All of my colleagues in the Minneapolis FBI office were shocked at the news articles on March 6 and at what they thought was a totally crazy action on my part. Given the war fever and sense of futility, even the few who were against the Iraq War disapproved of my attempt to engage the media. Some agents joined pundits in publicly denouncing me.
Those in my office said they could no longer trust me and called on my boss to relieve me of my division legal counsel duties. (Only one, however, had the integrity to confront me directly and question me on the substantive facts and issues -- the lack of justification for launching the new war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.)
Enter CBS 60 Minutes
Among the media calls that ensued from my published warnings was a request for an exclusive interview from the celebrated CBS's 60 Minutes investigative news show. One of correspondent Scott Pelley's producers at the time had worked on prior news reports exposing the Moussaoui investigation and I had previously met him a couple times.
Pelley and his producer flew in to the Twin Cities the next day. By then, the FBI had reviewed my e-mail letter to Mueller (which had resulted in the articles) and they knew there was nothing in it that was secret or legally protected. The FBI had initiated a potential disciplinary action against me, however, for failure to seek "pre-publication review."
At that point, I asked for the FBI's approval to accommodate the 60 Minutes request. After taking an additional day to respond, FBI officials ended up saying they couldn't stop me from repeating the points in my letter but also basically read me the riot act in terms of warning me not to do it.
Before that happened, Pelley and his producer already tried to convince me to do the interview without worrying about FBI approval. On the morning of March 7, while their cameras were being set up and I was trading phone calls with my boss and FBI Headquarters, Pelley tried to convince me to just go ahead.
It was then that he divulged how Colin Powell's speech had been the thing that convinced him of the need for this new war on Iraq. He said he'd been very skeptical prior to hearing Powell but that Powell was persuasive and seemed to have swayed the bulk of the media. But Pelley continued -- if there were solid arguments and information that weighed against precipitously launching this new war -- the people of the country needed to hear it.
The FBI hadn't responded to my request by 11 a.m. and so I told the 60 Minutes crew I couldn't do the interview. The camera team took down and packed the equipment up and put our living room furniture back in place. It was almost noon and Pelley and his producer had given up and left when the FBI finally provided their weird response, half approval and half warning.
Pelley had already returned to the airport but when I called and said I could do the interview, they turned around and had their camera crew come back and set up again. I had a prior commitment to give a two-hour talk on "legal and law enforcement ethics" at a Twin Cities law school that afternoon but when I got home around 4 p.m., 60 Minutes started filming the interview.
Interview from Hell
It was an interview from hell, quickly turning into an excruciatingly difficult and painful affair for everyone involved. Pelley asked the same or similar questions over and over, I suppose in an effort to get better or stronger responses. I was trying to be careful and not stray from the FBI's "permission," which was limited to what I'd already said in the letter to Mueller.
Canister after canister of film was loaded, used and wasted, capturing the repeated questioning which continued to almost midnight. With only a few short breaks, that made for almost eight hours worth of (thoroughly repetitive) interview tape! By the end, judging from their faces going out the door, it was obvious that most if not all of the tape was destined for the cutting-room floor.
Nothing aired that Sunday, March 9. Pelley's producer may have been in hot water over how much time and effort was wasted in the hours and hours of the interview, especially since it occurred on a Friday night, less than 48 hours before Sunday night's show time. I never heard from anyone at 60 Minutes again.
Not surprisingly, my career at the FBI was destroyed as a result of my speaking out against the war. It's a much longer story but the group of agents with the worst case of war fever pressured my boss to make me step down from the GS-14 legal position I'd had for 13 years.
In a way they were right, since the attorney-client legal representation aspect of my division legal counsel position required the trust of all the employees. I made a quick decision that the better part of valor would be to give them their pound of flesh.
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