Perot Source Was Fired as El Cajon Cop

Scott Tracy Barnes, identified this week by Ross Perot as a source of allegations that President Bush’s campaign operatives tried to smear his family, was fired by the El Cajon Police Department and another California police agency after less than a year at each of the jobs.

Perot said Sunday on the CBS-TV program “60 Minutes” that Barnes was one of three sources who told him that Bush campaign officials had planned to embarrass him because of his gain in the polls. Shortly after receiving the information, Perot abandoned his presidential bid. He re-entered the race Oct. 1.

FBI officials and Bush campaign officials say there is nothing to Perot’s allegations and have questioned Barnes’ truthfulness.

San Diego County law enforcement officials describe Barnes as unreliable and contacted the state Department of Justice to have him labeled a “non-reliable informant” in 1981 because his information was so poor.

“We talked to this guy, and he was just incredible,” said one law enforcement source who has followed Barnes through police circles for 15 years. “His veracity, credibility just wasn’t very good at all. He was a manufacturer, a manipulator.”

Barnes, 38, was hired by the El Cajon Police Department in March, 1976.

In a 1981 federal court document, Barnes said he was recruited to join the BET (Biker Enforcement Team), composed of members from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol, El Cajon police, the district attorney’s office and state law enforcement officials.

Those who were part of the team said Barnes was never a member, but investigated biker groups such as the Hells Angels and Mongols on his own.

After 11 months with El Cajon police and one month before his probationary period ended, Barnes was fired for falsifying police reports. During his tenure, two claims of false arrest were filed against him, San Diego law enforcement officials said.

Barnes, who said he was dismissed for “involvement in motorcycle gang activities unrelated to his official duties,” sued the department and asked the City Council to investigate alleged corruption in the department, according to court documents.

Barnes lost his lawsuit and appeal. City officials said they found no corruption.

Five months after he was fired, Barnes was hired as a police officer in Ridgecrest, a town of 20,000 about 90 miles east of Bakersfield, in July, 1977. While there, Barnes said, he was asked to “fabricate charges, evidence and rumors” against biker groups.

Barnes was fired 11 months later for his investigation of the Hells Angels and “communicating with drug enforcement agencies,” he said in a court document.

In February, 1978, an officer from a neighboring police department accused Barnes of interfering with an off-duty arrest of a shoplifter in Ridgecrest and destroying evidence in the case, according to published reports. Barnes said a sergeant told him to destroy the evidence.

Also in February, a judge dismissed drug and weapons charges against two men Barnes arrested after deciding the officer was mistaken when he said they had violated a traffic law that led to a search of the car, the reports said.

A month later, all but two of the 27-member Ridgecrest police union voted to recommend that Barnes be fired. Barnes claimed the police chief was involved in an illegal bookmaking operation.

While still in Ridgecrest, Barnes gave information to the Oakland Police Department about a supposed list of attorneys, investigators and police officers in San Diego County that members of the Hells Angels were planning to kill, San Diego law enforcement officials said.

Acting on the tip, detectives arrested two members of the bikers gang sitting in a car outside an investigator’s home in Poway.

San Diego law enforcement sources said they soon found that the rest of Barnes’ information didn’t check out.

In 1981, Barnes testified on behalf of the Hells Angels in a federal anti-racketeering lawsuit brought against the bikers, but the judge in the case ruled his testimony irrelevant 15 minutes into the trial. In court papers, Barnes had alleged that a clandestine police group planted evidence and used illegal surveillance to frame members of the group.

The government’s case against the Hells Angels failed after two hung juries.

In the early 1980s, Barnes told The Times that he had joined a POW hunting team sent to Thailand by former Green Beret Lt. Col. James G. (Bo) Gritz. Barnes claimed he had crossed the Mekong River into Laos with a mysterious American who was not on the team, that they had seen two white men in a prison camp and that the team was ordered to assassinate the two imprisoned men.

Gritz and other members of the team denied it. Gritz has described Barnes as “somewhat of a nut.”

The Times sent two reporters to Thailand. They found villagers who Barnes claimed had accompanied him and the mysterious American into Laos. The villagers said Barnes had, in fact, never crossed the Mekong River.

It was Barnes’ Southeast Asian adventure that prompted Soldier of Fortune to describe him as “a flake.”

Perot made it clear on “60 Minutes” that he was not relying on Barnes’ word alone, but information from two others that made the allegations more serious.

The first tip, Perot said, “I just listened to. The second one raised my level of concern. The third one, I said, ‘That’s a risk I can’t take.’ ”

In Washington on Monday, FBI Director William S. Sessions tried to explain the agency’s role in setting up a “sting” by sending an undercover agent in Dallas to see Jim Oberwetter, Texas chairman of the Bush-Quayle campaign. The agent presented him with a tape-recording of what was purported to be Perot’s voice.

Perot had been asked to make the recording to help with the investigation.

Oberwetter told the FBI operative: “Haven’t you ever heard of Watergate? Don’t you know that people’s lives were ruined doing what you’ve just told me you have done?”

Oberwetter reported the FBI operative to the Dallas police, who called Buck Revell, the FBI chief in Dallas, according to “60 Minutes.”

Revell had said, on camera, “There is no evidence that we have found that would indicate that any of the presidential campaigns, at least here in Dallas, have directed any dirty tricks at another campaign.”

A source outside the FBI said Revell was being summoned to Washington to explain what he meant. Revell’s statement seemed to indicate that the FBI’s investigation, to use Sessions’ words, had gone “beyond the allegation of illegal wiretapping.”

It was Barnes who had set the sting in motion, according to congressional sources and other sources. Perot not only told the FBI about the alleged wiretap but also brought Barnes to them, said the sources, who added that Barnes told agents he had learned about the wiretapping from Oberwetter.

Then, in the middle of their investigation, Barnes stopped cooperating.

It was at this point, the sources said, that agents decided to attempt the sting, for fear that if they dropped the matter, Perot would claim the FBI was covering up for the President.

Barnes, in a brief interview Monday with The Times, said his veracity was excellent--and claimed that Perot’s allegations about dirty tricks are true--”100%.”

“I’m hoping the President of the United States will open a full-blown investigation,” Barnes said. “He should have done it when I first talked to them” in August, when Barnes said he spoke to Marlin Fitzwater.

Fitzwater said his records show Barnes had tried to phone him last July but that he did not take the calls.