Senator Rand Paul Wants FBI Director Robert Mueller to Respond to Some Questions Before His Re-Confirmation

9/11 Blogger

"Why did FBI supervisors and lawyers block the search warrant sought by field agents in Minnesota who believed that Zacarias Moussaoui was a terrorist who might use a commercial airplane as a weapon in the weeks before September 11th? Why did the so--called "Phoenix memo," written by FBI agent Kenneth Williams in July of 2001, which warned of an unusual number of young Arab men seeking flight training in the U.S., never reach the highest levels of the FBI? Was anyone ever disciplined, fired, or their career ended for these errors in judgment?"

Here's a link to Senator Rand Paul's letter:

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/216473-rand-paul-letter-to-f-b-i-director-robert-mueller.html

Related:

9/11 Isn't Going Away

Gun-smuggling cartel figures possibly were paid FBI informants

Los Angeles Times
Richard A. Serrano

Probe reveals that the U.S. agency running the 'Fast and Furious' anti-gun-trafficking operation didn't know about the alleged FBI informants. Congressional investigators are looking into the matter.

Reporting from Washington—Congressional investigators probing the controversial "Fast and Furious" anti-gun-trafficking operation on the border with Mexico believe at least six Mexican drug cartel figures involved in gun smuggling also were paid FBI informants, officials said Saturday.

The investigators have asked the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration for details about the alleged informants, as well as why agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which ran the Fast and Furious operation, were not told about them.

Suspected members of the Zeta drug cartel are arrested in Guadalajara.
Weapons also were seized.

 The development raises further doubts about the now-shuttered program, which was created in November 2009 in an effort to track guns across the border and unravel the cartels' gun smuggling networks. The gun tracing largely failed, however, and hundreds of weapons purchased in U.S. shops later were found at crime scenes in Mexico.

The scandal has angered Mexican officials and some members of Congress. Investigators say nearly 2,500 guns were allowed to flow illegally into Mexico under the ATF program, fueling the drug violence ravaging that country and leading to the shooting death of a U.S. border agent.

In a letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, the investigators asked why U.S. taxpayers' money apparently was paid to Mexican cartel members who have terrorized the border region for years in their efforts to smuggle drugs into this country, and to ship U.S. firearms into Mexico.

"We have learned of the possible involvement of paid FBI informants in Operation Fast and Furious," wrote Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The two have been the leading congressional critics of the program.

"At least one individual who is allegedly an FBI informant might have been in communication with, and was perhaps even conspiring with, at least one suspect whom ATF was monitoring," they wrote.

The FBI and DEA did not tell the ATF about the alleged informants. The ATF and congressional investigators learned later that those agencies apparently were paying cartel members whom the ATF wanted to arrest.

"Operation Fast and Furious was conceived to get some of the bigger fish down there," said one official close to the congressional investigation, who asked not to be identified because the probe is ongoing. "Then it turned out that some of the ones they were zeroing in on actually, mostly likely were paid informants."

FBI opens inquiry into Murdoch's News Corp.

Los Angeles Times
By Richard A. Serrano, Jim Puzzanghera
and Kim Geiger, Washington Bureau

The agency launches an investigation at the request of U.S. lawmakers alarmed by reports that British reporters may have tried to hack into phones and access records of Sept. 11 victims and their families, in violation of U.S. law.

Reporting from Washington—

The phone hacking scandal that has ignited a political firestorm in Britain jumped the Atlantic on Thursday as the FBI opened an investigation into whether British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in violation of U.S. law.

The preliminary probe further rattled the New York-based global media empire of Rupert Murdoch, who was forced this week to withdraw his $12-billion bid to take over Britain's largest satellite broadcaster, and raises new questions about the future of News Corp.

U.S. officials said the FBI is trying to determine if a full investigation is warranted, and no evidence has yet emerged to confirm that News Corp. employees sought to hack phones in the United States. But the unfolding scandal sent the company's battered stock down another 3% in trading.

The FBI's New York field office launched the investigation after several members of Congress urged an inquiry into British media reports that journalists at News Corp.'s recently closed News of the World tabloid in London had tried to gain access to phones of Sept. 11 victims and the families of those who died, according to federal law enforcement officials.

"We are doing this based on their requests," said one official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is underway. "But after reviewing the letters and their allegations, and after consultation with the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, we are proceeding."

Felony convictions in a U.S. court could imperil the 27 federal licenses that News Corp. uses to operate TV stations across the country. The stations are part of the Fox Broadcasting Co. network.

Overall, News Corp.'s U.S. holdings are larger and more profitable than those in Britain. They include the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, and HarperCollins Publishers.

Facing an angry backlash by lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic, Murdoch told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that corporate executives would create an independent, internal committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct."

Murdoch defended his company's handling of the widening controversy, saying executives had made only "minor mistakes."

Murdoch said he was "getting annoyed" with press coverage of the scandal, but said, "I'll get over it." He predicted that the financial and political damage to News Corp. was "nothing that will not be recovered."

A News Corp. spokesman said the company had no public comment on the FBI investigation.

Separately in Britain, Murdoch and his son James, after initially refusing a summons, agreed to appear Tuesday before a committee in Parliament that is investigating the alleged phone hacking and police bribery there. Rebekah Brooks, who heads the company's British newspaper division, also agreed to testify. She was editor of the News of the World when some of the hacking allegedly occurred, but has denied any knowledge of it.

News Corp. has faced a deepening crisis in Britain since reports in a rival publication that News of the World reporters hacked into the phone of a teenager kidnapped in 2002 who was later found slain, and may have impeded a police investigation into the girl's disappearance. The pressure intensified Thursday with the arrest of former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis, the 9th person who worked at the tabloid to be detained by police.

In a letter Wednesday to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, had cited reports that News of the World journalists "attempted to obtain phone records of victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping."

King also cited reports that the reporters had solicited a New York police officer "to gain access to the content of private phone records" of the Sept. 11 victims.