LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Louis Freeh : Is He Now Quelling the Fires That Surround the FBI?

Louis J. Freeh came to Washington two years ago as a fortyish wunderkind. President Bill Clinton described him as a law-enforcement “legend.” Administration officials cited his experience as a federal judge, prosecutor and FBI agent. Senators seemed to look on him as the ideal candidate to replace the discredited William S. Sessions as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Freeh moved quickly to satisfy those expectations. He cut red tape, reduced the FBI’s headquarters bureaucracy, quelled turf wars with other federal enforcers, established unambiguous disciplinary rules and expanded the bureau’s overseas operations.

Then, unexpectedly, he stumbled. The misstep involved Ruby Ridge, the Idaho siege in which an FBI sniper killed the wife of an anti-government fugitive while firing at an armed man. The FBI had intervened after a deputy U.S. marshal and the fugitive’s 14-year-old son had been killed in a shootout. Although the incident had occurred a year before Freeh took control of the bureau, it was his job to deal with its repercussions.

Freeh, 45, initially took steps to discipline Larry A. Potts, the top FBI official involved in overseeing the siege. But in what he now acknowledges was a mistake, he also insisted on promoting Potts, a longtime friend and investigative colleague, to serve as the bureau’s No. 2 official. The Ruby Ridge controversy continued to fester, and Freeh eventually had to remove Potts as deputy director and finally suspend him, along with five other FBI officials, while a criminal investigation of a possible cover-up and document destruction involving Ruby Ridge is conducted.

Freeh’s subsequent handling of the matter has won more positive reviews. In testifying about the event before a Senate subcommittee headed by GOP presidential hopeful Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.), Freeh rejected advice to make a technical defense of the FBI actions in Idaho. Instead, he declared that tragic mistakes had been made, and spelled out steps he is taking to prevent them from occurring again.

But the FBI’s role in Waco and Ruby Ridge have fueled anti-government extremists in their opposition to federal law enforcement, and the report by Specter’s subcommittee on Ruby Ridge could reignite the controversy.

Freeh and his wife, a former FBI employee, have four young sons and are fervently dedicated to family time. In a recent discussion with former colleagues on the New York bench, Freeh allowed that he sometimes wishes he were still a judge deciding cases, secure in his lifetime appointment as a federal jurist. But those thoughts occur rarely, he said, and he fully intends to serve out the nearly eight years of his 10-year term.

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Question: On public mistrust and criticism of law enforcement, the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Assn. says you have to go back to the late ‘60s and early ‘70s to find a time when law enforcement was under such assault. How serious do you regard this, and why is it taking place?

Answer: I think we’re all concerned--people in law enforcement, but also people in government, about a growing perception that either government is unnecessary or, in particular, that the officials of government, including the police and the FBI, can’t be trusted to perform their mission. I’ve seen the polls that have reflected growing interest and growing concern among the public. I think those are real issues that we have to be concerned about and we have to deal with effectively.

On the other hand, if you look at the progress of investigations in cases--speaking now only to the FBI, which I know best--I am not shocked. I am certainly not overly alarmed about a perception out there, or a distrust among the American people, that would inhibit the FBI from performing its job.

For instance, you take the World Trade bombing case, the second case which was recently convicted in New York, presided over by a very fair and distinguished jury. Many allegations, of course, were made against the FBI in that case--including by FBI employees. Allegations with respect to our laboratory, the honesty of the agents who dealt with the informants--a whole series of very serious charges which were brought up in the context of the defense. A very appropriate and very competent defense. The jury had no trouble with any of those issues. Convictions were across-the-board. They rejected all those defenses.

That’s a very important litmus test for me as the director, looking at the jury, particularly a jury in New York, and having to try cases both as a prosecutor and a judge up there. New York juries are very cynical; they don’t take things for granted--they certainly don’t look at the police as a benevolent organization. They have a lot of mistrust and suspicion . . . .

Q: So it hasn’t shown up in a lack of cooperation by citizens or informants no longer providing information.

A: No, not at all . . . . We don’t see any desertion by either informants or confidential citizen witnesses, particularly in the white-collar area. There seems to be confidence that we will perform our jobs well and fairly.

Q: When you testified on the Ruby Ridge matter, you told of rejecting advice from some to go the technical route. You could explain this technically for both law enforcement and the FBI. But you chose not to do that and make a much broader statement. Why?

A: I don’t think we really had a technical defense to make with respect to Ruby Ridge . . . .

The reality was--when I looked at all the facts, when everybody looked at all the facts, including my own judgment with respect to promoting the deputy director--there was a reasonable basis for criticism. There were mistakes that were made; there were errors of judgment; there were severe lapses in our administrative procedure. More importantly, I don’t think we were equipped, in 1992, to handle a Ruby Ridge situation. Acknowledging that and taking some steps to address that are much more important and much more significant for the Congress and the American people to hear from me than why we shouldn’t be criticized or why everything was technically OK. Everything was not technically OK--in the sense that procedures and structures that we relied upon were inadequate to the job in both Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Q: One possible recommendation of that subcommittee is to have a civilian police review board for the FBI. What do you think of that idea?

A: I’ve thought about that: With respect to the FBI, it would not be an effective mechanism for oversight. Currently, we have six different committees in the Congress that oversee what we do. We have two intelligence committees, we have two judiciary committees and we have two budget committees. In addition to that, we have a very effective OPR [Office of Professional Responsibility] system in the Department of Justice, under Mike Shaheen. We have, in addition to that, an inspector general (in the Justice Department) who has oversight review of the FBI.

If you look at the civilian review boards around the country, they’re generally in places where you don’t have an active legislature--whether it’s in the form of a city council or other deliberative bodies that review what police do. Moreover, those particular agencies--the committees and department components--are very knowledgeable about the FBI. They understand our structure, they know our history, they know many of the personalities. They’re much better equipped to look at complaints and allegations and resolve them fairly and effectively . . . .

Q: One of your predecessors used to cite as a goal remaking the face of the FBI to match the ethnic and racial breakdown of America. Is that a realistic goal?

A: I think it is. Starting with Bill Webster, the processes which he put into motion and the policies he promoted have really made an incredibly significant difference.

Currently, we have approximately 14% minority, talking about our Asian population; 13% women. That is a huge step forward--certainly from 1972, when we had virtually no women and no minorities. We’re in the midst of probably our biggest hiring in the history of the FBI. We hired 757 agents last year, FY95. So far in ’96 and continuing until May of this year, we’ll hire another 1,300 agents, which is more than we’ve ever hired in that time period. We had 1,000 retirements in FY94 and FY95, which is more retirements than we’ve ever had before.

Looking at the makeup of the new classes--and we don’t have an affirmative-action program, we have a hiring program that is based solely on merit--and although we recruit very heavily in the minority and female categories, the makeup of the new classes are approximately 20% females and 21% minorities. So if that trend continues--and we expect that it does--we’ll take the next step upward and forward: Having an FBI that not just reflects the diversity of the country, but an FBI which is effective to work in communities and among segments of the population that need to have confidence in our fairness--which includes our ability to hire people, and have confidence in the quality and fair-mindedness of our agents. That goes back to the trust question, too.

Q: Nearly a year ago, you spoke of the danger of nuclear materials being diverted from former Iron Curtain countries. Do you still see that as a danger, and are there cases going?

A: Yes, I do regard it as a very ongoing and critical issue. I checked some figures before the interview. Looking at the BKA (German federal criminal police) figures--which are very reliable but also very reflective of the situation, particularly in Central Europe--they had, in 1991, about 41 nuclear-material-type cases, criminal cases; in 1995 or 1994, they had 267--a very dramatic increase. The movement of nuclear materials that we’ve seen, even in the last year--the different seizures in Germany, in the Baltics, in Prague reflect at least a very active market in nuclear materials. Part of that market, as the German cases have shown, are people who are dealing fraudulently in material and purporting to see radioactive materials which are, in fact, not significantly or dangerously radioactive. But there is, among all those different cases, enough significant ones to alarm all the police officials in Europe, and certainly security and police officials over here . . . We have a couple of cases that we’re working actively in that area. One we’ve worked actually with the Russian police . . . in an undercover capacity. We’ll continue to look at opportunities to make those cases.

Our policy is a policy which would not permit or not allow material to be brought into this country. In other words, we have not run an undercover investigation or a criminal case in the case of a sting operation to allow materials to go anywhere, particularly into the United States. But we are focusing on a couple of subjects and targets. It would be very significant if we can make one of these cases--particularly if we can do it with the Russian police.

Q: Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) has said U.S. intelligence lacks any advanced word or understanding of the Aum Supreme Truth cult in that sarin gas attack on the Japanese subway, and especially its hostility toward the United States. Do you agree with that criticism?

A: I agree with the criticism that we did not know anything about it. Apparently when we were alerted to it--its presence not just in the United States but in Moscow and several other countries--there was no information that we had received from the Japanese through liaison or domestically about its operation or its motives and political and religious beliefs, so we were a little bit alarmed about that. Part of that had to do, I think, with the ability to track particularly foreign-based organizations which do not actively engage in violence or terrorist attacks--that this group did not do prior to the attack in the subway.

When we learned about it, we realized they had a presence in the United States, and the criticism was valid in the sense that we probably should have known through our liaison with the Japanese a little more about it before the first attack.

Q: With all that’s going on in this past year or so, have you ever had any thoughts that maybe you should have stayed a federal judge? That it’s a little more tranquil?

A: I saw a group of my friends, New York judges last week, and they asked me the exact same question. I said there are moments where I wouldn’t mind presiding over a trade dress case late in the afternoon in Foley Square. But those are rare moments. I’m still very satisfied to be here. I feel privileged to be here. I don’t have any regrets at all about serving.*