FBI Hailed Amid Howls Over Ruby Ridge : Law enforcement: Reno praises Freeh despite criticism over actions and reactions in Idaho siege. Her aide urges Senate panel to delay hearings.

Amid rising concern about the FBI’s ability to police itself, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno reacted Thursday by praising FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and declaring her pride in the embattled organization.

Concern about the FBI, expressed by Justice Department and even FBI officials who insisted on anonymity, focuses on the outcome of several inquiries into its actions in the August, 1992, siege at white separatist Randy Weaver’s cabin at Ruby Ridge, Ida. An FBI sharpshooter killed Weaver’s wife as she stood hidden by a cabin door.

Grave questions have been raised about the quality and truthfulness of information provided to Freeh that led him to conclude Jan. 6 that there had been no conspiracy to obstruct justice by FBI officials in their recounting of the Rudy Ridge episode. A Justice Department internal watchdog is now reviewing the matter.

Freeh relied on that information in disciplining 12 FBI officials and employees over Ruby Ridge--including his decision to do nothing more than censure his friend and most trusted subordinate, acting Deputy Director Larry A. Potts, and to vigorously back his promotion.

Freeh subsequently removed Potts as deputy director and last week suspended him and four other FBI officials after they became subjects of a criminal inquiry to determine whether they had lied about the relaxation of rules governing sharpshooters at Ruby Ridge.

“I am very proud of the bureau,” Reno said Thursday. “I have watched them over the years deal with issues such as this and come out of it stronger and better.”

Reno did not answer directly the question of whether Freeh had expressed to her any regret about appointing Potts and then having to remove him.

“What he has been concerned about from the beginning is that any allegation be pursued, that we get to the truth and that whatever the truth is, appropriate action be taken,” she said. “That has been his communication from the beginning . . . . I think he is doing an excellent job.”

Reno’s comments came as Deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie S. Gorelick, in a letter released Thursday, strongly urged Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, to postpone hearings on Ruby Ridge, which were scheduled to begin Sept. 6.

Preparing for and holding the hearings at a time when federal and local criminal investigations into Ruby Ridge are under way would pose “serious risks to effective law enforcement and could seriously jeopardize any subsequent criminal prosecutions,”Gorelick said in the letter sent last Friday.

*

She added that producing documents during the continuing investigations “can undermine the integrity and confidentiality of that investigation.”

Taking testimony from subjects or potential subjects of the investigations would provide them “with an opportunity to learn the evidence that has developed, including the identity and significance of available documents and other witnesses’ statements,” she told Specter.

During earlier Justice Department inquiries into Ruby Ridge, Gorelick said, some government employees were required to give statements or be fired. A 1967 Supreme Court ruling bars using such information in a prosecution or as leads in developing evidence. Even providing the information to the subcommittee and staff risks “further disclosure of the compelled information and potential tainting of witnesses,” she said.

Gorelick also cited the likelihood that witnesses at the hearing would demand immunity before testifying and said that giving it to them “would likely damage irreparably our ability to prosecute any violations.”

But Specter, after a telephone conversation with Reno, said he would go ahead with the hearings “without causing the Justice Department any problems.” He said the hearing would be divided into two phases, and that the first would not get into the question of document destruction or obstruction of justice.

In a related development, Eric H. Holder Jr., U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, took himself out of the criminal inquiry into the actions of the five suspended FBI officials, noting that he had worked with Potts when Holder served in the Justice Department’s public integrity section.

In his place, Reno named Michael R. Stiles, U.S. attorney in Philadelphia and chairman of the attorney general’s advisory committee of U.S. attorneys. Stiles served as a Philadelphia court of common pleas judge for 10 years.