A mysterious hand blocks FBI reforms

An anonymous Republican senator is using an arcane procedure to block a reform bill. Is the GOP taking revenge for the Dems' rejection of Pickering?

By Eric Boehlert

Jun 7, 2002 | Fixing the FBI has become a priority among members of Congress in recent weeks, as revelations of the bureau's intelligence breakdowns have mounted. But while many see an urgent, bipartisan need for reform, one effort is being checked by a hardball political maneuver.

Using a century-old procedural tactic, an unidentified Republican senator has placed a hold on the FBI Reform Act of 2002, making it virtually impossible for the legislation to reach the full Senate for a vote.

The bill is designed to address the lack of management accountability and other chronic FBI shortcomings, and it passed the Judiciary Committee by a unanimous vote in April. But just days after the vote, a hold was placed on the bill anonymously and without explanation.

Speculation on Capitol Hill suggests it may be Republican payback for the contentious defeat of conservative Mississippi District Court Judge Charles Pickering. Nominated to the federal Appeals Court by President Bush, Pickering was defeated in a party line vote eight weeks ago by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

At the time, some Republicans vowed revenge and threatened to delay Democratic legislation. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is chairman of the Judiciary Committee and voted against Pickering. He is also co-sponsor of the FBI Reform Act, along with Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley.

Thursday's hearing before the Senate's Judiciary Committee, featuring testimony from FBI Director Robert Mueller, as well as President George Bush's nationally televised address announcing the creation of a Cabinet-level homeland security office to supplement the FBI, were just the latest examples of a crusade to mend the bureau.

Despite previous threats, the hold came as a surprise, says Leahy spokesman David Carle. "Having been carefully vetted and unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee, he [Leahy] expected it to be overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, approved by the Senate," Carle says.

The need for FBI reform is "all the more apparent now," Carle adds, as stories emerge about bureaucratic breakdowns and missed chances to foil the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The Leahy-Grassley bill was the result of the Judiciary Committee's year-long series of FBI oversight hearings, which examined the bureau's mishandling of thousands of documents in the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the discovery of turncoat spy Robert Hanssen and other high-profile embarrassments.

Specifically, the FBI Reform Act would give FBI employees legal whistleblower rights, the same rights given to other federal employees by the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989. It would also institute a counterintelligence polygraph program to ferret out spies; strengthen the role of the U.S. Inspector General in monitoring the FBI; modernize the FBI's information technology systems; and eliminate the disparity between disciplinary action among the FBI's senior managers and rank-and-file members, an ongoing conflict blamed for morale problems inside the bureau.

Perhaps most importantly, the bill seeks to "address the accountability problems that have plagued the FBI for years," Grassley said in April.

Next Page: The brinksmanship builds

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