Did the FBI lie?
CREW DEMANDS DOJ I.G. INVESTIGATE FBI COVER-UP ON INACTION ON FOLEY EMAILS SENT BY CREW
FBI Lied to Reporters
Washington, DC – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s (I.G.) office today to ask for an investigation into why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has fabricated and disseminated a cover-up story as to why it never investigated the Foley emails sent to it by CREW.
CBS News has reported that according to the FBI when CREW gave the Bureau the original set of emails from Rep. Mark Foley to a former House page, they were “heavily redacted.†The FBI is also claiming that it came back to CREW and asked for more information so that it could follow up, but that CREW refused to provide anything further. Reporters from several other news organizations have repeated this allegation. The FBI is lying.
On Monday, October 2, CREW sent a letter to the DOJ I.G.’s office, attaching exact copies of the emails CREW had sent to the FBI on July 21, 2006. Both the former page’s name and the person to whom the page forwarded Rep. Foley’s emails were clearly visible. Moreover, after CREW sent the emails to the FBI, CREW’s only subsequent contact with the Bureau was one telephone call from the special agent to whom CREW had sent the material confirming that the emails were from Rep. Foley. CREW had no further contact with the FBI.
In contrast with this new explanation for failing to investigate the Foley matter, The Washington Post has reported that an unnamed FBI official stated that the Bureau decided not to investigate after concluding that the emails “did not rise to the level of criminal activity.â€
Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director said today, “the FBI cannot have it both ways; either it failed to investigate the Foley emails because they did not rise to a level of criminal activity or because it did not have adequate information to do so. Pick one.
“Attorney General Gonzales has told the public repeatedly that the investigation and prosecution of those who sexually exploit children is a top priority. We are outraged that the FBI failed to investigate Rep. Foley and is now blaming others for its inaction.
“It is time for all of those who had knowledge about Rep. Foley’s conduct to step up and take responsibility for leaving a sexual predator on the loose.â€
CREW’s letters and Rep. Foley’s e-mails are available at www.citizensforethics.org.
I personally don’t know where to sit on this one. The information we have is inconclusive. We’ve got CREW’s word against the FBI’s word that the FBI simply lied about trying to contact them after they recieved the info. Also, the statement that the FBI can’t have it both ways seems to think that both ways contradict each other. If the FBI felt that they did not have adequate information because the information they had did not “rise to a level of criminal activity” then it fits. That simply means that they needed to get more information before they could begin a full preliminary investigation. That means they would have tried to contact CREW about the information they sent. Which means that we get back to who is lying here. Is it CREW or the FBI? Yes CREW sent the FBI information, but the FBI seems to indicate that it tried to get more information from CREW and CREW was unresponsive. CREW simply states that they never heard back from the FBI. We can clearly state that one is lying, but from that info, we have no idea who it was.
I’m not trying to say that the FBI didn’t lie, or that CREW is lying, I’m just saying that so far, the information is incomplete at best, and pointing fingers doesn’t do much good.
From a political standpoint, its certainly convenient - or inconvenient, depending on who you are - that this is happening right now. This could be a coincidence or something more. Unfortunately those statements don’t mean much since I can’t prove anything. Just showing my point that this information at this point is just finger pointing.
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