Reports Show Freeh Wrongly Cleared FBI Lab

In a development that calls into question the integrity of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, documents released Thursday show that Freeh was wrong when he announced a year ago that the bureau had found no evidence supervisors at the bureau’s crime lab had altered reports or otherwise tampered with evidence.

The new reports reveal that in 1995, after a whistle-blower had raised concerns about the lab, Freeh’s subordinates found 13 criminal cases in which lab reports had been been improperly changed by a supervisor.

In fact, the reports state that the bureau was so concerned about the alterations that it recommended severe punishment for the supervisor.

“The problems that could arise during testimony when [lab report] dictation is arbitrarily changed cannot be overemphasized,” FBI officials said in the reports.

But less than a year later, Freeh issued a public statement categorically denying allegations by whistle-blower Frederic Whitehurst that lab reports had been altered.

“To date,” Freeh said then, “the FBI has found no evidence-tampering, evidence fabrication or failure to report exculpatory evidence.”

This latest contradiction, coming after Freeh earlier this week acknowledged that he had given “incomplete” testimony to Congress on another key component of the Whitehurst allegations, was seized upon by some Republican congressional critics of FBI management.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs a Judiciary subcommittee with oversight of the FBI, said on the Senate floor Thursday that “the time may have come” for a thorough, independent review of the FBI leadership.

Freeh, he said, “continues to mislead the public about the lab.”

“The issue of bad management in the crime lab is serious,” Grassley said. “Bad scientific analysis used in court means good guys can go to prison and bad guys can walk. That’s not what we want. That’s un-American.”

Freeh did not respond directly to the latest revelations, although his office issued a short statement reaffirming Freeh’s contention that he already has made many improvements at the lab.

“The FBI is fully committed to correcting all problems in the FBI laboratory, is a full and willing partner in the Justice Department inspector general’s review of the laboratory and will take disciplinary action as required once the investigation is completed,” the statement said.

The inspector general’s office is completing a wide-ranging investigation of the crime laboratory at FBI headquarters here in Washington. Some Justice Department officials have said that as many as 50 criminal cases could be affected.

The most significant case that could be touched by the allegations is the Oklahoma City bombing trial. Timothy J. McVeigh is scheduled to stand trial in 10 days, and his attorneys, using Whitehurst as a key defense witness, have charged that key pieces of evidence in the bombing were contaminated by sloppy lab work.

In the latest episode, the records show that in May 1994, FBI managers reviewed Whitehurst’s allegations and determined that they were largely untrue. Then, in September of that year, FBI lab supervisors found another agent making similar allegations about altered reports.

In January 1995, according to the reports, an FBI unit chief concluded that of 48 cases studied, 13 included lab findings that had been “significantly altered.”

The official altering the reports was not identified, except that he was a “supervisory special agent.”

The FBI unit chief who reached the conclusions about the 13 alterations recommended that the supervisory special agent be punished with “both oral reprimand and a letter of censure.”

However, it is unclear whether the supervisory special agent was ever disciplined.

“The fact that the [supervisory special agent] did make unauthorized changes in these reports could have resulted in serious consequences during legal proceedings and embarrassment to the laboratory, as well as the entire FBI.”

But 10 months after the internal FBI findings that there had been at least 13 lab alterations, Freeh issued a public statement contradicting those conclusions.

In that statement, which he made in November 1995, the FBI director said that he “looked forward” to working with the inspector general’s office and its investigation of the lab.

He noted that Whitehurst had raised a “variety of concerns about forensic protocols and procedures.”

But, he said, the FBI already had reviewed more than 250 individual cases involving work done by the lab. And it was at that point that he stated that the FBI had found no signs that evidence had been tampered with or fabricated.