FBI Agent Faces Discipline for Interview With Jewell

A senior FBI executive has been notified by bureau headquarters that he faces possible disciplinary action in the highly questionable interview of onetime Olympic bombing suspect Richard Jewell.

The agent, identified as David Tubbs, was told that he faces up to 15 days of suspension but was not informed about specific allegations of misconduct, according to sources familiar with the FBI’s internal ethics probe.

Tubbs, who is the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City office, was detailed to Atlanta to help supervise the investigation of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing that killed one person and injured 111 others. A photographer died of a heart attack while rushing to the scene after the bombing.

Tubbs will be allowed to respond to the allegations before any disciplinary action is meted out, sources said.

“I have not received official documentation of the allegations,” Tubbs said Friday night in a telephone interview, acknowledging the possible disciplinary action. “There is an appeal process that I plan to take full advantage of.” He declined further comment.

No other agents involved in the Jewell interview were notified of pending disciplinary action, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The possible disciplinary action against Tubbs is the latest chapter in a bombing investigation that has yet to yield an arrest, but instead has put FBI actions under scrutiny. Last October, after several months as the subject of perhaps the most public investigation in U.S. law enforcement history, Jewell was officially removed as a suspect in the federal probe.

On Saturday, the FBI retracted an initial claim it had identified seven of nine people sought as possible witnesses, Reuters reported.

Three of the seven, including one wearing a Green Bay Packers “cheesehead” booster hat, were pictured near a sound and light tower in Centennial Olympic Park, where the bomb exploded early July 27, 1996, during a crowded outdoor concert.

The three people who came forward to identify themselves as being in the picture were not in the park when it was taken, the FBI said.

A day after the early-morning bombing July 27, Jewell was being hailed for spotting the green knapsack that contained a pipe bomb before it exploded, notifying authorities and helping police move people away from the bomb. Three days later, he became the focus of an international news media frenzy after his name was leaked as a suspect in the bombing.

At issue is whether FBI agents tried to trick Jewell by asking him to star in a training video, when in fact they were trying to get him to provide incriminating details about the bombing. According to Jewell’s attorneys, FBI agents engaged in considerable on-camera chitchat before nonchalantly asking him to sign a paper waiving his rights to an attorney and to remain silent.

In addition to the inquiry about the circumstances of the interview, Justice Department officials also have been trying to determine who leaked Jewell’s name to the news media.