FBI said to thwart Sept. 11 inquiry
FBI said to thwart Sept. 11 inquiry
By Neil A. Lewis Copyright by The New York Times
TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2006
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia The FBI agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a jury Monday that his efforts to confirm his strong suspicions that Moussaoui was involved in an airline hijacking plot were thwarted by senior bureau officials in Washington who acted out of negligence and to protect their careers.
Harry Samit, under intense cross-examination by Moussaoui's chief court- appointed lawyer, detailed his frustration over the days before the hijacking as he made numerous requests to look into what Moussaoui had been up to at the time of his arrest. Moussaoui was arrested on immigration violations in Minnesota where he was learning to fly a jetliner.
"I accused the people in FBI headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Samit acknowledged under questioning by Edward MacMahon. He said that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Moussaoui's belongings and computer.
"The wager was a national tragedy," Samit testified.
Samit said that two senior agents declined to provide help in getting a search warrant, either through a special panel of judges that considers applications for foreign intelligence cases or through a normal application to any federal court for a criminal investigation.
As a field agent in Minnesota, he said he required help and approval from headquarters to continue his investigation. He acknowledged that he wrote that Michael Maltbie, an agent in the bureau's radical fundamentalist unit, told him that applications for the special intelligence court warrants had proved troublesome for the bureau and seeking one "was just the kind of thing that would get FBI agents in trouble." He wrote that Maltbie told him that "he was not about to let that happen to him."
During that period, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court had complained about improper applications from the bureau.
Samit also acknowledged that he had written that David Frasca, a supervisor of the radical fundamentalist unit, had similarly blocked him from seeking a search warrant under the more common route in a criminal investigation.
Some of the special court's complaints dealt with the idea that law-enforcement officials were sometimes using the lower standard required for warrants in intelligence investigations and then using the information what they obtained in criminal cases.
Frasca, Samit testified, believed that once the Moussaoui investigation was opened as an intelligence investigation, it would arouse suspicion that agents had been trying to exploit the intelligence law to get information for an investigation they now believed to be a criminal one. The distinction between the two standards for obtaining warrants was eliminated after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The government is trying to prove to a jury that Moussaoui should be executed because he bears some responsibility for the deaths in New York and Washington on Sept. 11. It argues that if Moussaoui had told Samit and other investigators what he knew about Al Qaeda's plots to fly planes into buildings, the attacks might have been foiled.
Although Samit was a government witness who sought to bolster the government's case that he could have uncovered the plot had Moussaoui spoken to him truthfully, his responses to MacMahon on Monday appeared to provide a boost for the defense. MacMahon sought to show that the problem was not with Moussaoui but with top FBI officials in Washington.
By Neil A. Lewis Copyright by The New York Times
TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2006
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia The FBI agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a jury Monday that his efforts to confirm his strong suspicions that Moussaoui was involved in an airline hijacking plot were thwarted by senior bureau officials in Washington who acted out of negligence and to protect their careers.
Harry Samit, under intense cross-examination by Moussaoui's chief court- appointed lawyer, detailed his frustration over the days before the hijacking as he made numerous requests to look into what Moussaoui had been up to at the time of his arrest. Moussaoui was arrested on immigration violations in Minnesota where he was learning to fly a jetliner.
"I accused the people in FBI headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Samit acknowledged under questioning by Edward MacMahon. He said that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Moussaoui's belongings and computer.
"The wager was a national tragedy," Samit testified.
Samit said that two senior agents declined to provide help in getting a search warrant, either through a special panel of judges that considers applications for foreign intelligence cases or through a normal application to any federal court for a criminal investigation.
As a field agent in Minnesota, he said he required help and approval from headquarters to continue his investigation. He acknowledged that he wrote that Michael Maltbie, an agent in the bureau's radical fundamentalist unit, told him that applications for the special intelligence court warrants had proved troublesome for the bureau and seeking one "was just the kind of thing that would get FBI agents in trouble." He wrote that Maltbie told him that "he was not about to let that happen to him."
During that period, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court had complained about improper applications from the bureau.
Samit also acknowledged that he had written that David Frasca, a supervisor of the radical fundamentalist unit, had similarly blocked him from seeking a search warrant under the more common route in a criminal investigation.
Some of the special court's complaints dealt with the idea that law-enforcement officials were sometimes using the lower standard required for warrants in intelligence investigations and then using the information what they obtained in criminal cases.
Frasca, Samit testified, believed that once the Moussaoui investigation was opened as an intelligence investigation, it would arouse suspicion that agents had been trying to exploit the intelligence law to get information for an investigation they now believed to be a criminal one. The distinction between the two standards for obtaining warrants was eliminated after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The government is trying to prove to a jury that Moussaoui should be executed because he bears some responsibility for the deaths in New York and Washington on Sept. 11. It argues that if Moussaoui had told Samit and other investigators what he knew about Al Qaeda's plots to fly planes into buildings, the attacks might have been foiled.
Although Samit was a government witness who sought to bolster the government's case that he could have uncovered the plot had Moussaoui spoken to him truthfully, his responses to MacMahon on Monday appeared to provide a boost for the defense. MacMahon sought to show that the problem was not with Moussaoui but with top FBI officials in Washington.
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