Inquiry Finds Sessions Misused FBI Authority : Justice Department: Sources say a report expected today will cite a tax dodge and abuse of travel benefits.

A Justice Department investigation of FBI Director William S. Sessions depicts him as a man who went to great lengths to bend the bureau’s services and authority for his own benefit, sources familiar with the findings said.

The report, expected to be released today, cites instances ranging from what it terms a “sham” to escape taxes on his use of a limousine to abuse of FBI travel for personal purposes.

Sessions has declined to respond in detail until he receives a copy of the full report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the department’s watchdog unit. Its findings were adopted by former Atty. Gen. William P. Barr on his last formal day in office and communicated Friday to Sessions, who was ordered to pay back taxes and make other forms of restitution.

But the FBI director has defended his actions as proper and honorable and accused “some in Washington” of “political shenanigans” to tar his reputation.

The report, copies of which are expected to be sent to the Senate and House Judiciary committees, is understood to set out in detail actions by Sessions that the investigators said could result in an erosion of respect for the Justice Department.

The limousine arrangement stemmed from advice that Sessions received in 1990 from Assistant FBI Director Joseph R. Davis, who said Sessions would have to carry a weapon to claim the exemption from taxes of the value of home-to-work transportation that is provided him.

Davis, the bureau’s chief legal officer, made clear to Sessions that to quality for the exemption, he would have to undergo the firearms training required of all FBI personnel who carry guns, qualify with the weapon and carry it with him in such a way that it could be used. Instead, the sources said, the investigation established that Sessions keeps the gun unloaded in a briefcase in the trunk of his limousine.

The report rejected the possibility that the arrangement was an oversight, concluding that Sessions did not qualify with or even fire the gun.

The sources said the report also faults Sessions for frequently ignoring the advice of the FBI’s security experts, but on other occasions citing his need for security to justify using an FBI jet for personal travel.

On some occasions while traveling on commercial conveyances, the sources said, Sessions failed to intervene when his wife, Alice, who was routinely given a coach ticket, ousted agents in the security detail from their first-class seats so she could sit near her husband.

Although FBI agents have been suspended up to 30 days for using bureau vehicles to transport family members, the report is understood to cite instances in which Sessions’ wife was taken alone by bureau car to a Georgetown dressmaker and to a social occasion at a Washington hotel.

Sessions said he was not responsible for such misuses because it was the responsibility of his security detail to advise him of any improprieties, the sources said.

The report noted that Sessions traveled on official business to San Francisco during the Christmas holidays in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1991. The business appears to have been arranged to enable Sessions and his wife to visit their daughter, who lives in the area. The only year since becoming director that he did not travel to San Francisco over Christmas was 1990, when his daughter came to Washington, the sources said.

The report also concluded that Sessions had manipulated the bureau’s procedures to obtain a fence around his Washington residence to satisfy his wife, although it actually reduced the level of security at the house. On the strength of this finding, the sources said, Barr directed the FBI director to reimburse the government for the nearly $10,000 cost of the fence.

The sources said the report also criticizes Sessions for refusing to cooperate in the investigators’ efforts to determine whether the financing on his residence is more favorable than that available to ordinary citizens. The FBI director would not give investigators access to the records on his mortgage from Riggs Bank, which could resolve the question of whether he obtained a special rate because of his position.

Similar refusals to cooperate in administrative inquiries have led to disciplinary actions against FBI employees, the sources said.