Hold the FBI Accountable
Whereas, citizens have a duty and a right to hold their government accountable for its actions; Whereas, recent Newsweek articles demonstrate a national interest in exposing and preventing corruption in the nation's leading law enforcement agency: · Newsweek, "The Terrible Missed Chance," September 12, 2011, describes how FBI headquarters dropped the ball on the last chance to stop 9/11; Special Agent Harry Samit discovered that Zacarias Moussaoui was a terrorist who was trying to learn to fly a 747; FBI headquarters failed to act appropriately on this information, and an attempt was made to force Samit off of terrorism cases. · Newsweek, November 28, 2011, page 43, describes how the U.S. Department of Justice determined that the FBI lied in court to Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney, regarding his belief that the FBI killed his brother during a botched interrogation. Whereas, a couple of months before the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, a memo known as the "Phoenix" memo (because it originated in the Phoenix office), dated July 10, 2001, was sent to FBI headquarters, calling attention to the fact that an unusual number of young Arab men tied to Muslim extremist groups were seeking pilot training, and recommending a nationwide investigation of flight schools; Whereas, the 9/11 attacks might have been thwarted had the FBI acted on this memo; consequently, the 9/11 Commission investigated why the FBI had not taken appropriate action based on this memo; Whereas, Michael Rolince, a senior FBI official and the international terrorism operations chief, claimed he never saw the memo; Thomas J. Pickard, who was the acting director of the FBI leading up to 9/11, was one of those who testified before the 9/11 commission; and testimony given by FBI executives indicated that no one at FBI headquarters saw the memo until after 9/11; Whereas, such an irregularity is absurd, as former FBI Headquarters Supervisor Dennis O. Williams (South Jordan, Utah) points out in his book, entitled "Fidelity Bravery Integrity No Way!", a memo sent to FBI headquarters doesn't just remain hidden for two or three months, and then magically appear; Whereas, Former FBI Director Louis Freeh once testified before a hearing that the FBI was potentially the most dangerous organization in the government and needed congressional oversight; Whereas, in 2001, Williams had alerted the White House that Pickard was not to be trusted to direct the affairs of the FBI because he did not have the integrity required of a person with that responsibility; the White House referred the matter to Senator Orrin Hatch; counsel for Senator Hatch and the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mike Volkov, sent a number of questions to the FBI; however, the FBI avoided the questions and made false representations to Volkov; Whereas, Williams then had extended written and oral conversations for over a year with FBI Acting Section Chief James Reynolds in an effort to get the FBI to correct the misrepresentations made to Volkov and Senator Hatch; toward the end (and on three different occasions) Reynolds told Williams he was reviewing the matter with another Unit Chief named Jack Evans; Williams became impatient and tried to reach Evans--only to learn that Reynolds had been lying to him and there was no Unit Chief by that name; when Reynolds learned Williams had discovered this deceit, Reynolds refused to take any more of Williams’s telephone calls (consequently Williams quit trying to speak with Reynolds in July of 2004); this is obvious misconduct by FBI Headquarters personnel; Whereas, in October of 2000, the Department of Justice wrote Williams and acknowledged that his allegations against Pickard were reasonable, but that the DOJ would not make any findings; and such findings could have removed Pickard from the FBI executive service and might have prevented 9/11; Whereas, citizens of this country have a right to expect honesty from the employees of the federal government, particularly the FBI, which is the highest-ranking law enforcement agency in the country; and if a federal bureau can lie to a US Senator, then that bureau is not truly accountable to the citizenry, and federal employees will be emboldened to do and say almost anything they want; Whereas, the truthfulness of Williams’s allegations against Pickard can be resolved by requiring the FBI Inspection Division to answer the questions previously provided by Volkov, which were written by Williams; and the question of whether the FBI conducted a cover-up for Pickard can also be resolved by the FBI answering those same questions; THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned (state) delegates in the Utah Republican Party, petition, support, and urge Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to insist that the FBI finally and truthfully answer the questions put to it by attorney Mike Volkov nearly a decade ago, questions that can be found on pages 141 through 149 of the book entitled, "Fidelity Bravery Integrity No Way!"
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