The FBI's skeletons

It all started when J. Edgar Hoover decided to get tough on the Mafia in the 1960s. Agents Dennis Condon and H. Paul Rico in Boston recruited an underworld assassin, Joseph Barboza, as an informant, but his cooperation came at a price: The agents had to let him kill people and shield his accomplice Vincent Flemmi.

Flemmi became an FBI informant as well, as did his brother Steven and Steven Flemmi's associate James (Whitey) Bulger. Agents Condon and Rico were succeeded by John Connolly, who tipped Steven Flemmi and Whitey Bulger about potential threats to their power, whom they proceeded to kill. Other law enforcement agencies knew something was amiss, yet the conspiracy held together. As former federal prosecutor Jeremiah O'Sullivan told the committee, if you go against the FBI, "they will try to get you. They will wage war on you."

In 1995, with Connolly in retirement, Whitey Bulger fled the state to avoid indictment for racketeering. Seven years later, Connolly was convicted of tipping off Bulger while the Committee on Government Reform was investigating the whole mess. Much of the information has already been revealed by the Boston press, but the report gives the scandal national exposure.

Informants are an important tool of law enforcement. FBI Director Robert Mueller, according to the committee, is trying to revamp agency policy and centralize control of informants, but given the closed culture of the FBI, abuses will be easy to hide without constant monitoring.

The committee found that more than 20 murders were committed by the Flemmi brothers and James Bulger while they worked for the FBI. Rico has been charged with complicity in one of them, the 1981 murder of a businessman who was trying to clean up a corrupt jai alai operation that Rico helped manage. Condoning these murders not only destroyed lives and furthered criminal careers but corrupted agents who were supposed to protect the public.

The committee found no support for rumors that the FBI helped William Bulger become Senate president or that he used his political power to shield his brother. The committee did examine a 1995 phone call between the two in which William Bulger never suggested that his brother turn himself in. Someone who will not encourage a lawbreaker to surrender, even a close relative, is unworthy of high office. William Bulger's involvement, however, pales beside the enormity of the FBI abuse.