys.
\nAbuzz Over Shabazz Nothing illustrates Freeh’s cavalier attitude better than
\nlast year’s botched scheme to entrap Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of slain
\nNation of Islam leader Malcolm X. Although it is not known why the agency
\ntargeted Shabazz, she was telephoned in May 1994 by Michael Fitzpatrick, a
\nformer Jewish Defense League member convicted in a 1977 bombing of a Soviet
\nbookstore in Manhattan. Fitzpatrick was a government informant who had been
\nbusted on cocaine charges in 1993, and faced five years in prison if convicted.
\nFBI transcripts of thirty-eight calls that Fitzpatrick made to Shabazz reveal
\nthat Fitzpatrick did most of the talking, and kept returning the conversation to
\nthe killing of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam minister whom Betty
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

Shabazz–Malcolm’s widow and Qubilah’s mother–has long believed was involved in
\nher husband’s murder.<\/p>\n

The transcripts reveal that when Shabazz tried to back away from the plot,
\nFitzpatrick told her, “I’ve gotten everything together that I need. I’ve spent,
\nwithout getting–this is not a guilt thing here, OK–I’ve spent thousands of
\ndollars. I’ve got everything. I’ve got Time invested. I know how to do what I
\nneed to do. I mean I’m basically set to go. I don’t need anything from you.”<\/p>\n

On December 20, 1994, FBI agents entered Shabazz’s apartment without a
\nwarrant, lied to her about the reason for their visit [they claimed to be
\ninvestigating Fitzpatrick], and pressured her into signing a confession. Freeh,
\nin a move that demonstrates his astute handling of the press, granted Time
\nmagazine an exclusive interview in January to put his spin on the Shabazz case.
\nTime reported, “Throughout the seven month investigation, Freeh says,
\nFitzpatrick’s FBI handlers were overseen by bureau supervisors and the U.S.
\nattorney’s office, whose reports were sent east for further review. Freeh said
\nhe was ‘aware’ of the investigation though he ‘did not review all the details.’
\nNevertheless, ‘I’m satisfied that we were well within the law,'” Freeh said.<\/p>\n

The FBI’s case, however, unraveled quickly. A federal magistrate threw
\nShabazz’s confession out of court, since the FBI had violated Shabazz’s
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

constitutional rights in the process of obtaining it. Shabazz later claimed her
\nconfession had been “coerced.” At a preliminary court hearing, Fitzpatrick
\nstated that he had been paid $34,000 for making secret tapes of his discussions
\nwith Shabazz, and expected to be paid another $11,000 for trial testimony to
\nconvict her. He also revealed that he had been named in a search warrant in a
\nfederal investigation of fraud in the rare coin business.<\/p>\n

As things fell apart, Louis Freeh’s name began vanishing from press accounts
\nof the case. By late March, the official line, as reported in the New York
\nTimes, had changed entirely: “Justice Department officials in Washington said
\ntoday that senior officials played no role in the decision to pay Mr.
\nFitzpatrick and that such agreements were virtually always made by the local
\noffice of the FBI.”<\/p>\n

Then, on May 1, the night before Shabazz’s trial was scheduled to begin, the
\ngovernment offered to drop the murder-for-hire charges–which could have landed
\nher in prison for 90 years–if Shabazz would agree to undergo three months of
\npsychiatric counseling and as spend two years on probation. If the FBI actually
\nhad the goods on Shabazz, of course, then letting her off the hook with a
\npromise to see a therapist would be making a mockery of Freeh’s “tough on crime”
\nrhetoric.
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

In fact, the agency had nothing with which to build a case. Chicago Tribune
\ncolumnist Clarence Page observed, “The case smacked of entrapment, even an FBI
\nset-up to help divide blacks into pro-Malcolm X, pro-Farrakhan factions.” The
\nNew York Times described the settlement as a “near rout” of the government, and
\ndeclared, “The biggest winner in the case may be Louis Farrakhan.”
\nPlotting Against Weaver If one episode crystallized doubts about Freeh’s
\nleadership and credibility, it was his handling of the FBI’s 1992 raid on Randy
\nWeaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Though the shooting occurred before he took command
\nof the agency, Freeh has been heavily involved in whitewashing the FBI agents
\ninvolved in the killing of Vicki Weaver and her son. The case has become still
\nmore prominent since the bombing at Oklahoma City, due to the widespread
\nperception of federal abuses and cover-ups at Ruby Ridge that has been a major
\ncause of the militia movement.<\/p>\n

Randy Weaver lived with his wife and four children in an isolated cabin in
\nthe Idaho mountains. In 1989, an undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol,
\nTobacco and Firearms [BATF] approached Weaver and sought to get him to sell some
\nsawed-off shotguns. Weaver refused, but the agent was persistent, and Weaver
\neventually relented, selling the agent two shotguns and thereby violating
\nfederal firearms law.
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

The BATF targeted Weaver because they wanted to use the threat of criminal
\ncharges against him to force him to become an informant for the government
\nagainst the Aryan Nation, a racist group with violent tendencies. Weaver, a
\n“white separatist,” did not favor or endorse violence against any race; he
\nmerely believed that the races should live separately. [He had attended two
\nAryan Nation meetings, but claimed he stopped going because he didn’t share the
\ngroup’s values.] Weaver refused to become an informant against the group. A
\ncourt official then sent him the wrong day to appear in court, and when Weaver
\ndid not show up, Justice Department attorney Ron Howen, who knew he’d been sent
\nincorrect information, secured a warrant for Weaver’s arrest.<\/p>\n

Federal agents launched an 18-month surveillance of Weaver’s property, until
\non August 21, 1992, six U.S. marshals–outfitted in full camouflage and ski
\nmasks, and toting sub-machine guns–came onto the property and shot one of
\nWeaver’s dogs. Fourteen-year-old Sammy Weaver ran out and fired his gun in the
\ndirection the shots had come from. His father hollered for him to come back to
\nthe cabin, but when he was running back, a federal agent shot him in the back
\nand killed him. In response, Kevin Harris, a family friend who was living at the
\ncabin, was also present, shot one of the marshals.<\/p>\n

The marshal’s death sent the government into a frenzy. The commander of the
\nFBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was called in from Washington, D.C., and ordered
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

federal agents to shoot to kill. One FBI SWAT team member later told Justice
\nDepartment officials that he remembered the rules as, “If you see ’em, shoot
\n’em.” Four hundred government agents, armed with night-vision scopes, automatic
\nweapons, and sniper rifles, swarmed in the mountains around the cabin.<\/p>\n

The next day, August 22, Randy Weaver walked from his cabin to the little
\nshack where his son’s body lay. As Weaver lifted the latch on the shack’s door,
\nhe was shot from behind by FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi. He struggled back to
\nthe cabin, where his wife Vicki stood in the doorway, holding a 10-month-old
\nbaby in her arms and calling for her husband to hurry. Horiuchi shot Vicki
\nWeaver in the temple, killing her instantly. Randy Weaver surrendered after
\neleven days.
\nThe opening statement by the U.S. attorney at Weaver’s trial painted him as part
\nof a vast conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. Weaver was depicted as a
\nman who had been conspiring for eight years to have a violent confrontation with
\nfederal agents. Yet the Idaho jury found Weaver innocent of almost all charges,
\nand ruled that Kevin Harris–who shot and killed a U.S. marshal after the
\nmarshal shot and killed Weaver’s 14-year-old son Sammy–had acted in
\nself-defense. Federal Judge Edward Lodge condemned the FBI: “The actions of the
\ngovernment, acting through the FBI, evidence a callous disregard for the rights
\nof the defendants and the interests of justice and demonstrate a complete lack
\nof respect for the order and directions of this court.” Judge Lodge issued a
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

lengthy list detailing the Justice Department’s misconduct, fabrication of
\nevidence, and refusals to obey court orders.<\/p>\n

A Justice Department task force, including FBI officials, investigated the
\nFBI’s handling of the Weaver case and recommended that criminal prosecution be
\nconsidered for several FBI officials. The task force produced a 542-page report
\nevaluating the government’s action on Ruby Ridge. Though federal officials have
\nthus far refused to release the report, copies have leaked out to the New York
\nTimes and Legal Times, which published an excerpt in March. Deval Patrick, the
\nassistant attorney general for civil rights, rejected the recommendations in the
\nreport, deciding that excessive force had not been used.<\/p>\n

Freeh’s FBI conducted its own investigation of its handling of the Weaver
\ndebacle, and produced what can only be described as a complete whitewash. Freeh
\nannounced that only minor sanctions would be imposed on the agents involved in
\nthe killing of Vicki and Sammy Weaver. Freeh found that twelve FBI officials had
\n“exhibited errors of judgment, neglect of duty, inadequate performance and
\nfailure to exert proper managerial oversight,” but the heaviest penalty that
\nFreeh imposed on them was fifteen days’ unpaid leave–less, David Johnston of
\nthe New York Times noted, than the penalties given to agents for using official
\ncars to drive their children to school. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary
\nCommittee, Freeh emphatically repeated that FBI officials were guilty of “no
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

misconduct” in the case.<\/p>\n

The FBI’s pattern of deception continued even with its official press
\nstatement on Freeh’s action. The FBI claimed that Weaver had been convicted of
\nthe original weapons violations charge. Actually, an Idaho jury ruled that
\nWeaver had been entrapped, and convicted him only of failing to show up for the
\ntrial in 1991. Regarding the shooting of the U.S. marshal, Freeh asserted that
\n“the deputy marshals did not try to provoke a confrontation; their intent was to
\nretreat from the area without violence and they attempted to do so.” This is the
\nsame explanation that U.S. marshals on the witness stand first offered to the
\nIdaho jury. After hours of cross-examination, however, a U.S. marshal admitted
\nthat the conflict began when a marshal shot and killed one of the Weavers’ dogs.
\nFreeh justified the FBI shooting of Randy Weaver because sniper Horiuchi
\n“observed one of the suspects raise a weapon in the direction of a helicopter
\ncarrying other FBI personnel.” But other federal officials testified at the
\ntrial that no helicopters were flying in the vicinity of the Weavers’ cabin at
\nthe Time of the FBI sniping.<\/p>\n

Freeh stated in a letter a few weeks later to the Wall Street Journal,
\nregarding the shot that killed Vicki Weaver, that it “wounded its intended
\ntarget and . . . also accidentally struck and killed Vicki Weaver.” Freeh’s
\nletter implies that the “intended target” was Randy Weaver; however, the
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

sniper claimed at the trial that he was shooting at Kevin Harris, the family
\nfriend staying in the cabin, who was near the door and not even accused of
\naiming at the helicopter. Apparently, since he was in the vicinity of Randy
\nWeaver, that was sufficient reason for the FBI to attempt to kill him. Freeh’s
\nwording implies that the bullet first hit the “intended target” and then hit
\nVicki Weaver. However, the bullet first passed through Vicki Weaver’s head
\nbefore hitting Kevin Harris.<\/p>\n

Freeh was also satisfied that Horiuchi’s second shot–the one that killed
\nVicki Weaver–was justified, and that the killing was accidental. Freeh
\ndeclared, “The question is whether someone running into a fortified position who
\nis going to shoot at you is as much a threat to you as somebody turning in an
\nopen space and pointing a gun at you. I don’t distinguish between those.”<\/p>\n

But Weaver had never fired upon the FBI agents–he was merely a wounded man
\ntrying to struggle into his home and the arms of his family. Freeh’s doctrine
\nessentially means that if a government agent shoots and wounds a private
\ncitizen, then the government agent must be presumed to have an unlimited right
\nto kill the private citizen–because otherwise the citizen might shoot back at
\nthe government agent. This is a peculiar guide for law enforcement in a free
\nsociety.
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

Freeh’s allegation that Weaver was “running into a fortified position” is an
\nabsurdity. Weaver’s home was little more than a rickety cabin built with wood
\nleft over from local sawmills. The leaked Justice Department report stressed
\n“the reality that the subjects were retreating to their home and had not
\nreturned fire when shot upon. Thus, their actions as they ran into the cabin
\nwere not aggressive, but rather protective or defensive.”<\/p>\n

Freeh justified the sniper attack by saying, “The suspects neither
\nsurrendered nor dropped their weapons.” But the Justice Department confidential
\nreport notes that the FBI never even requested a surrender from the suspects:
\n“Although we believe that Harris and the Weavers knew that law enforcement was
\npresent, no call out or surrender announcement followed the first shot. The
\nsubjects were never given a chance to drop their arms to show that they did not
\npose a threat. The subjects simply did what any person would do under the
\ncircumstances. They ran for cover.” Why would Randy Weaver have thought that the
\ngovernment was interested in his surrender, after they had shot him in the back
\nwith no provocation on his part?<\/p>\n

Just as distressing, the Justice Department report indicated that FBI
\nofficials openly considered destroying evidence relating to the Weaver case. The
\nreport notes that the FBI fought disclosing a two-page document summarizing its
\ncritique of the action of the U.S. Marshals. The report observed:
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

Because of the critical nature of the [FBI] critique [of the U.S. Marshals], the
\nBureau resisted its disclosure. [FBI Supervisory Agent Michael] Dillon
\nreportedly told Deputy Marshal Masaitis that he would rather see a mistrial than
\nproduce the marshals’ critique in discovery. When [U.S. Attorney Kim] Lindquist
\ntried to explain to Dillon the serious repercussions that would occur if the
\ngovernment failed to produce the critique in discovery but later produced it in
\nresponse to a Freedom of Information Act request, Dillon responded that the
\ndocument had come from someone’s desk and was not in any official file that
\nwould be searched for a FOIA request. From Dillon’s comment, Lindquist was
\nconcerned that someone from the Bureau might be contemplating destroying the
\ndocument so that it would not have to be produced. Lindquist advised
\nstrenuously against such action.
\nPotts Rehabilitated The most controversial aspect of Freeh’s handling of the
\nRuby Ridge case was his recommendation of a promotion for Larry Potts, the
\nsenior official in charge of the Idaho operation. According to two senior FBI
\nofficials on the scene, he signed off on the shoot-without-provocation orders.
\n[Potts denies that he read them.] Despite the finding by the Justice Department
\nthat the orders “contravened the constitution of the United States,” Freeh
\nrecommended that the only penalty Potts receive be a letter of censure–the same
\npenalty Freeh received when he reported losing an FBI cellular telephone.
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

The Freeh-Potts connection could become crucial for determining the future
\ncredibility of the FBI. Shortly after Freeh’s installation as director,
\nnewspaper reports listed Potts as “a long Time Freeh intimate” [Washington
\nPost], an “old pal” [Time], and the one specific person to whom Freeh had “close
\nties” [New York Times]. In press accounts, Potts was the only name that came up
\nagain and again among Freeh’s friends at the FBI.<\/p>\n

Janet Reno announced Potts’s promotion on May 2. The move led to
\ndenunciations by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
\nHouse Speaker Newt Gingrich said the Potts appointment “will further slow down
\nthe terrorist legislation and will mean even greater concern over civil
\nliberties, which I don’t think is inappropriate.” Gingrich noted, “We have to
\nunderstand that there is, in rural America, a genuine–particularly in the
\nWest–a genuine fear of the federal government and of Washington, D.C., as a
\nplace that doesn’t understand their way of life and doesn’t understand their
\nvalues.”<\/p>\n

Gene Glenn, an FBI official who helped manage Ruby Ridge and received a
\nheavier sanction [fifteen days of unpaid leave] than did Potts, formally
\nprotested the promotion on May 3, accusing FBI officials of engaging in a
\ncover-up to protect Potts. In his letter to the head of the Justice Department’s
\nOffice of Responsibility, Glenn complained that the FBI’s review of the Ruby
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

Ridge case was incomplete and compromised by flaws that “reveal a purpose to
\ncreate scapegoats and false impressions.”<\/p>\n

Freeh showed similar willful blindness in evaluating his agency’s performance
\nat Waco, where Potts commanded the final attack on the Branch Davidian compound.
\nIn October 1993, Freeh lavishly praised FBI agents for demonstrating “great
\nexcellence” during the Waco confrontation: “I am quite satisfied with the
\noperational aspects, planning aspects, chain-of-command aspects and leadership
\naspects of that operation.” Freeh told the National Press Club in December 1993,
\n“The Bureau’s behavior and performance [at Waco] was not only exemplary but
\nshowed the greatest restraint and they did the best possible job under the most
\ndifficult circumstances.” If Waco is Freeh’s idea of FBI restraint, what could
\nhe possibly consider an excess?
\nPaying to Have Our Phones Tapped One of the most alarming aspects of Freeh’s
\nlust for power has been his push to expand the FBI’s ability to tap telephones.
\nLaw enforcement agents have been fretting that new developments such as
\ncall-forwarding make it too difficult for them to snoop on citizens’ phone
\nlines. Freeh told Congress that preserving the ability to intercept
\ncommunications legally is “the number-one law enforcement, public safety and
\nnational security issue facing us today.” He pressured congressional lawmakers
\nto force the nation’s telephone companies to change their technology to make
\nwiretaps far easier, even though there was little or no evidence that the FBI
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

needed additional access into people’s communications in order to carry out
\nwiretaps.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Freeh’s lobbying efforts, the Digital Telephony and Communications
\nPrivacy Improvement Act was passed last year. It requires telephone and cable
\ntelevision companies to modify their equipment by 1998 to make it easier for the
\nFBI to conduct wiretaps. The government will provide $500 million to help the
\ncompanies pay for the development and installation of the new technology and
\nequipment. But phone companies estimate that the actual cost of installing wire
\ndevices on every phone line will be much higher, and could cost consumers
\nbillions of dollars per year.<\/p>\n

Telephone companies will also be required to provide instant access to phone
\nlines in response to any authorized government demand. Roy Neel, president of
\nthe United States Telephone Association, complained that to assure access at any
\ngiven Time, all telephone companies will have to post someone as a “law
\nenforcement liaison” at all Times–or risk a $10,000 a day fine or even being
\nshut down entirely. Neel said, “It forces the telephone companies to become the
\nagencies of law enforcement, and that is a dramatic change.”<\/p>\n

The new law also gives the attorney general authority to approve or
\ndisapprove new technology used by phone companies and other communication
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

makers. When the FBI first proposed the new controls, the ACLU’s Jan Lori
\nGoldman observed, “It is wrongheaded and dangerous to require the industry to
\nput surveillance first by slowing innovation and retarding efficiency. The FBI
\nis not only asking the industry to dumb down existing software, it wants to
\nprohibit it from developing new technologies that might interfere with the
\ngovernment’s ability to intercept various oral and electronic communications.”
\nFreeh is also seeking to control private citizens’ ability to use encryption in
\ntheir computer communications. Encryption software allows individuals to send
\nmessages between computers that cannot be read by third parties; it is vital to
\nprevent fraud or abuse of financial transactions, and is widely used worldwide.
\nIn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in April, Freeh warned, “An
\neven more difficult problem with court authorized wiretaps looms: powerful
\nencryption that is becoming more commonplace. . . . As much as any issue, this
\njeopardizes the public safety and national security of this country.”<\/p>\n

Freeh has repeatedly portrayed these sweeping new wiretap powers as
\ninstrumental in the fight against terrorism. But a May report by the
\nAdministrative Office of the United States Courts revealed that the FBI and
\nother federal agencies have failed to use existing legal authority against
\ndomestic terrorist groups. Though the federal and state governments imposed a
\nrecord 1,154 wiretaps last year, not a single one was in pursuit of arsonists,
\nbombers, or gun law violators. No wiretap against alleged terrorists has been
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

requested since 1988.<\/p>\n

Yet the anti-terrorist legislation recently proposed in the wake of the
\nOklahoma City bombing radically expands federal wiretap authority. The
\nlegislation allows for the use of illegal wiretaps in court, and also permits
\n“roving wiretaps”–covering a large number of pay phones in the hopes of
\ncatching some lawbreaker. There is widespread and justified fear among both
\nliberals and conservatives that the Clinton administration could use the new
\nwiretap authority to go after vast numbers of critics of government policy who
\npose no threat of violence.<\/p>\n

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick fanned such flames when she
\ntold a House International Relations Committee that tax protesters could be one
\ntype of “criminal” targeted by the expanded wiretap authority. Rep. Robert Scott
\n[D-Va.], questioning Louis Freeh on the same subject, asked: “Where would you
\nhave drawn the line to differentiate that tax protester from any other person
\nthat’s just mad about paying taxes? I mean, are you going to subject them all to
\nwiretaps to find out?” Freeh responded quite seriously, “No, we wouldn’t have
\nthe resources to do that.”<\/p>\n

The Clinton administration has also announced plans to reinterpret the
\nguidelines under which the FBI conducts surveillance of domestic political
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

organizations. The revised guidelines will give the FBI a green light to
\ninfiltrate far more private and political groups. Gorelick told the Senate
\nJudiciary Committee that even “without a reasonable indication of a crime, a
\npreliminary indication can be undertaken”; and “you could use informants and you
\ncould collect information, and then determine whether you have reasonable
\nindication for a full-fledged investigation.”<\/p>\n

Freeh has been either manipulative or naive when he speaks of public concern
\nabout government abuses. He declared on May 13, for example, “To my amazement,
\nthere are voices that . . . claim repression by government–and fear of
\ngovernment. . . . Sadly, I am astounded at these developments, as I think most
\nAmericans are.” His implication is that the only decent attitude an American
\nshould have toward his government is blind trust, if not blind adoration. “I had
\nthis sense the government was always right,” as Freeh told the American Lawyer
\nlast year about his opposition to student protests during his college years.<\/p>\n

Ominously, there is probably a higher percentage of people now who believe
\nthat government is an immediate threat to their rights and liberties than the
\npercentage in 1775 who actively supported the American Revolution against the
\nBritish. It is especially ludicrous for an FBI chief to express amazement at
\npeople’s fear of the government, when the FBI itself trampled many citizens’
\nrights in the 1950s and 1960s with burglaries, illegal wiretaps, character
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

assassination, and intimidation–and when the FBI refuses to admit any
\nmisconduct in more recent debacles such as Ruby Ridge.
\nGuns and Butter Freeh has also been on a crusade to increase the agency’s
\nbudget. Last November, he issued a special report to FBI employees–also hyped
\nto major media–that claimed budget cuts were gravely endangering FBI agents,
\nwho did not have sufficient ammunition for target practice. Freeh declared,
\n“Every citizen–to say nothing of public officials–should try to imagine the
\ndangers, the sheer lunacy, of FBI agents not even having enough bullets. That is
\nintolerable and will not be allowed to recur.”<\/p>\n

Yet while crying poor, Freeh has had no difficulty finding money to finance
\nhis own pet projects. He has reassigned 70 agents to pursue environmental crime,
\nand 156 agents to pursue health-care fraud–two areas sure to win brownie points
\nwith the Clinton administration. Freeh has also won favor with Clintonites and
\nthe media with his repeated assaults on the Second Amendment. In December 1993,
\nFreeh told a National Press Club luncheon that “in a civilized society like
\nours, there’s simply no place for assault weapons.” Claiming they “provide a
\nsource of strength and power to American criminal elements,” he called for a ban
\non these weapons, “not just a ban on importation, but a ban on domestic
\nmanufacture and a ban on distribution of these weapons of death.” Freeh’s
\nposition on guns contains a great deal of posturing. Assault weapons have played
\na minimal role in violent crime in recent years.
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

Consistent with Freeh’s distortions in the name of gun-control was a story he
\ntold at that National Press Club luncheon: “An 11-year-old was arrested in St.
\nLouis several days ago when a police officer observed him dismantling an
\nautomatic weapon which the 11-year-old said he was taking on the bus to kill the
\nbus driver, because the bus driver had reported some misconduct the day before.”
\nThe specter of children running around on school buses with machine guns no
\ndoubt served Freeh’s purpose in whipping up support for a proposed
\nassault-weapons ban in Congress. However, it turned out that the child did not
\nhave a machine gun; he merely had a .22 semi-automatic rifle, which fires only
\none bullet with each pull of the trigger. And while children taking guns on
\nschool buses in St. Louis should be condemned no matter what, it should also be
\nnoted that semi-automatic rifles have been common in the U.S. for a hundred
\nyears. [Clinton’s budget proposal last year officially recommended the banning
\nof all semi-automatic weapons–which could have meant the confiscation of 35
\nmillion rifles and pistols.]
\nWorld Be Freeh If Freeh is not afraid of the NRA, he is certainly not afraid of
\nthe CIA, as he’s moved to expand the FBI’s counterintelligence efforts. Freeh
\ntoured east Europe and Russia extensively last year at government expense,
\nostensibly to discuss nuclear terrorism and the threat posed by smugglers of
\nparts and nuclear material. U.S. News & World Report noted that there was
\n“grumbling that Freeh’s upcoming tour of Moscow and a half dozen other European
\ncapitals has all the trappings of a state visit.” Freeh later bragged in a
\nThe American Spectator, August, 1995<\/p>\n

speech back home that he had met with five heads of state during his foray. Some
\neast Europeans were openly skeptical of Freeh’s advocacy of undercover sting
\noperations and wiretaps–trademarks of the old Soviet Bloc regimes.<\/p>\n

Yet, as Dan Freedman noted in the San Francisco Examiner, “There was irony in
\nthe top law enforcement official of a violence-ridden nation like the U.S.
\npreaching the need for international law enforcement to nations that, by U.S.
\nstandards, appear relatively tame when it comes to crime.”<\/p>\n

In a speech in Poland on the Holocaust, Freeh declared, “Those trusted to
\nprotect the people become the instruments of terror. . . . For the police, more
\nthan any other segment of society or government, the rule of law must always
\nremain sacrosanct.” In the wake of his tenure thus far, it seems Freeh’s views
\non police abuse are manufactured solely for export.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is my all-time favorite magazine cover story – my 1995 tribute to FBI boss Louis Freeh.\u00a0 This story came out five months after Freeh publicly denounced me in a letter to the Wall Street Journal. Freeh was outraged over a piece I did on the FBI’s killing at Ruby Ridge.\u00a0 One of Randy Weaver’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1067,47,280,27,1701,654,652,972],"class_list":["post-14390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-entrapment","tag-fbi","tag-gun-control","tag-lying","tag-nra","tag-randy-weaver","tag-ruby-ridge","tag-trust"],"yoast_head":"\nRuby Ridge, the FBI, and Louis Freeh - My 1995 Cover Story - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My 1995 cover story on FBI boss Louis Freeh, detailing FBI abuses & coverups on Ruby Ridge, Waco, and many other cases\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/03\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ruby Ridge, the FBI, and Louis Freeh - My 1995 Cover Story - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My 1995 cover story on FBI boss Louis Freeh, detailing FBI abuses & coverups on Ruby Ridge, Waco, and many other cases\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/03\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-03T14:33:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-03T14:36:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/jpb-1995-TAS-freeh-cover-shrunk-for-twitter-@@.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"728\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"29 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"Ruby Ridge, the FBI, and Louis Freeh – My 1995 Cover Story\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-03T14:33:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-03-03T14:36:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":5954,\"commentCount\":7,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/jpb-1995-TAS-freeh-cover-shrunk-for-twitter-@@.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"entrapment\",\"FBI\",\"gun control\",\"Lying\",\"NRA\",\"Randy Weaver\",\"Ruby Ridge\",\"trust\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/03\\\/ruby-ridge-the-fbi-and-louis-freeh-my-1995-cover-story\\\/\",\"name\":\"Ruby Ridge, the FBI, and Louis Freeh - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14394,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390\/revisions\/14394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}