Richard Jewell, the Atlanta security guard smeared by the FBI after a pipe bomb exploded during the 1996 Olympics, has passed away.\u00a0 Jewell’s experience epitomizes the feds’ ability to turn an innocent man’s life into hell.<\/p>\n
Here is the section on FBI Director Louis Freeh and Jewell from my 2000 book, Feeling Your Pain<\/strong>:<\/p>\n In a 1995 commencement address at Catholic University, FBI Director Louis Freeh, speaking of the mission of law enforcement agents, compared himself to the prophet Isaiah and quoted the Old Testament: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom Shall I Send? Who Will go for us? Here I am, I said; Send me.'” It was not surprising that Freeh would characterize himself in Biblical terms, since he had already\u00a0 been deified by the Washington press corps, members of Congress, and the Clinton administration.<\/p>\n \u00a0Freeh\u2019s biblical invocation at Catholic University was not an aberration. The FBI issued a report in 1998 by Freeh in which he hyped his achievements in his first five years as FBI director.\u00a0 The report began by quoting Psalm 101: \u201cHe who walks in the way of integrity\u00a0 shall be in my service.\u00a0 No one who practices deceit\u00a0 can hold a post in my court. No one who speaks falsely can be among my advisors.\u201d\u00a0 Freeh bragged: \u201cIn the past five years, I have established core values for all FBI employees: obedience to the Constitution, respect for the dignity of all protected by the\u00a0 FBI, compassion, fairness, and total integrity.\u00a0 At the same time, I have developed \u2018Bright Line\u2019 policies to which all FBI\u00a0 employees must adhere. Certain conduct will not be tolerated, including lying, cheating, stealing, sexual harassment, and alcohol and drug abuse.\u201d\u00a0 Freeh declared: \u201cOne of the major training breakthroughs that has been achieved at the FBI is the\u00a0 addition of ethics and integrity training for the new Special Agent curriculum\u00a0 and management training at the FBI Academy at Quantico. Ethics is the golden thread which runs throughout our training. It often is the difference between correctly applying the awesome power of law enforcement and conduct that undermines the rule of law.”<\/p>\n \u00a0****Thanks to Freeh\u2019s reforms, FBI agents receive special training to give them a \u201cdeeper intellectual understanding of human rights,\u201d as the Washington Post reported.\u00a0 But there are one or two loopholes.\u00a0 The official course material used in FBI ethics classes declares: \u201cThe harmful effects [of deception] may be counterbalanced by beneficial consequences.” The Post noted, \u201cSubjects of FBI investigations, according to the academy’s study guide, \u2018have forfeited their right to the truth,\u2019 and as a result, agents are justified in the use of decoys, sting operations and other forms of deception when they are investigating a case.\u201d<\/p>\n On July 27, 1996, a pipe bomb went off at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, where the world\u2019s athletes and media were gathered for the\u00a0\u00a0 Olympic games. The FBI decided that 33-year-old security guard Richard Jewell, who had found the bomb and helped clear the area and minimize fatalities, had also planted the bomb. FBI agents lured Jewell over to their Atlanta office and asked him to help them make a training film about detecting bombs.\u00a0 The ruse allowed the agents to question Jewell extensively without reading him a Miranda warning – without alerting him that anything he said could be used against him.\u00a0 As Investor\u2019s Business Daily noted, \u201cJewell was the bureau’s top suspect, a fact that was leaked to the press in time for cameras to catch agents poring over Jewell’s home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n FBI leaks led to 88 days of hell for Jewell, who saw his life and reputation dragged in the gutter day after day. The FBI did nothing to curb the media harassment of Jewell long after it had recognized that he was innocent.\u00a0 A Justice Department investigation concluded that the training-film scam violated Jewell\u2019s constitutional rights.\u00a0 But, in 1997 Senate testimony, Freeh asserted that Jewell\u2019s rights were not violated because he did not say anything to incriminate himself.\u00a0 Apparently, only guilty citizens have constitutional rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two FBI agents were censured and one was suspended for five days without pay. But, as the Washington Times noted, \u201cNo similar disciplinary action was recommended against senior FBI officials in Washington who oversaw the probe and were actively involved in the interrogation, including Mr.\u00a0 Freeh, who took part in the hour-long interview, even suggesting a question.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Jewell became a hero-martyr to some Americans.\u00a0 President Clinton identified with Jewell because Clinton felt that he, too, was so often been falsely accused by the media. Clinton was asked at a November 1996 press conference whether he thought\u00a0 John Huang should \u201ccome forward and answer these questions [about alleged illegal fund-raising]?\u201d Clinton responded: \u201cOne of the things I would urge you to do, remembering what happened to Mr. Jewell in Atlanta, remembering what has happened to so many of the accusations over the last four years made against me that turned out to be totally baseless, I just think that we ought to make sure we’ve got — we ought to just get the facts out, and they should be reported.\u201d (Huang pleaded guilty to federal election law violations in 1999.)\u00a0 Clinton \u201ckept in the file newspaper articles about what he regarded as unfair attacks on [Jewell],\u201d the New Yorker reported in late 1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Richard Jewell, the Atlanta security guard smeared by the FBI after a pipe bomb exploded during the 1996 Olympics, has passed away.\u00a0 Jewell’s experience epitomizes the feds’ ability to turn an innocent man’s life into hell. Here is the section on FBI Director Louis Freeh and Jewell from my 2000 book, Feeling Your Pain: In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bovard"],"yoast_head":"\n