FBI Official’s Letter Strengthens Case Against Sessions : Ethics: He wrote that he discussed appropriate use of vehicles, security arrangements with agency chief in 1987. Clinton fired director last month.

A senior FBI official privately urged William S. Sessions to resign as FBI director soon after the ethics scandal involving him became public, saying that his conduct fell below that required for the office and accusing him of a “deceptive and misleading defense,” Justice Department documents disclosed Friday.

The Feb. 9, 1993, letter from Oliver (Buck) Revell, the FBI’s former No. 3 official, and other documents released under the Freedom of Information Act make a stronger case than previously revealed against Sessions, who was fired July 19 by President Clinton after he refused to resign in the wake of a scathing Justice Department ethics report.

In an interview, Sessions noted with sarcasm that the letter was supposed to have been “personal and confidential” and declined to respond to Revell’s criticism. “Mr. Revell will have to live with what he did,” Sessions said.

The documents also show that the department’s ethics investigation found that Sessions obtained a $375,000 mortgage from Riggs National Bank at an interest rate of 8.65% and payment of a half-point loan fee, while the prevailing rate was 9.25% interest and three points.

These favorable arrangements came after Joe L. Allbritton, Riggs chairman and chief executive, introduced Sessions and his wife, Alice, to a senior vice president of the bank, who then kept Allbritton apprised of the loan arrangement.

In a Feb. 12 memo to White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, Sessions’ lawyers said: “Director Sessions took no action to obtain favorable or special treatment on his mortgage from the bank, and, when the facts are dissected, it plainly emerges that none appears to have been accorded to him.”

In his letter, Revell, now special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas division, reminded Sessions that shortly after he became FBI director in 1987, the two of them had “an in-depth discussion on the appropriate use of your government vehicle, security staff and the perquisites of your office.” In a scathing report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Sessions was found to have acted improperly in all of these areas.

The conversation was triggered by Sessions sending his bureau limousine and driver to National Airport to pick up his father and bring him to FBI headquarters, Revell wrote.

“I pointed out that no government official can use a government vehicle for non-official purposes, and to do so was a violation (of the U.S. Code), with a mandatory minimum suspension from duty of 30 days,” Revell wrote.

“I indicated to you that the FBI director has to be purer than Caesar’s wife, above even the appearance of impropriety,” Revell recalled.

Revell also disputed what he said was Sessions’ claim that Revell had directed that an armored limousine be purchased for the director and had ordered security arrangements that Sessions accepted.

“This is simply not true,” Revell wrote. “If you will recall, I pointed out that the use of the ‘war wagon’ as a part of your security entourage gave an ostentatious appearance and drew unnecessary attention to your movements about the city.”

Revell told Sessions that a careful review of the report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, “based upon sworn testimony of FBI personnel, leaves no doubt that you took advantage of your position for personal gain and have abused your office to the point that you can no longer effectively serve as director.”

Contending that Sessions’ defense “raised almost as many questions regarding your suitability to be director as the OPR findings,” Revell wrote: “Your deceptive and misleading defense has cost you any possible support and goodwill that you might have expected from within the FBI.”

Urging Sessions “to do the right thing for the bureau and your country,” Revell wrote: “Resign while you still have some semblance of dignity and before you do further harm to an agency that you have professed to honor and respect.”

Revell sent a copy of his letter to Michael E. Shaheen Jr., counsel of the Office of Professional Responsibility, which conducted the Sessions’ investigation. He asked Shaheen to keep the letter confidential, unless he decided it would help the new attorney general or White House counsel in deciding Sessions’ fate.

Revell told Shaheen that he had sent the letter to no one in the FBI except Sessions, noting: “I don’t want to add to his paranoia or give any credence to Mrs. Sessions’ allegations that a ‘palace coup’ is taking place against the director.”

Shaheen presumably did forward the letter, because it became part of the Sessions files that the department released Friday. The documents also indicated that the Justice Department is attempting to bill Sessions for all trips that he “improperly billed to the government,” for a “security fence” at his home and for other costs.