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               FBI LIES EXPOSED BY LEGAL TIMES
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WASHINGTON - A sworn statement by a senior FBI official in an
unreleased Justice Department report contradicts acting deputy FBI
director Larry Potts' account of his role in a deadly 1992 FBI
shootout, according to a legal newspaper.
   Eugene Glenn, the FBI's Salt Lake City chief and on-site commander
during the standoff with white separatist Randy Weaver, swore to
Justice investigators that Potts approved unusual orders that deadly
force "could and should" be used against any armed men in the open,
Legal Times reports in its Monday edition.
   The weekly said it obtained a copy of the Justice report including
Glenn's statement and Potts' denial that he approved those orders.
   FBI Director Louis J. Freeh announced Jan. 6 his conclusion that
Potts never approved the final rules of engagement and only heard by
telephone of an earlier version that merely said deadly force "could"
be used. FBI policy bars lethal force except in defense of oneself or
others.
   Potts' future is in the hands of Deputy Attorney General Jamie
Gorelick. She must rule on Freeh's unusual, simultaneous recommendation
that Potts be censured for poor management of the shootout and promoted
permanently to the FBI's No. 2 job.
   Gorelick is said by Justice officials, who requested anonymity, to be
carefully reading the 542-page Justice Department report as well as a
subsequent 500-page FBI report on the Idaho siege and shootout.
   Both reports were completed last year. Neither has been publicly
released because Idaho prosecutor Randall Day, who has copies of both,
is still deciding whether to charge federal agents with crimes under
state law.
   A marshal and Weaver's 14-year-old son were killed during the siege,
which began when federal marshals tried to arrest Weaver at his isolated
Ruby Ridge cabin for failing to appear in court on weapons charges. Later,
an FBI sharpshooter wounded Weaver and another man and killed Weaver's
unarmed wife, Vicki, while she stood behind a door holding her 10-month-
old child.
   Freeh ruled the shooting of Weaver's wife was an accident by an FBI
sniper who acted under normal FBI weapons policy, ignoring the special
rules that Freeh said were potentially unconstitutional.
   If the special rules had been followed, "other steps including
criminal ones would have been forthcoming," Freeh said.
   Freeh censured Potts and his deputy, who also claimed not to have
seen the final rules that were sent to FBI headquarters by facsimile
machine, for failing to provide proper management oversight.
   Freeh's toughest penalties -- censure, a brief suspension and transfer
to new duties -- fell on Glenn and Richard Rogers, head of the FBI
Hostage Rescue Team, who Freeh blamed for drafting the rules.
They both had claimed Potts approved those rules. Legal Times said
Glenn is appealing his discipline.
   Glenn told Justice investigators he spoke by telephone to Potts,
then assistant director in charge of criminal investigations, about
the rules on Aug. 22, 1992, a few hours before the shooting of Vicki
Weaver, according to Legal Times.
   "I was telephonically advised at the time, I believe by Assistant
Director Larry Potts, that the (rules of engagement) were approved as
formulated and could be enacted," Glenn swore in his statement to
Justice investigators, the newspaper reported.
   During a 1993 trial in which Weaver was acquitted of murdering the
marshal, Rogers testified he, too, received oral approval from Potts
for the special rules of engagement.
   The Justice task force wrote: "It is inconceivable to us that FBI
headquarters remained ignorant of the exact wording of the rules of
engagement during the entire period," Legal Times reported.
   The Justice task force recommended consideration of criminal charges
in the killing of Vicki Weaver, but the department's civil rights
division concluded last fall there was no evidence the FBI used excessive
force, department sources said earlier this year.
 
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(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot Archives FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the
Protection of Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)


