FBI Has ‘Terrible Record’ on High-Profile Case Data

The discovery of long-missing documents in the Timothy J. McVeigh prosecution marks at least the fifth time in recent years that the FBI has failed to disclose evidence in a major case, triggering calls for an overhaul of the agency’s record-keeping and investigative procedures.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft ordered an immediate review Friday into why the FBI failed to turn over thousands of pages of documents to the Oklahoma City bomber’s defense attorneys, as required under an agreement among the lawyers. Ashcroft delayed McVeigh’s scheduled execution for one month.

But warnings about similar problems have surfaced repeatedly in recent years in connection with high-profile FBI investigations. Last month, House leaders told outgoing FBI Director Louis J. Freeh that they believe the bureau’s computer systems--a chief suspect in the loss of the McVeigh documents--are “slow, unreliable and obsolete.”

The FBI has already begun beefing up its computer systems, awarding a $51-million contract this month to overhaul the bureau’s worldwide technology systems and improve internal security. But with this week’s discovery of missing documents in the McVeigh case, analysts said the long-term damage to the FBI’s credibility may already have been done.

“The problem is that the FBI has a terrible record for turning over this kind of material,” said Herman Schwartz, an American University law professor who has studied the FBI. “In a case as high profile as this, this is just incredibly stupid. It will probably turn out to be just sheer inefficiency, but it’s going to be impossible for many members of the public not to be suspicious about what really happened.”

Many legal and political observers were incredulous over the developments. Congressional leaders promised to hold hearings into what Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called “the FBI’s inability to comply with basic legal procedures.”

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, charged that too often in the last decade, FBI officials have withheld evidence because they were worried about their public image.

“The more high profile [the case], the more there seems to be a lack of documents. Whoever is the next director has to take the bull by the horns and challenge this cowboy culture by the FBI,” he said.

The FBI said it began reviewing the Oklahoma City bombing files in December to ensure that all of the records were archived properly. Each of the millions of documents--including 23,290 pieces of evidence, 238,000 photographs and records of 28,000 interviews--was logged and compared with information in 26 databases that serve as a repository for the case, the FBI said.

It was during this archiving that FBI officials say they discovered that thousands of pages of materials gathered from 45 field offices had never been properly recorded, nor even turned over to the prosecutors who convicted McVeigh.

James Norman, lead agent for the FBI’s McVeigh investigation in Oklahoma City, said the bureau’s switch-over to a new computer system--underway at the time of the bombing--may have caused the documents to become lost. Before that, field officers with reports to contribute to an investigation would generally have mailed hard copies to the office coordinating the probe.

But in the McVeigh case, field officers began downloading their reports into what was supposed to be a centralized computer system, Norman said in an interview. The computerization helped speed the enormous investigation, he said, but even at the time, some agents felt that it was a “bad time” to be making such a major transition.

In hindsight, Norman said, some of the reports from the field offices may simply never have reached Oklahoma City.

“Certainly, no one was trying to hide any of this,” said Norman, who took McVeigh into federal custody after the bombing. “I’m proud of the work we did.”

Authorities maintain that none of the newly discovered material pointed to McVeigh’s innocence. But they acknowledge that the files should have been turned over to the defense team anyway under a previous agreement. Federal officials finally sent the material to the defense Wednesday.

Criminal cases often include allegations from defense lawyers that the authorities are withholding evidence, but the FBI has had a particularly notorious run of late, suffering a series of embarrassing gaffes:

* Six years after the 1993 Branch Davidian siege outside Waco, Texas, FBI officials disclosed that they had found an internal memo and other documents referring to the government’s use of military-style canisters. The discovery forced the FBI to retract repeated denials that agents had used pyrotechnics at the cult compound.

* Congressional leaders and defense attorneys accused the agency in 1999 of failing to turn over internal memos suggesting that nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee had not passed on missile technology to the Chinese, as had been alleged. Most charges against Lee were later dropped amid evidence of bungling and misleading testimony by the FBI.

* In the controversy over the once highly revered FBI Crime Laboratory, defense attorneys complained that they were routinely denied access to evidence that might have shown that their imprisoned clients were victimized by sloppy lab work involving 3,000 cases.

* And in an infamous 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church that killed four black girls, a former Ku Klux Klan member was convicted last week in part based on tape-recorded admissions that the FBI had made of the defendant. Alabama’s former attorney general charged that the FBI had suppressed the critical evidence for decades while three suspects remained free.

Some law enforcement officials say the FBI’s antiquated computer system, used to catalog evidence, is at the root of the problem.

“Back in the 1960s, we knew where everything was. We processed nothing but paper, and we were really good at keeping track of everything,” said one veteran FBI agent who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity surrounding the McVeigh case. “But now the FBI is smack-dab in the transition from paper to electronics, and it’s almost too complicated. You’re trying to download and upload everything, and it’s cumbersome.”

Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said he still believes the FBI is the best law enforcement agency in the world.

“In this case, it looks like a system malfunctioned. That needs to be addressed,” Keating, himself a former FBI agent, said on CNN. “I’m not reading an insidious motive. . . . Hopefully, when it’s all over, it was an accidental mistake that can be corrected and nothing deeper or darker than that.”

The White House is now searching for a new FBI director after Freeh’s announcement earlier this month that he will resign in June after 27 years of government service. President Bush said Friday that Freeh never raised the subject of the McVeigh documents when he informed the president of his resignation last week.

Of the search, Bush said: “I’m looking for somebody who will do a couple of things: one, enforce the law; two, keep morale high at the agency; somebody who’s a good manager; and somebody who can work with the attorney general and my administration.”

Two names apparently moving toward the head of the pack are George Terwilliger, a former Justice Department official under Bush’s father; and Robert Mueller, a federal prosecutor who is now acting deputy attorney general under Ashcroft.

Despite this week’s developments, Bush told reporters that he has faith that the federal justice system is healthy in America, and he said he looks forward to seeing what the Justice Department’s investigation into the missing McVeigh documents ultimately reveals.

Law enforcement officials, thrown on the defensive by the controversy, said they too are eager for answers.

“Everyone wants to know what went wrong, including ourselves,” said one law enforcement official in Washington who asked not to be identified because the investigation is pending. “The problem is that everyone in this town likes to assess blame and point fingers rather than shed light on how it could have happened and what the reasons are.”

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Times staff writer Greg Miller contributed to this story.