Tag Archives: FBI

Kavanaugh, Ford: It’s not ’50-50′: We do have facts

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What’s called a hearing will take place this morning, on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court and the statements of Professor Christine Blasey Ford–

Hoping we don’t hear the inevitable–‘he says, she says’, or ‘it’s 50-50’, the verbal equivalent of people on air throwing up their hands–‘How do we go back 35 years?’-

We don’t have to. We have facts, and facts in the common knowledge at that. Line up the pronouns; here are a few:

  1. She wants the FBI to investigate. He does not. (By the way, I cannot believe that Republicans in the Senate are trying to ward off an FBI investigation. Look at the nightmare on their hands if they were to confirm Kavanaugh, and some enterprising journalists dig up the relevant information after he gets on the high court, when the only remedy is impeachment.)
  2. She submitted to a polygraph exam. He did not.
  3. She passed the polygraph. He did not.
  4. She wants the process to take whatever time needed to arrive at the truth. His allies do not. They (the more top-down elements of the GOP) are trying to rush it through, hugger-mugger as Hamlet would say.
  5. She wants the other person allegedly in the room, Mark Judge, to appear and to answer questions. His allies do not.
  6. [ADD THIS ONE, 10:04 a.m. Thursday] Her classmates have spoken out in her defense, giving their names. Years’ worth of Holton Arms alumni have signed petitions in her defense. His “members of the class have agreed not to speak on the record to reporters.” (WaPo A10, “Swednick’s Job Experience [etc]”)

Image result for Christine Blasey Ford

‘We weren’t in the room’. No, but we’re in the room now.

Hopeless is not necessary.

Re the typical push-back in yesterday’s blog post, the one all-purpose riposte is that Dr. Ford’s credible allegations are part of Democratic delaying tactics. Not for a moment do I believe that the accuser is part of some Chuck Schumer plot, for the record. But the Dems’ own political lameness–calling for the nomination to be ‘blocked’ when it was constitutionally impossible to do so–set up this bogus rebuttal.

Also, the Democrats in the Senate might not be in this position in the first place if they had pushed for Mitch McConnell’s expulsion back when he openly flouted the U.S. constitution.

Washington figures– Comey, McCain, New York Times

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Today’s Comey testimony —

Fired FBI director James B. Comey’s much-anticipated appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee today did contain three surprises. Keeping it brief, I’d rather highlight the three than recap everything that will be covered by every media outlet.

I watched the presentation live-stream on C-Span, the event unedited and unfiltered by commentary.

It was pretty much a given that Comey would fire back at the man who fired him and would accuse President Trump of lying, that questions from most of the Democrats on the Committee would focus on Trump, and that Republicans’ questions would defend him. It was also a given that some things would not be aired “in an open setting,” to use Comey’s phrase; the Committee was scheduled to hold a closed hearing at 1:00 p.m. Any discussion of the salacious Steele dossier would be reserved for the closed session. It was also a given that Comey would exonerate himself to the maximum extent possible–admit what you can’t deny, deny what you can’t admit. He’s done it before. He also made clear again, as in his prepared remarks (below), that Trump was not the subject of an investigation.

Thus we can skip over Senator Mark Warner’s introductory remarks and Comey’s prefatory comments about his firing, the FBI, and the Russian investigation, already much covered in cable commentary and in print. Pull quote: “Those were lies, plain and simple.”

Senator Burr’s opening questions established Comey’s position that Russia tried to intervene in the election–“no doubt”–but that the interference did not extend to altering votes. Comey also negatived a question whether anyone asked him to stop the Russian investigation. However, he left open the suggestion that criminal aspects not connected with the 2016 election may turn up. Plenty of room for investigation, by both special counsel and Congress. He also commented matter-of-factly and accurately that “There’s all kinds of cyber intrusions going on all the time” — “hundreds” “at least” — but that the 2016 election was the first he knew of affecting the DNC. Comey also said, in response to questions, that the FBI did not have direct access to the DNC hardware but got it via a third party, by spring 2016.

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch

Surprise 1. Comey said again that he had decided to go public with his July 2016 statement about the Clinton email investigation to protect the credibility of the FBI and of the investigation. Specifically, he was concerned by former president Bill Clinton’s meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Saying that there was one significant item he could not talk about publicly, he said that there was one he could: Attorney General Lynch directed him to call it a “matter,” not an “investigation.” Comey reiterated the statement in response to subsequent questions. (The law prof has since been identified in the press.)

Surprise 2. During questions from Senator Susan Collins, Comey stated that he “asked a friend of mine to share the contents” of his writing with a reporter. The friend was a law professor, “a good friend of mine at Columbia Law School. ” His self-created source–a person close to Comey, as they say–passed the notes along to the New York Times. According to Comey, this transmission took place after the president tweeted about “tapes.” Comey also said he hopes there were tapes and would consent to their release.

Columbia Law

(Hypothetically–suppose Trump had accused Comey of leaking, even through a law-prof friend, to the NYTimes. What would the media reaction have been?)

Surprise 3. Senator John McCain seemed so confused that he sounded like a different person. Twice McCain said “Comey” when referring to President Trump. In a short series of disjointed questions, he accused Comey of having a “double standard” as to the Clinton email investigation and the Russian investigation. To this partisan talking point, McCain seemed to add a suggestion linking the Clinton campaign to Russia. The logical guess is that McCain meant the Ukraine, and Ukraine’s efforts to interfere on behalf of Clinton–but referred to Ukraine as “Russia.” (McCain still got off a reasonably good question. When Trump referred to “that thing” to Comey, why didn’t Comey ask him what “that thing” was? – Comey: it didn’t seem important. McCain: “I think I would have had some curiosity, if it had been about me.”)

The rest of the back-and-forth and questioning was punctuated by a few Comey answers quickly given, then quickly amended. Three examples:

When Angus King (I-Maine) asked Comey whether he had ever called the president, he immediately said no. But–“once I was asked to call the White House switchboard”–so he did.

When Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) asked Comey whether the president had ever asked him about Russian interference in the election, Comey instantly responded no. Then  he said he thought “there was an initial briefing” about Russia and the election, with “conversation” and “questions.” (Manchin also asked Comey, “Do you believe you would have been fired if Hillary Clinton had become president?” Comey: “I don’t know.” “I might have been.”)

When Manchin then asked Comey whether he had talked with Sessions about why Sessions wasn’t in the room (with Trump and Comey), he said no. But–“I did talk to him and said, you have to be [etc.],” but Comey did not tell Sessions about the Flynn conversation.

Further parsing if any will have to wait for a later date. For now, the wrap-up is that new Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) has a laudable ability to cover a lot of ground quickly, concisely, and clearly. Her questions included the following:

Any meetings of Trump officials and Russian officials during campaign, not acknowledged? Any encrypted communications? Anything destroyed? Any efforts to conceal? – Comey: all these Qs not to be dealt with in open session.

Harris: The parameters of Sessions’ recusal? – Any written notice or memo about it? – Comey: don’t know.

Harris: Should Mueller have full authority to pursue his investigation, full independence? –  Comey: yes.

Statement for the Record

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

James B. Comey

June 8, 2017

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee.

Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

January 6 Briefing

I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves “turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) — once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months — three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner. At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because “problems” come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, “I need loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I paused, and then said, “You will get that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term — honest loyalty — had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National CounterTerrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

 

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.” Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information — a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role. After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members — or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them — aware of the President’s request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President’s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened — him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind — was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI’s potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week — at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, “We need to get that fact out.” (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some “satellite” associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up “the McCabe thing” because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing “the cloud” that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

April 11 Phone Call

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I “get out” that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that “the cloud” was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

###

PAID CONTENT

Heckuva job brownie, November 1963

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FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, in a publicity shot

Heckuva job brownie, November 1963

 

 

In what would now be called a ‘heckuva job, Brownie’ moment, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is on record as scattering praise and commendations freely in the days following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.


Ironically, given the course of events and the unavailability of key personnel when they were most needed, Hoover was moved on Dec. 4, 1963,  to issue grateful thanks to all FBI people involved in responding to the assassination. In a memorandum for top personnel headed “RE: COMMENDATION, NOVEMBER 25, 1963,” Hoover wrote,

“I want you to convey my sincere appreciation to the personnel in your division who so graciously volunteered to work on November 25, 1963, in connection with the emergency occasioned by the assassination of the President.

Their devotion to duty and obvious desire to be of assistance and to protect the best interests of the Bureau during this trying time were of the highest caliber and a credit to them. Please extend to all my sincere and heartfelt thanks.

Very truly yours,

John Edgar Hoover

            Director”

It was Hoover’s wont to express praise and blame at frequent intervals, and even highly praised and promoted officers like Courtney Evans received their share of censure as well as praise. By the same token, Bureau divisions and members sometimes got a pat on the back from Hoover at junctures when they might be seen as less than successful, as in the memo quoted here.

There are oddities in the memo aside from characterizing the assassination of a president as “this trying time.” Nov. 25, 1963, was a Monday, and it is puzzling that FBI personnel are being thanked for showing up for work as they would have had to do on any other weekday. Presumably the underlying reference is that President Kennedy was being laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery that day, with full military honors, and the funeral ceremonies were accompanied by a holiday for government workers. Still, the memo jibes oddly with the events; most Americans would have assumed–taken for granted–that FBI investigators and staff were working around the clock on the assassination. The general public would probably have assumed also that the Bureau was working to protect more than its own “best interests.”

In this latter assumption, the public looks to have been mistaken.

The Dec. 4 memo was no impulse; the Director followed it up with another on Dec. 9, 1963, headed “COMMENDATION, NOVEMBER 25, 1963.” This one was directed specifically to the Special Investigative Division handling the investigation of the assassination:

             “By memorandum dated December 4, 1963, the Director requested that his sincere appreciation be conveyed to the personnel who so graciously volunteered to work on November 25, 1963, in connection with the emergency occasioned by the assassination of the President. He stated their devotion to duty and obvious desire to be of assistance and to protect the best interests of the Bureau during this trying time were of the highest caliber and a credit to them.

            The following employees voluntarily reported for duty in the Special Investigative Division on November 25, 1963, and it is recommended that a copy of this memorandum be placed in the personnel file of each of these individuals.”

A list of about 35 names, some redacted in the Evans file, follows.

Funeral procession


Reading this memo is chilling, especially for anyone alive at the time of JFK’s funeral. The sound of that somber drum and the sight of the riderless horse tend to stick in the memory.

 

That J. Edgar Hoover could delicately convey surprise that personnel in the Special Investigative Division did not seize the opportunity to take the day off suggests that, even now, historians still have not come to grips with the actual character of the FBI under Hoover.*


To be continued

 

*There is a faint analogy here, and maybe more than faint, with current revelations from wikileaks. Some news reports on the wikileaks material suggest surprise that diplomats spy on each other, as the hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Iran in the 1970s surprised any member of the general public who assumed that diplomats engage solely in diplomacy. However, the infiltration of pure and disinterested diplomacy by intelligence agencies, mainly CIA, while not exonerating the kidnappers, was known especially in the Washington, D.C., region.

 

Material on how much spying among nations is protected by diplomatic immunity is available, although some of it is in books where the pertinent information has to be linked up by painstaking re-organizing.

 

For the moment, it looks as though the chief impact of the wikileaks material has been on people who were saying one thing in public and another in private. This is obviously a penchant not to be over-indulged; equally obviously, all fallible human beings can slip into it. But a big problem is immature personalities in responsible positions, who get a sense of power—whoa!—from deliberately being as two-faced as they can get away with.

Courtney Evans and J. Edgar Hoover, before and after Nov. 22, 1963

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Courtney Evans and J. Edgar Hoover, before and after Nov. 22, 1963

Following up the previous post—

J. Edgar Hoover

In March 1963, longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover rated the job performance of one of his Assistant FBI Directors, Courtney Allen Evans, “Outstanding” for the fifth year in a row. Hoover summarized Evans’ position thus:

Mr. Evans is the Assistant Director in charge of the Special Investigative Division and as such is responsible for the direction and coordination of the Bureau’s investigative activities in organized crime, fugitives and employee security matters.

Hoover praised Evans in a one-page summary for “the highest qualities of leadership, planning ability and a comprehensive knowledge of Bureau operations,” noting that “Mr. Evans’s responsibilities cover some of the most vital and involved phases of the Bureau’s work, such as keeping the Director currently apprised of matters of the utmost importance in organized crime.”

Whatever Hoover’s boilerplate language signified for Hoover, Evans himself took a serious interest in his job obligations. Evans certainly knew how to play the Bureau game; he dropped more than one laudatory thank-you note to the Director over the course of his career, including one, after a promotion, in which he requested an autographed photo of Hoover. But a meaty submission from Evans in August 1963 suggests that it was he who was largely responsible for a Top Echelon Criminal Informant Conference of the FBI Aug. 15-16, 1963. Evans’s lengthy memo to superiors about the conference conveys serious purpose.

Courtney Evans

Recommending a letter of commendation for a Special Agent, Evans attests that

SA [name redacted] handled all the details concerning the administration of the conference, and in addition, led the discussions on the techniques utilized in the development of the 60 individuals who to date have been approved as top echelon criminal informants. He demonstrated a most comprehensive knowledge of the factors which gave rise to the development of these informants, the techniques utilized, and the basis for selection of these individuals as targets for development. SA [redacted] clearly demonstrated . . . that a great deal of the success achieved during the past two years in developing this type informant is attributable to his knowledge of informant matters generally plus his consistent direction of field efforts in this regard.

 Historians have established by now that Hoover was a latecomer to the battle against organized crime, denying the existence of the Mafia for years and, when forced to acknowledge it, designating it by the previously unknown (and ridiculed) name ‘La Cosa Nostra.’ When the FBI shifted gears and joined the anti-organized crime cause, the work was largely the inspiration of subordinates rather than of the Director, as the papers even of FBI personnel protective of the Bureau corroborate.

Hoover takes aim at crime

Evans is a case in point. Deferring to Bureau usage on nomenclature for the Mob, he nonetheless uses language that shows a mind on the job:

“SA Emery handled the discussions concerning La Cosa Nostra and brought to the conference detailed and specific information on the aims and purposes of this underworld organization. His specific knowledge of the organization is such that as a result weaknesses in our informant coverage of the organization were revealed. His extensive knowledge of the individuals who compose this organization enabled the conference to select what appeared to be excellent targets . . .”

Evans writes as a supervisor supporting a project he believes useful:

“SA Staffeld brought to the conference a complete knowledge of the Criminal Intelligence Program gained by supervision of this program over the years. He consistently drove home to those in attendance at the conference the pitfalls which must be avoided to properly discharge our responsibilities and drew upon his experience to make numerous positive suggestions for the improvement of our Top Echelon Informant Program. SA Staffeld was able to alert those in attendance at the conference to developments in the underworld in various sections of the country which will have a bearing on the techniques to be utilized . . . He consistently drove home the theme that the publicity concerning the revelations of Joseph Valachi, while not recommended by the Bureau, must be turned to our advantage and the attendant unrest caused by these revelations must be completely exploited so that our coverage of the underworld on a high level can be enhanced.”

Generally the 1,150 pages of Evans’s FBI dossier indicate Evans as a supervisor with some concept of the difference between being effective and not being effective, and he preferred effective to ineffective. While that may not sound like much to ask, it is not a given for all managers, in either public or private entities.

Evans versus Hoover

Contrast the concerns shared by his boss, Director Hoover. Hoover replied to Evans’s lengthy and detailed memorandum on the Top Echelon Criminal Informant Conference in a terse two-paragraph note commending the conference, “through [Evans].” In contrast, Hoover’s Nov. 20, 1963, letter following up the inspection report on Evans’s division, marked “PERSONAL ATTENTION,” demonstrates Hoover’s much-vaunted attention to detail:

“Space occupied by your Division was found to be neat, efficiently organized, businesslike in appearance, well maintained, and fully utilized. A number of the rooms need repainting, and requests are outstanding to have this done. You should closely follow this matter to insure that the repainting is completed at an early date. Individual responsibility for the proper maintenance of your space should be emphasized to all employees in order that the minor housekeeping delinquencies found can be eliminated.”

Inevitably it will be recalled that this letter is dated two days before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and is about the division tasked with investigating the assassination, but even aside from ironies of timing the letter shows some lack of proportion. While Hoover commends “progress shown in the Criminal Intelligence field by deeper penetration of underworld activities,” his heart doesn’t really seem to be in undercover investigations of the underworld. Hoover spends more ink on office space—repainting, etc.—and on the delinquencies of typists:

“The field should continue to be closely followed to reduce delinquency in the six classifications that have exceeded seven percent during three or more of the last six months. Production of stenographers and typists assigned to your Division pool is below the average of all stenographic employees at the Seat of Government [Washington, D.C.]. You should continue your training programs for the employees with less experience and closely supervise their progress to increase the over-all production average.”

Hoover goes into further detail on “minor housekeeping delinquencies” and “Production in stenographic pool” in his lengthy follow-up memo on the inspection report to Clyde Tolson.

As written in the previous post on this topic, one reason several of the Special Investigative Division’s top men were unavailable Nov. 22, 1963, is that they were on inspection trips. While the president was traveling to Texas, Number One Man (Deputy Assistant Director) H. L. Edwards was on an inspection in Miami, Fla., along with Inspector William B. Soyars, Jr., and another Inspection Division officer, H. J. Edgerton. Inspector R. M. Murphy was conducting an inspection in Baltimore, Md., with division officer Victor Turyn.

Turyn was the officer later assigned to evaluate James P. Hosty’s pre-assassination contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald, and went on to become SAC in New York City. At the crucial time of the assassination, he like other key personnel was away from headquarters evaluating, among other things, local FBI field offices’ paint condition and stenographic underproduction.

The assassination of President Kennedy has with some validity been called a quagmire for historians, but not every aspect of this tragic chapter in twentieth-century U.S. history is uniformly complex or opaque. One simple conclusion is inescapable: if a watchful eye from the FBI was necessary, the president never had a chance.

To be continued

November 22, 1963–Nobody minding the store

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November 20, 1963, and November 26, 1963

Courtney A. Evans, FBI

On November 22, 1963, Courtney A. Evans, Assistant Director of the Special Investigative Division in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was in Seattle, Wash., to give a speech for the FBI when he heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. Evans, a friend of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, rushed back across the country to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Special Investigative Division was assigned the investigation into the assassination.

FBI documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that at the time of the assassination, almost every top official of the Special Investigative Division was, like Evans, unavailable.

A memorandum dated Nov. 26, 1963, from Bureau Supervisor Nicholas P. Callahan, presents the “Location of Officials” to longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The memo also presented Hoover, already stung by criticism of his Bureau, plenty of challenges from a PR standpoint. Assistant Director of the Special Investigative Division Alexander Rosen was at home ill, taking annual leave. The third Assistant Director of the division, William C. Sullivan, had to return to Washington from his home town of Hudson, Mass.

The sole division official available, James R. Malley, Number One Man or assistant to Rosen in charge of the General Investigative Division, was sitting in Rosen’s office. The president was shot about 12:30 p.m.; Malley learned of the assassination when, after returning from lunch, he happened to turn on Rosen’s desk radio and caught the news.

Malley later testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that it was mid-afternoon before he was informed that the Special Investigative Division would be handling the assassination.

House committee on assassinations

The other three Number One Men, as the next tier of officials was known, were also away from headquarters. W. (William) Mark Felt, later to become famous as ‘Deep Throat’ in the Watergate scandal, was at Quantico, Va., where as Felt later put it he had become “a kind of Dean of the Faculty” for training programs. Number One Man Frank W. Waikart was on annual leave. Number One Man H. L. Edwards was in Miami, Fla., doing an inspection.

Like their immediate superiors, the five division Inspectors next down the ladder were also out, one on sick leave and the others on trips to Baltimore, Miami and Chicago. The closest to hand was Charles H. DeFord, Special Agent in Charge in Columbia, S.C., who was in the Identification Division (fingerprint) building that day. Two officials on the Inspection Division Staff were also away on inspections in Miami and Baltimore. None were with President Kennedy on his trip to Dallas, Texas.

Thus the most sensitive investigation with which the FBI had ever been trusted, in what was instantly called the crime of the century, was to be spearheaded and coordinated by a unit scattered among several cities and remote from the crime scene, its members largely out of touch with each other. Malley’s HSCA testimony presents a disturbing picture:

“Later in the day, and I presume it must have been close to 3 o’clock, I was either told [by] telephone or asked to come down to [Assistant FBI Director Alan H.] Belmont’s office, I cannot recall which, at which time he informed me that the General Investigative Division would be handling the assassination case of President Kennedy.
Following that, and still not having many details to go on, I started lining up personnel that would be available on a round-the clock basis to handle whatever might develop.
Mr. McDONALD. Were you given any specific instructions as to what your role would be?
Mr. MALLEY. Not at that time.
Mr. McDONALD. And your immediate supervisor was Mr. Rosen?
Mr. MALLEY. That is correct.
Mr. McDONALD. Was he present that day?
Mr. MALLEY. He was not. He was scheduled to go on annual leave that morning and instead of taking off as he had planned to leave the city, he was ill and did not leave the city at all. He eventually came back to the office sometime the following week.
Mr. MCDONALD. Did you have any meetings with Mr. Hoover on that day?
Mr. MALLEY. I did not.
Mr. McDONALD. What were the next set of instructions you received on Friday afternoon?
Mr. MALLEY. I don’t recall that I received any instructions on that particular afternoon . . . there was a lot of confusion . . . Because up until around 7 o’clock, if my memory is correct, there was a definite uncertainty as to what jurisdiction the Bureau had.”

History and irony

Just six days earlier, the Special Investigative Division had received high marks from the FBI director, as had Assistant Director Courtney Evans, a twenty-year veteran at the Bureau. A Nov. 20, 1963, inspection report from FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s self-described “alter ego,” to Asst. Director James H. Gale, rated the Division “Very Good” in four categories—Physical Condition and Maintenance; Specific Division Operations; Administrative Operations; and Personnel Matters. The division received an “Excellent” rating in the fifth category, Contacts. Director Hoover was acutely aware that Courtney Evans had ties with the Kennedy administration through his closeness to Robert Kennedy, and a large part of Evans’ job was to serve as liaison between the FBI and the Kennedys.

The report concludes approvingly,

“Assistant Director Evans continues to maintain excellent contacts in Bureau’s behalf with Attorney General, Cabinet officers, White House staff, members of Congress, and other highly placed Government officials. Legislative matters pertaining to work of Special Investigative Division closely followed and coordinated with other Bureau Divisions. Effective liaison maintained with Department and other Government agencies to further Bureau’s work and protect its interests.”

The inspection reports, followed up by letters from Hoover, remorselessly disclose where FBI resources went and where they did not go.

Evans, who had been rated Outstanding in his previous five annual performance reports, received a special commendation from Hoover in a letter Apr. 25, 1963:

“I want to commend, through you, the clerical tour leaders in your division who assisted in such an effective fashion in handling tours for the extremely heavy influx of visitors to the Bureau during the 1963 Easter Season.”

Evans was also praised the same month for a speech he had given at the Founders Day Banquet of the Augustinian Academy in St. Louis, Mo. Speeches and other appearances for the FBI were frequent gigs for Evans, who was consistently rated favorably for personal appearance and clothing style.

History is always 20-20. For perspective, it was in April 1963 that Lee Harvey Oswald moved to New Orleans, where he had been born and where he maintained the complicated ties that ultimately connected him to the shooting of a president.

Okay, Mr. Basel, Mr. Flanagan, Mr. O’Keefe: one more time

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Okay, Mr. Basel, Mr. Flanagan, Mr. O’Keefe, Mr. Dai: One more time, from the top . . .

 

O'Keefe

From the Lafourche Parish, La., Daily Comet, Jan. 28:

“Last month, protesters marched in front of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office to criticize her support for health care legislation and complain that they couldn’t get through on her office phones. Now Landrieu’s phones are at the center of federal charges against four men accused of trying to tamper with them. Among those arrested was conservative activist James O’Keefe, who gained notoriety last year with hidden-camera videos showing him dressed as a pimp . . .”

Setting aside once and for all that unconvincing ‘pimp’ get-up—a Halloween-costume, joke ‘pimp’ outfit rather than gear for body-guarding streetwalkers—the question now before us is what these four post-frats were going to do in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans building on Jan. 25.

James O’Keefe says in his self-exonerating Friday statement that

“I learned from a number of sources that many of Senator Landrieu’s constituents were having trouble getting through to her office to tell her that they didn’t want her taking millions of federal dollars in exchange for her vote on the healthcare bill. When asked about this, Senator Landrieu’s explanation was that, “Our lines have been jammed for weeks.” I decided to investigate why a representative of the people would be out of touch with her constituents for “weeks” because her phones were broken. In investigating this matter, we decided to visit Senator Landrieu’s district office–the people’s office–to ask the staff if their phones were working.”

Okay, that’s clear enough. 1) Sen. Landrieu told the Baton Rouge Advocate in an interview that her phone lines had been “jammed” for weeks. 2) The four interlopers took the senator to mean not that her lines were jammed with people trying to get through—which would be the typical statement–but that Landrieu was saying there was something technologically wrong with her phone system. 3) So, they decided to show up at her office to– ?

It gets unclear. Aside from some little problems with 1) and 2) aforementioned (see below), according to O’Keefe’s statement,

“The sole intent of our investigation was to determine whether or not Senator Landrieu was purposely trying to avoid constituents who were calling to register their views to her as their Senator. We video taped the entire visit, the government has those tapes, and I’m eager for them to be released because they refute the false claims being repeated by much of the mainstream media.”

Reduced to plain English, the narrative is that the four guys believed or affected to believe that Sen. Landrieu was making excuses; they took her to be saying that her phones did not work; therefore they went to her office in person to show via videotape that her phones did work or otherwise to show that she was simply avoiding constituents’ calls.

First question: Okay, so why didn’t they do that? Why didn’t they just go visit her office, like any other constituent, and stand around videotaping—inconspicuously or otherwise, as with cell phones—while her phones rang?

Second question, a corollary to the first: Why did they need phone-company costumes to determine whether the senator was trying to avoid constituents? After all, O’Keefe himself was apparently not in costume.

WAIT A MINUTE, I hear you ask: WHAT COSTUMES?

—from the FBI affidavit:

“4) On or about January 25, 2010, at approximately 11:00 a.m., FLANAGAN and BASEL entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building, each dressed in blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light fluorescent green vest, a tool belt, and carrying white, construction-style hard hat . . .

5) WITNESS 1 stated that upon entering Senator Landrieu’s office, FLANAGAN and BASEL represented to her that they were repair technicians from the telephone company and were there to fix problems with the telephone system. WITNESS 1 stated that they were each wearing a white, hard construction hat, a tool belt, a fluorescent vest, and denim pants and tops.”

[Side note: Not gentlemen. Gents take off their hats inside a building, not outside.]

This is another version of the first question: If their purpose was only to embarrass Sen. Landrieu by videotaping interactions to show that she was avoiding her constituents’ calls, why would they claim that her phones were not working? Wouldn’t it make more sense to show that her phones were working? The affidavit says they even videotaped themselves making the inapposite claim:

“WITNESS 1 further stated that when FLANAGAN and BASEL entered the office, O’KEEFE positioned his cellular phone in his hand so as to record FLANAGAN and BASEL. . .

6) BASEL requested to be given access to a telephone in the office, and WITNESS 1 allowed him access to the main telephone at the reception desk. WITNESS 1 observed BASEL take the handset of the phone and manipulate it. BASEL also tried to call the phone with a cellular phone in his possession. He stated that he could not get through.”

All this while the cameras were rolling, figuratively speaking. What were the alleged perps going to do, under O’Keefe’s explanation—go back to their loyalists saying, Hey, she’s right, her phones don’t work?

Sen. Landrieu

Second set of questions: If the alleged perpetrators were there only to embarrass the senator by videotaping in her office, why did they then try to gain access to the main telephone closet? From the FBI affidavit:

“7) Thereafter, FLANAGAN and BASEL told WITNESS 1 that they needed to perform repair work on the main telephone system and asked for the location of the telephone closet. WITNESS 1 directed FLANAGAN and BASEL to the main GSA office, located on the tenth floor of the Hale Boggs Federal Building. Both men went to the GSA office.”

Why did they then (allegedly) try to get inside the telephone closet? –The affidavit:

“8) FLANAGAN and BASEL spoke with WITNESS 2, a GSA employee working the GSA office, and represented that they were employees of the telephone company and needed access to the telephone closet to perform repair work. WITNESS 2 asked the men for credentials, and FLANAGAN and BASEL stated that they had left their credentials in their vehicle.”

 Hooray for the GSA: The two did not get inside the telephone closet, and the rest is history.

–With some gaps left to fill in:

  • Purely on the factual side of the matter, it would be good to know how they got those work uniforms and hard hats. Were they purchased? If so, where and when, and by whom?
  • Who paid for them?
  • Side note: Did they get that idea of the telephone-repairman disguise from Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone, or from Burn Notice? Or did they get the idea from an earlier Nixon-Segretti or Lee Atwater-Karl Rove episode in the ongoing series, U.S. political dirty tricks?
  • Who got the idea for those disguises?
  • If the defense was that this was basically a prank, will we hear the defense claim that the disguises weren’t real work clothes, just male-stripper telephone-repairman costumes or the like?
  • Re the legal aspects, it would be good to know whether O’Keefe consulted with the others before issuing his statement, given that the statement provides cover for him rather than for the guys who went, disguised, to the GSA office.
  • Related question: Are those hapless work-costume guys represented by the same attorney/s representing O’Keefe? Wouldn’t be my call, if I were their parents . . .
  • Also related: What was the role of the fourth guy, the one in the car? Doesn’t leaving one guy in a car look like arranging a get-away driver? Was the fourth, Mr. Dai, seated behind the wheel? Whose car was it?
  • Another factual detail: Did Sen. Landrieu’s phones ring, any time while the alleged interlopers were in her office?
  • As to that office: Landrieu has five offices, counting the one in DC. Did the guys enter any of the other offices? If so, when? If not, why not? –What would be the point in videotaping phones and staffers in one office, showing that the phones in one of Landrieu’s offices either did work or did not work, if that left all the other offices—Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Capitol Hill—unaccounted for? How could videotaping in one office be comprehensive? How could it accomplish as much as, say, cutting the lines or otherwise disrupting the phone service in one office?