Panel to Hold Hearings on Agents’ Picnic

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee will conduct a hearing into allegations that federal officials--including FBI agents and perhaps U.S. attorneys--participated in an all-white picnic where racist slogans were displayed, the committee chairman said Friday.

“I’m very upset about it. I’m upset at the way law enforcement officers have acted,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). “We’re not going to sit around and let that type of stuff happen.”

Previously, several newspapers reported that a former agent of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms helped coordinate the gathering of law enforcement known as the “Good Ol’ Boys Roundup.” It was held May 18-20 in Polk County, Tenn.

In a statement delivered on the Senate floor, Hatch said it appeared that FBI agents, Secret Service agents, Drug Enforcement Administration officers, U.S. attorneys and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police also may have been involved.

Gene Rightmyer, a retired ATF agent who was host of the gathering, denied that racism was rampant at the gathering. However, he told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that he expelled a group of white officers who had become upset when a black ATF agent arrived at the picnic.

“I went over and talked to them and I said: ‘Shut up or go home--we’re not going to put up with it,’ ” Rightmyer told the newspaper. He declined to say where those men worked, but said they were not ATF agents.

The Judiciary Committee hearing was scheduled for July 21, which would make it the third congressional inquiry under way into alleged wrongdoing by federal law enforcement officials.

Two House subcommittees open hearings next week into the 1993 raid against the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex. Another hearing is on tap into a raid on a white separatist in Idaho. It resulted in the death of his unarmed wife.