FBI Unveils Reforms After McVeigh Audit

The FBI announced major changes Tuesday in the way it maintains confidential case files and pledged to teach agents a “new way of doing business,” in response to an internal investigation that faults the bureau for mishandling documents in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

FBI Director Robert Mueller also said the agency “will quickly move to take any appropriate disciplinary actions” against a handful of supervisors who were singled out by the Justice Department’s inspector general for nearly letting Timothy J. McVeigh’s execution proceed without turning the entire case file over to prosecutors and defense lawyers.

But on Capitol Hill, some lawmakers who oversee federal law enforcement said the Oklahoma City case is just the latest in a string of FBI miscues, and that the bureau must work harder to clean up its operation.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, warned that “it’s time for the FBI to take the [inspector general’s] advice. That means swift and sure action that holds accountable the people who are responsible.”

Along with citing human error for the document debacle, the report found that many records were destroyed by FBI agents before lawyers in the case were notified and while McVeigh was still appealing his execution.

McVeigh was tried and convicted in 1997 for the bombing two years earlier of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In January 2001, he abruptly dropped all legal appeals and told the federal court he wanted to die.

That same month, FBI field offices began discovering files in the case that had never been turned over to the lawyers. Bureau supervisors continued to collect previously undisclosed material for the next five months. In May, just days before McVeigh was to be executed, they alerted FBI headquarters in Washington that more than 4,000 new pages had been unearthed.

The disclosures led Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to delay McVeigh’s execution while defense attorneys reviewed the documents. McVeigh was put to death about a month after his original execution date.

Investigators conducted more than 200 interviews and visited 13 FBI field offices, determining that poor supervision, rather than just an antiquated computer system, caused the delay in turning over the files.

Mueller said some of the improvements are underway.

“We have been making major changes that both implement the recommendations, address the cultural and training issues inherent in a new way of doing business, and address the larger issue of records management as a priority,” he said.

Among the changes, he said, is making record-keeping a “core function” of the FBI’s mission. “This has not been the case in past years,” he said.

The FBI also will overhaul its computer functions and begin training agents to use new technology “in our everyday way of doing business.” His hope, Mueller said, was that the change would move the agency “out of the paper environment that was so vexing in the OKBOMB situation.”

In short, he added, “records management and integrity are core functions that demand the same level of attention and accountability as any function we undertake. It must be a part of our culture.”

The Justice Department has sought repeatedly to tighten control over the FBI and overhaul the bureau’s management practices. But the agency has been embarrassed by stumbles in a series of high-profile cases, including the Robert Philip Hanssen spy probe and the arrest of Wen Ho Lee, who worked at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory.

In the spring of 1997, as the McVeigh jury was being selected, the inspector general sharply criticized the bureau for problems in its forensic lab related to myriad cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing and the Unabomber investigation. That investigation prompted the FBI to build a new laboratory and seek outside accreditation.

Last July, in response to criticism from Capitol Hill and elsewhere, Ashcroft gave department watchdogs expanded powers to investigate allegations of misconduct.

Tuesday’s report said agents took too long to collect the new documents before alerting the lawyers in the case, and that FBI headquarters also was slow in responding.

Further, the report noted, some agents destroyed documents because they believed they were irrelevant, even though that was in violation of a federal court order that called for full disclosure in the case.

The investigation also faulted supervisors for mistakes in the Oklahoma City case, primarily Danny Defenbaugh, the inspector in charge of the case who later became head of the Dallas field office, and Mark White, a supervisory special agent on the case now assigned to Dallas.

The investigation concluded that Defenbaugh and White “did not effectively manage the review process of the OKBOMB documents” and that neither supervisor “set any deadlines or timetables” in reviewing the new records even though McVeigh’s execution was fast approaching.

“They failed to notify the prosecutors or anyone at FBI headquarters about the potential problem until May 7, approximately oneweek before the scheduled execution date,” the report concluded.

“We believe their failure to take timely action to resolve, or report, the problem of the belated documents was a significant neglect of their duties, and we recommend that the FBI consider discipline for these failures.”

To a lesser extent, the report said, Special Agent William Teater in Oklahoma City “did not adequately supervise the document review project” and that FBI headquarters did not properly communicate with the field offices on who was to blame for the delays.

FBI headquarters, the report said, “contributed to confusion within the agency.”

Defenbaugh said Tuesday that he respected the findings, but he added: “I made decisions concerning the documents based on my honest evaluation of the situation, my many years of experience, and out of my desire to do the right thing.”

He noted that the inquiry was the largest domestic terrorism case handled by the FBI, calling it “a Herculean task to say the least.”

In his interview with investigators, Defenbaugh was quoted in the report as saying he should have sped the process for turning over the documents as the clock wound down on McVeigh’s execution.

But, he said, “If I was gonna blow the whistle and stop the juice from flowing, I was gonna make sure that we were right and I was thorough.”

White, who could not be reached for comment, told investigators he did not believe collecting the new materials was his responsibility, and that he acted more as a consultant to fixing the problem once the additional documents were discovered.

Teater told investigators he tried to get his supervisors to speed the document collection process. He declined to comment Tuesday.