UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
Wednesday, September 20, 1995
9A
Senate probe reveals possible FBI cover-up
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The FBI field commander during the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege told lawmakers yesterday that the government's original investigation into the incident was little more than an attempt at political damage control.
Senior FBI agent Eugene Glenn appeared alone before a Senate subcommittee just months after he prompted a second probe into the 11-day standoff by writing a letter alleging his bosses covered up the approval of illegal shoot-on-sight rules.
The standoff resulted in the shooting deaths of white separatist
Randy Weaver's wife, his 14-year old son and a denuvit U.S. marshal
Five of his bosses were suspended with pay this summer and are under the cloud of a federal criminal investigation to determine whether they obstructed justice.
In an earlier, internal Justice Department inquiry Richard Rogers, the FBI hostage rescue team chief, and Glenn were primarily blamed for the shooting rules, but they have sworn that former FBI Deputy Director Larry Potts approved them.
"I have a feeling there were damage control assessments that took place," Glenn said in answers to questions at the subcommittee hearing.
He likened top government officials during the original investigation to people on a ship who saw political-hungry sharks and decided to put out a few tuna to satisfy them.
Glenn told the senators he has felt enormous pressure to exercise his Fifth Amendment right not to answer the subcommittee's questions so that he would not inadvertently incriminate himself.
"My fellow FBI agents and I must be vigilant because the Department of Justice has failed to publicly support us in the face of the politically motivated actions of Mr. Day." Glenn said. He was referring to Randall Day, the Boundary County, Idaho, prosecutor who has been
investigating whether to bring state charges against federal agents for Ruby Ridge.
Glenn specifically criticized the Justice Department for cooperating with Day by providing him with investigative files, and then refusing to release them to the affected FBI agents.
Justice Department representative Bert Brandenburg said, away from the hearing, that the department followed normal procedure in those circumstances.
However, Glenn said, he believed the events at Ruby Ridge and his actions there have become a matter of paramount public interest and therefore he decided "to subject myself to your inquiry."
Glenn has alleged that top FBI officials concealed from internal investigators the fact that Potts approved special shooting rules for the agency's sniper at Ruby Ridge. Potts denied approving them.
Sen. Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin, the subcommittee's senior Democrat, asked Glenn who gave the final approval for the special rules: Potts, then-FBI Director William Sessions or someone else.
"The highest authority that I know of is Mr. Potts," Glenn said, noting that he had discussed the matter with Potts. "I don't know of anybody at a higher level who was aware of it, but I would have to assume they were."
Glenn said the rules were drafted
on a plane from the capital to northern Idaho, which was not the plane he took. On board, he said, were Rogers, the hostage rescue team chief, Duke Smith, a deputy U.S. marshal; and two other members of the rescue team.
Glenn said he was shown a handwritten draft of the rules after he landed in Idaho.
In a departure from FBI policy, the rules of engagement were rewritten to say that snipers "could and should" fire at any armed adult male spotted outside Weaver's cabin.
the longstanding FBI shooting rule, by contrast, restricts the use of lethal force to protecting oneself or others from imminent harm.
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