Matt - FBI Oversight by Bootlicking Senators?

[Jim Bovard]

Matt:
Thought you might get a laugh out of this piece on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee's first FBI oversight hearing.
I don't think there is going to be any BS shortage in Washington this summer.
take it easy
Jim



Bovard's Batterings
June 22, 2001
American Spectator Online     www.spectator.org


FBI Oversight by Bootlicking Senators?

By James Bovard

The Constitution has been saved! The Senate Judiciary Committee last 
week held the first of a series of oversight hearings on the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation. Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) 
set a lofty tone in his opening statement: "Our purpose in holding 
these hearings is to find ways to restore confidence in the FBI, not 
to tear it down. There are many irresponsible critics of the FBI who 
promote their conspiracy theories on Internet Websites and in the 
popular media."

However, anyone who sat through the hearing would have to wonder 
which is more deluded -- the typical anti-FBI website or the U.S. 
Senate.

The senators supposedly came to discover and proclaim truth. Instead, 
they did as they usually do -- they groveled at the mere mention of 
the FBI and competed to heap laurels on the heads of federal agents. 
The only thing that kept most senators from actually licking boots 
was FBI Director Louis Freeh's decision to spurn Leahy's invitation 
to testify at the hearing.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal), in her opening statement, proudly 
announced that "I went through the Ruby Ridge hearings and I went 
through the Waco hearings," which the Senate Judiciary committee 
conducted in 1995. Her choice of words is accurate: She had sat there 
like a potted plant during those hearings -- except when she made 
inane comments or sought to impede other senators from uncovering 
federal malfeasance.

A big clue that Wednesday's hearing was a farce was the lead-off 
witness: John "Saint Jack" Danforth, Janet Reno's hand-picked special 
counsel on Waco. Danforth was his usual pious self, repeatedly 
assuring senators that the FBI did nothing "dark" at Waco. Danforth's 
remarks stirred no controversy -- in the committee's view, evidently, 
there couldn't be anything "dark" about sending in tanks in broad 
daylight to gas young children.

Senators are anguishing over the need to create a new oversight 
mechanism to make double-sure that all FBI agents obey the law. Sen. 
Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) announced a bill 
to create a "blue ribbon commission to conduct a top-to-bottom 
review" of the FBI. Their press release noted that the commission 
would "be made up of top law enforcement experts." Schumer hailed the 
FBI as "the premier law enforcement agency in the world" and Hatch 
gushed that the FBI is "one of the finest law enforcement agencies in 
the world."

It is most ironic to have Schumer and Hatch in the forefront of FBI 
"reform" -- since they were two of the biggest FBI apologists. Hatch 
worked mightily in 1995 to block Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA)'s valiant 
efforts to conduct an investigation into federal abuses at Ruby 
Ridge. Hatch even publicly praised FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi - who 
killed Vicki Weaver as she stood in her cabin door holding her baby 
-- as a "great American hero."

Schumer was the Clinton administration's point person during the 
House hearings on Waco in the summer of 1995. Schumer continually 
derided and sneered at any suggestion that the FBI had done anything 
less than laudatory during its siege and final assault on the Branch 
Davidians. Schumer did more than any other congressman to protect the 
FBI coverup on Waco. (During the hearing Wednesday, Schumer 
congratulated Danforth for doing a great job with his Waco 
investigation).

In sharp contrast to all the other committee members, Sen. Charles 
Grassley (R-IA) has consistently and courageously pursued allegations 
of FBI abuses. Grassley is one of the few Republicans who does not 
instinctively cringe and kowtow at any mention of the FBI's name. Nor 
does he spend half his allotted speaking time at hearings apologizing 
for raising any doubts about the FBI's infallibility.

Grassley derided the notion of appointing an "FBI Review Commission." 
He noted that the "end result" of commissions to investigate the FBI 
"has usually been that the FBI ends up with a bigger budget, more 
jurisdiction, and the Director [of the FBI] walks out with a nice pat 
on the back."

The same could be said of the response by Congress to most of the FBI 
fiascoes of the last decade. After the FBI sent in the tanks at Waco, 
Congress provided a hefty budget increase to expand its Hostage 
Rescue Team.

(FBI reforms are percolating elsewhere in Washington. Attorney 
General John Ashcroft announced Wednesday - a few minutes before the 
start of the Senate hearing -- his plans to create a Strategic 
Management Council for the FBI, stocked with plenty of insiders from 
federal law enforcement. Also on Wednesday, the House Judiciary 
Committee passed a bill to create an Inspector General for the FBI.)

There was scant awareness at the hearing that part of the blame for 
FBI misconduct rests on the U.S. Senate - especially on the Judiciary 
Committee -- for its lax oversight. Instead, senators speak as if FBI 
abuses were something that "just happened" in spite of the explicit 
wishes of Senate Judiciary Committee members for the FBI to "play 
fair and square."

The Senate has been criminally negligent in overseeing federal law 
enforcement -- and now we are supposed to be thrilled that some 
senators are calling for the appointment of another review 
commission. Charles Carroll of Maryland, one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence, declared that it was the task of elected 
representatives "to examine severely, and judge impartially
the conduct and the measures of those employed in the administration, 
to represent the grievances, and watch over the liberties and the 
properties of the people of this nation." Carroll's concept of a 
representative's duty seems even more archaic than George 
Washington's wooden teeth. James Madison's scheme for a "balance of 
power" between the legislative and executive branches did not assume 
that senators would perennially prostrate themselves before the
feet of federal lawmen.

The Judiciary Committee is planning to conduct other FBI "oversight" 
hearings. Perhaps more senators will leave their knee-pads at home 
for the next round of questioning. Perhaps Grassley's example and 
record will finally inspire his fellows. Perhaps Leahy will surprise 
and silence cynics by resolutely pursuing the hard facts underlying 
the FBI's greatest controversies. Perhaps...

James Bovard is the author of "Feeling Your Pain": The Explosion & 
Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years (St. Martin's 
Press, 2000).

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