Government examines slow responses by FBI
WASHINGTON -- Joseph Webber, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Houston, was investigating whether a local man was raising money for Al Qaeda. He needed a wiretap and went to the FBI, but the bureau did nothing for months.
''Seven hundred communications with a suspected nexus of terrorism were not intercepted," Webber complained.
Now two federal watchdogs are looking into the delay, which lasted at least four months, and whether it shows FBI reluctance to adjust to law enforcement changes emphasizing cooperation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The inspectors general at the Justice and Homeland Security departments are investigating this and 10 other cases in which the FBI has taken over investigations begun by ICE. In one of those cases, the FBI delay allowed a suspect to leave the country, according to a congressional investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Houston probe dates to 2003, when Webber began accumulating evidence. To build a criminal case, he decided he needed to listen in on the man's conversations and needed the FBI to sign an application for a phone tap.
The sworn statement that Webber signed last fall was sufficient to win the support of local prosecutors and FBI agents, he said. ''It referenced terrorism 49 times, Osama bin Laden three times, and Al Qaeda twice," Webber said.
But when the request reached FBI headquarters in Washington, which must approve all wiretap applications before submitting them to a judge for final approval, nothing happened.
''Why in a post-9/11 environment would anyone get in the way of someone pursuing a terrorist-related investigation?" Webber asked.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller has conceded that the FBI was at fault in not acting quickly but has called it a unique example and not evidence of a larger problem. ''There was a delay and there should not have been a delay," Mueller told Congress last week.
He attributed the delay to a bureaucratic mix-up that he could not explain when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mueller would not discuss details, but he told lawmakers, ''Ultimately, appropriate action was taken, and the investigation is ongoing." 