Justice Lawyers Recused in Waco Investigation

The Justice Department on Tuesday removed attorneys in its western Texas district from any further role in the Branch Davidian investigation, ending the involvement of a controversial prosecutor in Waco who says that key evidence may have been covered up.

Federal officials said that they had recused Asst. U.S. Atty. Bill Johnston and his colleagues because they may be called to testify as witnesses in an independent investigation launched by former Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) last week. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, who appointed Danforth, has recused herself from the investigation for that same reason.

Prosecutors in Johnston’s district advised law-enforcement authorities before and during the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian cultists’ compound in 1993 and prosecuted the criminal trials that grew out of it. As a result, Johnston’s boss, U.S. Atty. Bill Blagg in San Antonio, said in a statement that he was removing himself and all other personnel in his district from further involvement “to avoid any potential or appearance of a conflict of interest.”

The move came one day after the Texas Rangers publicly released a stinging Aug. 30 letter that Johnston wrote to Reno, saying that he believed people in the Justice Department may have withheld information from Reno about the FBI’s use of military pyrotechnics on April 19, 1993, the final day of the Davidian standoff. A fire that day consumed the compound, leaving 80 people dead, including many children.

Reversing six years of denials, Reno and the FBI acknowledged last month that pyrotechnic tear gas devices were fired that day at a concrete bunker near the Davidian compound, an admission that has triggered sharp attacks on Reno’s credibility and calls for her resignation. Federal authorities, however, have insisted that the pyrotechnic devices did not start the fire that ended the Davidian siege. It began when four federal agents were slain as they attempted to confiscate illegal weapons from the cultists.

Republicans in Congress, who have attacked Reno because of her handling of the matter, were silent over the recusal, saying that they wanted time to examine the issue. One GOP aide said that the move appeared to be a routine effort to guard the integrity of potential witnesses but added: “Politically, the timing is really bad. It just looks like they’re trying to shut [Johnston] up.”

Johnston, who heads the U.S. attorney’s office in Waco, could not be reached for comment. He issued a statement two weeks ago--after the Dallas Morning News first printed comments from his letter to Reno--saying that he did not want to discuss the matter publicly, despite a barrage of media requests.

Johnston, a longtime prosecutor who helped try Jack Ruby for the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, has developed a reputation as a maverick among Texas prosecutors, rarely afraid to speak his mind.

Early Concerns About FBI’s Handling of Case

Early in the Branch Davidian siege, he wrote Reno to complain about the FBI’s alleged mishandling of evidence. That letter and subsequent complaints about what he saw as a possible cover-up of evidence earned him scorn as “a mutineer” in some quarters, he told Reno in his most recent letter last month.

“I hope that the truth may be learned so that the tragedy does not continue,” he wrote.

Justice Department officials in Washington turned over further legal matters in the Waco case, including criminal appeals and wrongful death claims, to the office of U.S. Atty. Mike Bradford in eastern Texas, who pledged Monday to cooperate with all other agencies that are reexamining what happened at the Branch Davidian compound.

“Our main objective is to assist in providing truthful information in order to foster public confidence,” Bradford said.

A $100-million wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government, brought by survivors and relatives of victims in the Davidian disaster, is scheduled to go to trial Oct. 18 in U.S. District Court in Waco. The defense of that case has been handled mainly out of Washington by the Justice Department’s civil division, and officials said Monday that it is not clear what role, if any, Bradford’s attorneys may play in preparing for the trial.