Senate Investigators to Issue Draft Report : FBI Accused of Hampering Presser Case

Senate investigators charged Thursday that the government’s labor fraud investigation of Teamsters President Jackie Presser was hampered by the FBI’s lack of crucial records, its failure to answer prosecutors’ key questions and the Justice Department’s “hands-off attitude” toward the bureau.

In the draft of a staff report to be issued at a hearing today by the Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee, the FBI also is accused of “obfuscation, intransigence and delay” in answering the panel’s questions.

The subcommittee report marks the first official review to be made public of the Justice Department decision last July to reject a federal strike force recommendation that Presser be indicted.

Says Impacts Widespread

Moreover, the report said, its findings extend far beyond the politically sensitive case of the president of the nation’s largest union. Government conduct in the case has adversely affected other labor racketeering investigations, relationships between federal law enforcement agencies and the labor movement itself, it concluded.

“The Department of Justice may have a flawed supervisory relationship with the FBI,” the report said. “Unless the department exercises its authority and responsibility to direct the FBI and demand a full accounting of the FBI’s activities as they impact on other work of the department, the same types of problems that occurred during the Presser case may well recur.”

The case of Presser, whose union commands a membership of 1.7 million, has taken on strong political undertones because he was President Reagan’s sole supporter among major labor leaders in the 1980 and 1984 elections and has advised the Administration on labor issues.

Denies Political Influence

The report, however, emphasized that Senate investigators had found no evidence of political influence in the case, saying that “decisions not to prosecute in this case were made by career government attorneys and concurred in by mid-level political appointees.”

The FBI’s lack of records and failure to answer prosecutors’ questions all relate to whether Presser and some other prospective defendants in an investigation of union payments to “ghost employees” were authorized by the FBI to take part in the scheme while serving as government informants. Such payments were made to people who did no work for the union but remained on its payroll.

Justice Department officials vetoed the prosecution of Presser after his lawyer, John R. Climaco, told them that Presser had been authorized by FBI agents to approve the otherwise illegal payments. The agents involved supported Climaco’s account, the report said, but Justice Department officials said that the authorizations “were not corroborated by any entries in FBI files.”

Two Juries Investigating

The FBI did not permit the subcommittee to question the agents, the report noted. But a federal grand jury in Washington is investigating whether the agents had falsely stated that they authorized Presser’s participation in the scheme.

And another grand jury, in Cleveland, has resurrected the “ghost employee” investigation involving Presser and others.

William Baker, assistant FBI director for congressional and public affairs, disputed the subcommittee’s criticism of the bureau’s lack of cooperation in the Senate investigation. Baker, noting that FBI Director William H. Webster had discussed the investigation with subcommittee Chairman William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) and Vice Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), said this was “an unusual degree of cooperation early on.”

Citing questionable actions by the FBI during the investigation of Presser by the Cleveland federal strike force, which was staffed by Labor Department investigators, the report said that “on several occasions” FBI officials there apparently “misled Cleveland strike force attorneys when asked about Jackie Presser’s relationship with the FBI.”

It added that Joseph E. Griffin, chief of the FBI’s Cleveland field office, sent a message to bureau headquarters in June, 1983, suggesting that the government drop the Presser case, although the FBI had no role in the inquiry.

“Despite requests to the FBI, the subcommittee has not been given access to this Airtel (air telegram) and does not know why it was sent nor what follow-up action FBI headquarters took,” the report said.

Tensions ran so high between the FBI and the Labor Department investigators who were pursuing Presser, the subcommittee said, that David Williams, a Cleveland-based Labor Department official, wrote a scathing memo to his superiors in Washington.

Cites Major Bungle

The memo said in part that FBI agents, over a period of months, “have actively interfered with and obstructed progress on the U.S. government investigation of organized crime racketeer Jackie Presser.”

The subcommittee said that Williams, who is scheduled to testify to the panel today, also charged that two associates of Presser had approached a Labor Department informant in the case “and threatened his father and son if he assisted the government against Presser.” The subcommittee did not identify the informant.

A major bungle in the government’s lengthy investigation of Presser occurred when Justice Department officials failed to “fully explore” the FBI’s relationship with Presser, the report said.

Instead of questioning FBI agents exhaustively about the extent of their dealings with Presser, Justice Department officials were too “deferential” toward them, the report said, ignoring the fact that the FBI is part of the Justice Department, not an independent agency.

“The department appeared mostly content to let the FBI tell it what the FBI wanted it (the department) to know,” the report said.

Honest rank-and-file union members who want to rid the labor movement of corruption also have been hurt by the mishandled Presser case, the subcommittee said, saying that the bungling “will affect their desires and ability to clean up their own unions.”