FBI News Review - Update

How the FBI is whitewashing the Saudi connection to 9/11

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:47 PM

| How The FBI Is Whitewashing The Saudi Connection To 9/11New York Post

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Just 15 days before the 9/11 attacks, a well-connected Saudi family suddenly abandoned their luxury home in Sarasota, Fla., leaving behind jewelry, clothes, opulent furniture, a driveway full of cars — including a brand new Chrysler PT Cruiser — and even a refrigerator full of food.

About the only thing not left behind was a forwarding address. The occupants simply vanished without notifying their neighbors, realtor or even mail carrier.

The 3,300-square-foot home on Escondito Circle belonged to Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of then-King Fahd. But at the time, it was occupied by his daughter and son-in-law, who beat a hasty retreat back to Saudi Arabia just two weeks before the attacks after nearly a six-year stay here.

Neighbors took note of the troubling coincidence and called the FBI, which opened an investigation that led to the startling discovery that at least one “family member” trained at the same flight school as some of the 9/11 hijackers in nearby Venice, Fla.

The investigation into the prominent Saudi family’s ties to the hijackers started on Sept. 19, 2001, and remained active for several years. It was led by the FBI’s Tampa field office but also involved the bureau’s field offices in New York and Washington, and also the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force.

Agents identified persons of interest in the case, establishing their ties to other terrorists, sympathies with Osama bin Laden and anti-American remarks. They looked into their bank accounts, colleges and places of employment. They tracked at least one suspect’s re-entry into the US.

The Saudi-9/11 connection in Florida was no small part of the overall 9/11 investigation. Yet it was never shared with Congress. Nor was it mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Now it’s being whitewashed again, in a newly released report by the 9/11 Review Commission, set up last year by Congress to assess “any evidence now known to the FBI that was not considered by the 9/11 Commission.” Though the FBI acknowledges the Saudi family was investigated, it maintains the probe was a dead end.

The review panel highlighted one local FBI report generated from the investigation that said Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji, the prominent Saudi couple who “fled” their home, had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

But: “The FBI told the Review Commission that the communication was ‘poorly written’ and wholly unsubstantiated,” the panel noted in its 128-page report. “When questioned later by others in the FBI, the special agent who wrote (it) was unable to provide any basis for the contents of the document or explain why he wrote it as he did.”

How strange. Yet panelists did not interview the unidentified agent for themselves. They just accepted headquarters’ impeachment of his work.

Odder still, the agent’s report was just one of many other FBI communications detailing ties between the Saudi family and the hijackers. In fact, the Tampa office of the FBI recently was ordered to turn over more than 80,000 pages of documents filling some 27 boxes from its 9/11 investigation to a federal judge hearing a Freedom of Information Act case filed by local journalists over the Sarasota angle. The judge is sorting through the boxes to determine which documents should remain classified. Most are marked “SECRET/NOFORN,” meaning no foreign nationals — a classification reserved for highly sensitive materials.

“The report provides no plausible explanation for the contradiction between the FBI’s current claim that it found nothing and its 2002 memo finding ‘many connections’ between the Sarasota family and the 9/11 terrorists,” Thomas Julin, the attorney who filed the FOIA lawsuit against the FBI, told the Miami Herald.

The panel’s report also doesn’t explain why visitor security logs for the gated Sarasota community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers, including 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta.

The three-member review panel was appointed by FBI Director James Comey, who also officially released the findings.

Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, maintains the FBI is covering up a Saudi support cell in Sarasota for the hijackers. He says the al-Hijjis’ “urgent” pre-9/11 exit suggests “someone may have tipped them off” about the coming attacks.

Modal Trigger

The Florida home Abdulaziz Al-Hijji left two weeks before 9/11.

Graham has been working with a 14-member group in Congress to urge President Obama to declassify 28 pages of the final report of his inquiry which were originally redacted, wholesale, by President George W. Bush.

“The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,” he said, adding, “I am speaking of the kingdom,” or government, of Saudi Arabia, not just wealthy individual Saudi donors.

Sources who have read the censored Saudi section say it cites CIA and FBI case files that directly implicate officials of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks — which, if true, would make 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war by a foreign government. The section allegedly identifies high-level Saudi officials and intelligence agents by name, and details their financial transactions and other dealings with the San Diego hijackers. It zeroes in on the Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy, among other Saudi entities.

The review commission, however, concludes there is “no evidence” that any Saudi official provided assistance to the hijackers, even though the panel failed to interview Graham or his two key investigators — former Justice Department attorney Dana Lesemann and FBI investigator Michael Jacobson — who ran down FBI leads tying Saudi officials to the San Diego hijackers and documented their findings in the 28 pages.

Graham smells a rat: “This is a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11 by all of the agencies of the federal government which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”

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OIG audit finds potential for abuse in FBI forensic kiosks and FBI site hacked

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:46 PM

Network World Ms. Smith

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Imagine if after one hour of training, you had access to a FBI digital forensic kiosk that could allow you to “quickly and easily” view and then extract data stored on cell phones, but you don’t have to hand over this “evidence” to an FBI Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory. You could also carry out digital forensics on hard drives and “loose files” to locate “deleted, encrypted, or damaged file information.” After an hour of training, you were supposed to “sign a Letter of Acknowledgment” that you had legal authority to use the kiosk for forensics on cell phones and loose media, but that wasn’t always enforced; there are no “sufficient” controls in place to ensure you used the kiosk for only law enforcement purposes and it is “possible for a user to use a Kiosk without proper legal authority, thereby engaging in a Fourth Amendment violation.” Do you think you might be tempted to misuse the forensic kiosk?

Those are some of the “weaknesses” identified by an Office of the Inspector General audit. As of July 2014, the FBI had 16 Regional Computer Forensic Laboratories (RCFLs) which “provide forensic expertise and training to thousands of law enforcement personnel.” The OIG audited the FBI’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, RCFL (PHRCFL).

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Before we jump back into weaknesses of the FBI kiosk program, it’s interesting to note that the OIG audit (pdf) said the FBI’s Training Registration System (TRS) was hacked in 2014.

According to the FBI, in early 2014, TRS was compromised after an intruder gained unauthorized access and it was taken out of service until a more secure website could be deployed. The NPO [RCFL National Program Office] requested that RCFLs maintain class rosters locally; as a result, the PHRCFL continues to maintain a paper log. The FBI told us that the NPO is in the process of building and deploying a new training website. FBI officials also told us that security is a top priority in developing the new system because it will contain the names of law enforcement officers.

Regarding those forensic FBI regional computer forensic laboratory kiosks, the San Diego Readerpointed out that a previous FBI report explained, “Self-service kiosks for cellular telephones and loose media allow investigators to review the contents of mobile telephones and most types of loose media on their own.” The report added:

The process is simple: investigators make an appointment at [a regional computer forensics laboratory], bring their evidence, use the Loose Media Kiosk or Cell Phone Investigative Kiosk to view the contents, extract data of interest, save it to a report, and burn the report to a CD or DVD. All of this is accomplished without submitting the evidence to the RCFL.

However the OIG said the PHRCFL does not have “sufficient controls in place” to “ensure that users who did complete the acknowledgment forms did not use the Kiosk for non-law enforcement matters. For example, it was possible that a Kiosk user could use this tool to view private cell phone information for non-law enforcement purposes. It was also possible for a user to use a Kiosk without proper legal authority, thereby engaging in a Fourth Amendment violation.”

The report added that although “FBI policy requires Kiosk users to confirm they possess the proper legal authority for the search of data on cell phones or loose media,” the OIG “found that approximately 24% of the entries in the visitor’s log did not have a corresponding Acknowledgment Form and approximately 13% of the Acknowledgment Forms did not correspond with an entry in the PHRCFL visitor’s log.”

The OIG suggested the FBI needs to “promptly revise controls to ensure compliance with that policy and minimize the risk of inappropriate use of Kiosks.”

In total, the OIG audit resulted in six recommendations. For example, the OIG found discrepancies in the FBI’s annual reports and the Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) Database data.

The report states, “The Kiosk usage information uploaded to the CART Database did not accurately reflect the number of times the Kiosk was used for investigative purposes because, according to the PHRCFL Director, training participants at the PHRCFL were allowed to practice using the Kiosk by searching the data on their own cell phones.” Yet the “current process used to support the information found in the RCFL Annual Report is not adequate to ensure the accuracy of the information reported to Congress, FBI management, and the public.”

The OIG audit found that there were “no sign-in sheets for training that is conducted outside of the PHRCFL;” instead FBI training records included estimated stats for those training sessions.

Additionally, the OIG found “material weaknesses in the Kiosk program that, if not addressed, could leave the Kiosk vulnerable to abuse at the PHRCFL and, possibly at other RCFLs if they do not have appropriate protections in place.”

IRS emails show Lois Lerner interfered with investigation

Speaking of an Inspector General investigation and report, if you are in the mood for more federal drama then emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner show that she interfered with a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) investigation. Government watchdog group Judicial Watchdog obtained the emails via a Freedom of Information Act request; the obtained IRS documents show that Lerner knew that her “targeting criteria of nonprofit groups ‘might raise questions’.”

OIG's Audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Philadelphia Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory Radnor, Pennsylvania, report findings, graphics and recommendations can be found here (pdf).

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Ann McFeatters - Figuring out puzzling things - Crescent-News | Defiance, OH

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:45 PM

The Crescent News Stories: Latest Headlines

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April is an odd month, some say cruel, but even aside from the weather, strange things are happening. Our job as dutiful citizens is to figure them out.

Some are puzzled why former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, checked the box denoting "Hispanic" when he applied to vote in 2009. Bush was born in Texas but his family is from New England and beyond that English royalty. Was he confused because he speaks fluent Spanish and governed a state with a large Hispanic population? Was he already planning to run for president in 2016, an impressive display of foresight, knowing he'd need Hispanic votes?

No, it was because he is committed to his marriage to Columba, who was born in Mexico. You know how some stereotypical grandparents look exactly alike? White hair and matching running suits, and from behind it's hard to tell which one is which? Or, in "Best of Show," remember how beloved pets and smitten owners looked identical?

After 41 years of marriage Jeb and Columba have melded. Mi casa es su casa. Mi heritage es su heritage. We like Jeb's insouciance after being apprised of Box Gate: "My mistake! Don't think I've fooled anyone!"

Moving on to the Democrats, some are cackling that Hillary Clinton, the front -- and only -- runner for the Democratic nomination, has hired a charm guru. To what end, you ask. We recall Barack Obama in 2008 saying politely (certainly not snidely), "You're likeable enough, Hillary," after the debate moderator asked Clinton if she had enough personal appeal to win over Obama. (Actually, it was a low point in his campaign.)

To be on her 2016 communications team, Hillary has hired Kristina Schake, who has been working for Michelle Obama. Reports say Schake's job is to make Hillary -- lawyer, former first lady, former senator and former secretary of state -- appear "softer" and "more accessible." Schake reportedly told Michelle to shop at Target and taught her "mom dancing," which was enormously appealing on "The Jimmy Fallon Show."

We are promptly reminded of Al Gore's Macarena moment, slapping his shoulders and his sides and we have to pause. Let's think through the current dance moves before we get too excited about this. At any rate, we will have to see what Schake comes up with but since Hillary is on the move to the nomination, we won't have to wait too long.

Meanwhile, how about those FBI agents! It turns out that the FBI has not had a physical fitness requirement for 16 years! Who knew! Thousands of us would have applied!

But now they do. In a memo publicized by The New York Times, FBI director James B. Comey told agents: "The lives of your colleagues and those you protect may well depend upon your ability to run, fight and shoot, no matter what job you hold. He said agents symbolize to Americans what is "right and good" and added, "I want you to look like the squared-away object of that reverence. I want the American people to be able to take one glance at you and think, 'There is a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.'"

And we thought we could tell an agent when he talked into his wrist.

Avid TV viewers deduce this new dictum arrived when the FBI learned last year the CBS show "Battle Creek" was in preparation. It features a squared-away, straight-arrow, buttoned-down, always prepared, somewhat pompous FBI agent with amazing tech toys. Since the agent is played by well-put-together movie star Josh Duhamel, there's a lot of reverence there already, at least in Hollywood.

In Washington, D.C.'s Union Station subway stop, there are giant illuminated showcases featuring comic book characters, a reference to "dark money" and an appeal for the appearance of Mary Jo White, a missing superhero. Tourists pouring into the nation's capital for the cherry blossoms are befuddled.

The missing MJW is head of the Securities Exchange Commission. The advertisements and the Twitter #where is MJW campaign are sponsored by Greenpeace, Avaaz and the Corporate Reform Coalition. They pursue the menace of anonymous corporate money in American elections. May, with its own possibilities, is just around the corner.

(Ann McFeatters is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service.)

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Emails Reveal Discord Over Blackwater Charges

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:44 PM

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WASHINGTON — As prosecutors put the finishing touches on the 2008 indictment of Blackwatersecurity contractors for a deadly shooting in Iraq, the F.B.I. agents leading the investigation became convinced that political appointees in the Justice Department were intentionally undermining the case, internal emails show.

The F.B.I. had wanted to charge the American contractors with the type of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and weapons charges that could send them to prison for the rest of their lives for theshooting, which left more than a dozen Iraqis dead and many others wounded in September 2007.

But at the last minute, the Justice Department balked. In particular, senior officials were uncomfortable with bringing two machine-gun charges, each of which carried mandatory 30-year prison sentences.

“We are getting some serious resistance from our office to charging the defendants with mandatory minimum time,” Kenneth Kohl, a federal prosecutor, told the lead F.B.I. agent on the case, John Patarini, as the Justice Department prepared to ask a grand jury to vote on an indictment in December 2008.

Mr. Patarini was incensed. “I would rather not present for a vote now and wait until the new administration takes office than to get an indictment that is an insult to the individual victims, the Iraqi people as a whole, and the American people who expect their Justice Department to act better than this,” he replied.

The disagreement foreshadowed an argument that will play out in a federal court on Monday, when four former Blackwater contractors are scheduled to be sentenced.

Federal prosecutors ultimately agreed to bring one machine-gun charge, but not two. Now it is the Justice Department, despite initial reservations, that is arguing strenuously for sentences that amount to life in prison. Four men — Dustin L. Heard, Evan S. Liberty, Nicholas A. Slatten and Paul A. Slough — were convicted at trial in October.

“The crimes here were so horrendous — the massacre and maiming of innocents so heinous — that they outweigh any factors that the defendants may argue form a basis for leniency,” federal prosecutors wrote in court documents last week.

The emails obtained by The New York Times offer a look behind the scenes of the Blackwater case, providing a glimpse of the pitched arguments and distrust that troubled one of the highest-profile international investigations in recent memory.

Seventeen people were killed and many others were wounded when Blackwater security contractors opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers into Baghdad’s crowded Nisour Square. The shooting was a nadir in the Iraq war, strained relations between Washington and the new government in Baghdad, and brought to global attention the trend toward privatizing some American security operations in combat zones.

The machine-gun charge was contentious because it was written during the crack cocaine epidemic as a way to curb the use of automatic weapons. Defense lawyers argued at the time — and continue to argue today — that the law was intended to deter gang members from carrying machine guns, not to be used against American contractors who were required by the State Department to carry them in a war zone. They have asked a judge not to impose the 30-year sentence, arguing that it is unconstitutionally severe since the contractors had no choice but to carry the weapons.

After receiving the prosecutor’s email in 2008, Mr. Patarini forwarded it to colleagues and superiors, igniting a flurry of angry responses, many of which were sent to the Justice Department. Without the machine-gun charges, the agents argued, the contractors would most likely face five to seven years in prison.

“I think of Mohammad and his son every time they pull the rug a bit further out from under us,” one agent, Thomas O’Connor, wrote. He was referring to an Iraqi man, Mohammed Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Kinani, whose 9-year-old son, Ali, was killed.

Andrew McCabe, an F.B.I. supervisor, took the grievances to his boss, John Perren, saying the Justice Department was “delaying and reducing” the indictment. “This is the latest in what has become a troubling habit by D.O.J.,” he wrote. He encouraged top F.B.I. officials to press their case.

It is not clear what ultimately persuaded the Justice Department to proceed with the machine-gun charge. J. Patrick Rowan, the Bush administration’s top national security prosecutor at the time, was “uncomfortable” with the charge, the emails say. Mr. Rowan, now in private practice, would not discuss the deliberations. But he said he had never felt political pressure to limit the charges.

Until the Nisour Square shooting, Blackwater was America’s most prominent and politically powerful security contractor, with more than $1 billion in government contracts. The company was a major donor to the Republican Party, and its founder, Erik Prince, was a favorite target for Democratic criticism. Though the emails do not indicate any political influence in the case, investigators clearly believed that the incoming Obama administration would be more willing to bring the machine-gun charges against the Blackwater contractors.

“I would rather wait for a new administration than go forward without those charges,” Carolyn Murphy, an F.B.I. agent, wrote.

And Michael Posillico, a State Department investigator assigned to the case, said, “It’s hard for me to say we should wait for the Democrats, but this is one such time I have to.”

Through a spokesman, the F.B.I. agents declined to comment on the emails. Mr. Patarini, who is now a private security consultant, recalled that frustration had been building within the F.B.I. team because the Justice Department had previously refused to bring charges of second-degree murder against the Blackwater guards and would not charge other Blackwater employees with lying, charges the agents believed were warranted.

“Those were our thoughts back then and still mine today,” he said in an email.

After the indictment, the case faced problems and accusations of prosecutorial misconduct and was nearly lost. Then prosecutors missed a filing deadline and let the statute of limitations expire against Mr. Slatten. So he alone was charged with and convicted of murder, which has no statute of limitations. The others were charged with several counts of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and one count each of using a machine gun in a crime of violence.

The Justice Department is seeking sentences of 57 years for Mr. Slough, 51 years for Mr. Liberty, 47 years for Mr. Heard and life in prison without parole for Mr. Slatten.

Echoing the emails from nearly seven years ago, the Justice Department said the sentences would “hold the defendants accountable for their callous, wanton and deadly conduct, and deter others wielding the awesome power over life or death from perpetrating similar atrocities in the future.”

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Walter Scott Is Not on Trial

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:44 PM

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I not only watched television pundits discuss the shooting of Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C., last week, I participated in some of those discussions.

And the most disturbing thread that emerged for me was people who said up front that they saw no justification for Scott being killed, but nevertheless stalked around for a back door that would allow them to surreptitiously blame the victim for his own death. Some formulation of “if only he hadn’t run...” was the way this dark door was eased open.

I find it particularly disturbing the way that we try to find excuses for killings, the way that we seek to deprecate a person when they have been killed rather than insisting that they deserved to remain among the living.

For me, there is only one issue in the Walter Scott case: he is dead, and that cannot be undone. And not only was he killed, but he was killed in a most dishonorable way: shot in the back as he fled. So, for me there is only one question: Should the dead man be dead? Is there anything, under American jurisprudence and universal moral law, that justifies the taking of this man’s life?

All else wanders into the weeds. The judicial system could have easily dealt with any misdeed Scott is accused of — failure to pay child support, failure to present proper documentation for a car he was driving, resisting arrest, fleeing — and none of those offenses, if he were found guilty of any or all, would have carried the death sentence.

Unfortunately, police officers encounter lawbreakers on a regular basis. Unfortunately, some resist arrest. Some flee. These are simply occupational conditions of being an officer — an admittedly tough job that few of us would sign up to do. But none of those offenses grant a license to gun a man down.

A life is the most precious, most valuable thing in creation. It cannot be casually ended. It cannot be callously taken. It must always be honored and protected, and the person living it needn’t be perfect; he or she is human.

The bar of justification for extrajudicial killings is high, and necessarily so, even among suspects accused of crimes. Killing sanctioned by courts in the form of executions are problematic enough, as evidenced by recent exonerations of men who spent decades on death row. How much more problematic could killings be of people who don’t live to get a trial?

It is tragic to somehow try to falsely equate what appear to be bad decisions made by Scott and those made by the officer who killed him. There is no moral equivalency between running and killing, and anyone who argues this obdurate absurdity reveals a deficiency in their own humanity. Death is not the appropriate punishment for disobedience. Being entrusted with power does not shield imprudent use of power. And one of the saddest and most frustrating features of our current debate about police use of force, in communities of color in particular, is the degree to which justice itself has been absorbed into the ideological struggle in this country.

Social justice, equal treatment and violence exerted by structures of power against a vulnerable population shouldn’t become a sprocket in our political machines. This is about right and wrong, not right and left.

Neither should we have such widely differing racial perceptions about whether use of force is appropriate and to what degree. For instance, as The Associated Press reported last week: “Seven of 10 whites polled, or 70 percent, said they can imagine a situation in which they would approve of a police officer striking a man. Most blacks and Hispanics did not agree.”

The article continued: “The poll results don’t surprise experts on American attitudes toward police, who say experiences and history with law enforcement shape opinions about the use of violence by officers.”

Furthermore, we as a nation simply must do a better job of collecting data about these kinds of cases so that we can all discuss them from a point of mutually accepted fact rather that as an outgrowth of tribal narratives.

As the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, lamented in February:

“How can we address concerns about ‘use of force,’ how can we address concerns about officer-involved shootings if we do not have a reliable grasp on the demographics and circumstances of those incidents? We simply must improve the way we collect and analyze data to see the true nature of what’s happening in all of our communities.”

There will be an investigation and a trial in this case. Evidence will be examined and presented. It is proper to wait for that. But any exculpatory evidence must justify this use of force, not simply seek to excuse it. That will most likely be a high bar.

The video that has now been made public is incredibly disturbing and may prove incontrovertible. We will wait and see. But it is important to remember that waiting is a luxury of time afforded to the living. Time has ceased for Mr. Scott.

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Resilience: Former FBI special agent credits divine intervention for his contribution to OKC bombing case

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:43 PM

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Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh might have gotten away 20 years ago if FBI Special Agent R. Scott Crabtree had just followed orders.

Crabtree, who retired from the FBI in 2007, played two major roles in the early days of the investigation in Kansas, where the bomb was made.

“At the risk of sounding a little corny, it’s like I was supposed to be there at that time,” Crabtree toldThe Oklahoman in a telephone interview for the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.

Crabtree was the agent who came up with the idea to get a sketch of the man who had picked up the bomb truck. His quick thinking led to McVeigh’s arrest in Perry two days after the bombing.

And, he was the agent chosen to lead the questioning of McVeigh’s close friend, Terry Nichols, in Herington, Kan., two days after the bombing. That interview lasted for hours. Crabtree by the end had concluded Nichols more likely was a participant, not just a witness.

FBI Special Agent R. Scott Crabtree
Photo provided

Crabtree became the lead interviewer in part because he had been born in Herington and knew the area. Nichols in 1995 had just bought a house there. The agent’s knowledge of the area helped him catch Nichols lying during the interview.

“I believe to a great degree there was some guidance from somewhere, some divine power or fate — whatever you want to call it — that had me there,” Crabtree said.

Crabtree was an FBI supervisor in Washington, D.C., when he took an opening in Salina, Kan., in 1993 to be nearer his ill mother in Omaha.

He was at work in the windowless one-man office in Salina on April 19, 1995, the day of the bombing, when he got the orders to go to Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kan.

The FBI had just determined the bomb truck had been rented from that business. His instructions were to get the rental paperwork from the body shop and then take it to Washington, D.C., himself for fingerprint analysis.

His wife met him on the interstate with a bag of clothes for the flight.

But Crabtree was an experienced agent. He’d been with the FBI since 1982 and he quickly realized after arriving at the body shop that there was a real opportunity there.

The body shop’s mechanic, Tom Kessinger, had really focused on the customer who picked up the truck using the fake name “Robert Kling” because of something that was said. So Crabtree pushed his bosses to use a sketch artist.

“I got ... a real good feeling from Tom that he could, I thought, provide a good sketch. It was like this has to be priority one because we can’t leave this and come back to it,” Crabtree told The Oklahoman.

“You work enough bank robberies and kidnaps and that kind of stuff and you realize the urgency of catching these things while the trail’s still hot,” he said.

His bosses agreed, and Crabtree stayed in Kansas to oversee the effort.

The rest is history.

Early the next morning, the FBI flew out a sketch artist who interviewed the mechanic, another body shop employee and the body shop owner. The FBI artist drew up two sketches “John Doe No. 1” and “John Doe No. 2.”

The FBI released the sketches worldwide and agents showed them around Junction City. At the Dreamland Motel, the motel owner recognized the first sketch — recent guest Timothy McVeigh. “That was a huge break, of course,” Crabtree said.

Two days after the bombing, agents tracked down McVeigh to the Noble County Jail, where he was being held on a weapons offense after a traffic stop. McVeigh had been minutes away from bailing out.

Crabtree believes it might have taken a day or so for another agent to coordinate getting a sketch artist had he just followed orders. As it turns out, that would have been time enough for McVeigh to have gotten out of jail and away. “Thankfully, we moved stuff along fast enough,” he said.

Crabtree wasn’t done, though.

At the risk of sounding a little corny, it’s like I was supposed to be there at that time.

>>R. Scott Crabtree
Former FBI special agent

For four days, he worked around the clock — pretty much without sleep — chasing down leads.

“I grabbed a little cat nap here or there. I was totally wasted,” he said.

Crabtree was so tired two days after the bombing that he was ready to let other guys go ahead and do the interview of Nichols.

But he went ahead at the urging of another FBI special agent, Daniel Jablonski.

“He basically said, ‘Scott, you’ve got to go. You’ve got all the pertinent information here. You know the locations. You know the geography. You know everything that’s happened up to now in terms of the rental and the canvas. You have to be there,’’’ Crabtree said.

Nichols did not confess that day, instead mixing truth with lies to try to make incriminating actions look innocent. His statement, though, provided new leads and was key to the prosecution at Nichols’ two trials.

Nichols is serving life in federal prison for his role in the bombing. After his convictions, Nichols admitted to the FBI, his family and a U.S. congressman that he had a major part in the plot.

Crabtree recalled the 1995 interview as being very weird. He remembered Nichols had a very cavalier, cool attitude.

“He didn’t look like he was sweating. He wasn’t nervous. He was none of that stuff. It was to me amazing — when I look back on it — that he could have had that attitude as he was being questioned, particularly as the night went on, as he knew the noose was getting tighter.”

Crabtree, 58, now lives in Virginia, near Washington, D.C. “I wish I could have done more,” he said.

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Alleged 'Nazi' Android FBI Ransomware Mastermind Arrested In Russia

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:42 PM

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The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has announced the arrest of a 25-year-old, believed to be the creator of a particularly harmful strain of Android money-stealing malware, known as Svpeng, that had infected as many as 350,000 Google GOOGL +0.08% devices last year. Four other suspects thought to be members of the cybercriminal gang, who were said to have a penchant for Nazi iconography, were also detained.

Russian police were particularly concerned about the campaign, as it had robbed citizens of as much as 50 million rubles ($930,000), with Sberbank, the largest bank in the country, picking up on attacks in 2013 before aiding the investigation. But Android users in the US, UK and Europe were also hit hard by Svpeng. In June last year, Kaspersky warned Svpeng was increasingly turning its gaze away from Russia, noting that more than 91 per cent of attacks targeting English-language users were based in the US and the UK.

The malware had developed to become one of the most surreptitious and effective penny-pilfering Android malware types around, using multiple techniques to nab banking credentials. Originally, it sought to steal funds from victims by opening a new window every time a target launched Google Play, asking them to type credit card credentials, which would be sent to the hackers’ servers. Later, when targeting westerners, Svpeng threw FBI penalty notification letters up on targets’ screensduring web browsing, claiming the user had been looking at illegal pornographic material, demanding $200 in the form of Green Dot’s MoneyPak cards – a kind of attack known as ransomware. It would block access to the device, making it completely unusable.

Svpeng Android ransomware threatens victims with a fine from the FBI

The malware was distributed via SMS SMS texts containing a fake link for Adobe Flash Player that would in fact download the Trojan. It also scanned for specific American banking apps, including those from Citi, Amex, Wells Fargo WFC +0.5%, Bank of America and Chase. Though there was no evidence of what the app actually did after scanning for those software, the Svpeng gang were likely planning to carry out a similar attack to that targeting Google Play, throwing up a fake page asking for credit card details – a criminal technique known as phishing.

The Svpeng malware’s phishing attack, launched as soon as Google Play is opened

The operation took place on 24 March but was only revealed over the weekend. Another four suspects were arrested, all in the Chelyabinsk region. No names were revealed. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs indicated the five had offered confessions. “Work is underway to establish the involvement of these persons to dozens of similar offenses,” the body said in an announcement.

Group-IB, a Russian intelligence firm that helped law enforcement put together the Svpeng case, said the hackers had named their control software for Svpeng “The Fifth Reich” and were using Nazi symbols in the management system (see top image). It had labelled the Svpeng crew “The Fascists”.

The intel body, based in Moscow, told FORBES it started the operation at the behest of Sberbank in 2013. According to Dmitry Volkov, cybercrimes investigation division leader at Group-IB, his team of analysts uncovered the nicknames of the hackers on underground forums and within three months knew who the author was, working alongside him undercover.

Read the whole story

 

· · · · ·

Bush Officials ​Screwed Up FBI's Case Against Blackwater, Emails Show

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:41 PM

Fortress America

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I feel like there are so many examples of this, let's call it "Robert Jackson syndrome", where we realize that there are indeed real american heroes out there, rooting and fighting for the underdog, where the OVERdog is of course american hegemony, or corporate power. and you have to wonder—what if we had heroes who, i don't know, shot Lt. Calley in the back of the head, say, or swapped out Colin Powell's talking points before he spoke at the UN in 2003, or who figured out how to be a hero in real time, as opposed to after the fuck up.

One Year Ago, FBI Insisted That 'Terrorist' Guy It Arrested Last Week Was No Threat At All

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:40 PM

Techdirt

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Last week, we wrote about the FBI 

arresting

 John Booker, who was involved in yet another of the FBI's 

own plots

. At the beginning of our post (and the criminal complaint) against Booker, we noted how a year ago Booker had tried to join the army, and had then been denied after posting stuff to his Facebook page about how he was going to "wage jihad" and planned to die. It was noted that the FBI visited him at that time, and we found it odd that if he was such a threat, why wasn't he arrested then. Instead, it appears that months later, the FBI got together and concocted a ridiculous plot for Booker to join, in which the FBI itself did all the planning. 

What he hadn't realized was that when the incident happened last year with Booker and his Facebook page, there was actually news coverage about it, with the FBI actually saying that 

they had investigated and Booker was no threat at all

:

The alert, which was sourced to “an FBI agent,” stated it was distributed to “inform and protect officers who may encounter this individual or others exhibiting the same aspirations.”
Four days later, on Tuesday, the FBI downplayed the "routine" alert, saying it was not actively searching for Booker. The agency said it did not believe he posed an "imminent threat," despite the original alert's invocation of the Fort Hood shooting, where an Army psychologist killed 13 and wounded more than 30 on a Texas military base in 2009.
“We have interviewed this individual,” an FBI spokesman said. “There is not a manhunt and there never was one. There is no imminent threat to public safety, nor should the public be concerned that this threat exists from an individual at large."

The reporter who wrote that above now works at the Intercept and has 

revealed more details

, including the 

FBI's Situational Information Report

 after it had interviewed Booker a year ago. It notes that not only had Booker checked himself into a mental health facility a month earlier, but also that he basically had no way of carrying out any threat:

BOOKER does not have access to a vehicle or other form of transportation at this time, nor is there evidence he possess firearms.

It appears that Booker only became a real threat... once two FBI informants showed up and created the plot for him.

FBI Investigating Former White House Military Aide

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:38 PM

ABC News: U.S.

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The FBI is investigating a former top military aide to three U.S. presidents and his firm over allegations it bilked foreign investors out of millions of dollars by touting his White House ties and making promises of quick U.S. Green Cards to raise funds for a giant hotel complex, ABC News has learned. Five years after an elaborate ground-breaking ceremony in New Orleans, there is only a vacant lot and investors say almost $16 million has disappeared.

The former aide, retired Air Force Col. Timothy Milbrath, confirmed to ABC News that he is aware of the FBI investigation but said the allegations against him and his firm “are not correct.” Investors said the FBI has recently conducted interviews, and city officials in New Orleans confirmed agents have collected boxes of documents related to the company. A spokesperson for the FBI in New Orleans declined to comment.

The investigation centers on a project set up under a controversial U.S. immigration program known as EB-5 which allows foreign investors to obtain visas, and eventually Green Cards, if they invest at least $500,000 in projects that will create American jobs. As ABC News reported in February, an internal government review found that more than 30 EB-5 projects have come under criminal investigation, including the one set up by Col. Milbrath and a business partner, called Noble Outreach.

See the full report tonight on ABC News' "World News With David Muir".

Obtained by ABC News

PHOTO: Col. Tim Milbrath with former President George H.W. Bush.

Promotional videos and material produced by Noble Outreach to entice foreign investors flaunt Col. Milbrath’s White House ties and feature photos of him serving Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as chief of staff to the White House Military Office.

In a civil lawsuit, the investors allege that much of the $16 million they invested with Noble Outreach ended up going to Col. Milbrath, his partner William “Bart” Hungerford, Jr., and companies they controlled. None of the foreign investors were able to receive Green Cards because of the project’s failure, investors said.

“We were duped,” said Terry Sumpter, a retired British police officer who says he lost the bulk of his savings investing with Noble Outreach. “It’s gut wrenching, it really is.”

Sumpter is now living in Florida on an expired visa. He has been allowed to stay in the U.S. by immigration officials, but if he leaves the country, he fears he will not be permitted to return.

Milbrath told ABC News that because of the ongoing litigation, he cannot say what happened to the money but that, “Everything is accounted for.”

“I can honestly say that what we have here -- the claims are not substantiated,” he said in an interview to be broadcast on ABC’s “World News with David Muir”.

Noble Outreach is one of dozens of businesses that – despite being under federal investigation -- remain certified by the Department of Homeland Security to operate as part of the little-known EB-5 immigrant investor program. Federal certification enables the firms to continue to solicit wealthy foreigners to invest $500,000 or $1 million in qualified U.S. projects. And they can promise in exchange that the investors will receive a two-year visa. The firms pledge that if the investment creates 10 American jobs, the investor will be able to short-cut the usually lengthy immigration process and receive a Green Card.

Obtained by ABC News

PHOTO: Col. Tim Milbrath with former President Ronald Reagan.

Earlier this year, ABC News reported on firms that continued to operate as certified EB-5 regional centers despite being the subjects of national security investigations.

One such firm, American Logistics International, was recruiting investors from Iran to be granted American visas, even as it was being investigated by U.S. non-proliferation agents for its possible role in smuggling sensitive electronics to Iran. American Logistics has denied being involved in any illegal activity.

Internal documents obtained by ABC News showed dozens of the regional centers have been investigated for a range of criminal violations. There have been so many fraud cases involving EB-5 investment opportunities that the Securities and Exchange Commission has posted an investor alert online warning foreign investors to be “aware of investment scams targeting foreign nationals who seek to become permanent lawful U.S. residents through the Immigrant Investor Program (‘EB-5’).”

Homeland Security officials said they remain powerless to revoke a regional center’s certification unless there is proof they have not been creating jobs.

“USCIS only has the authority to terminate a regional center if there is evidence the center is no longer promoting economic growth – not on the basis of national security concerns,” an agency spokesman told ABC News in a written statement. “This lack of discretion limits the ability of the Director or the Secretary to terminate a regional center in the event of suspected or even proven criminal activity.”

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson provided a statement to ABC News saying he is urging Congress to provide his agency “legal discretion to deny or revoke cases when necessary, authority to exclude people with criminal backgrounds from participating in EB-5 regional centers, and authority to require regional centers to certify compliance with our securities laws.”

Terry Sumpter, the British ex-policeman, said he started researching investment opportunities in 2007 because, after a career in law enforcement and as a successful entrepreneur in England, he wanted to permanently move to the U.S. He said Noble Outreach promised a quick path to permanent residency, and if the investment paid dividends, he said it would be “a win-win.”

“They were saying it was going to help the New Orleans people after Katrina, we would get our Green Card, and we’d get a return on top of that,” Sumpter said. “It really did seem like a good deal.”

Noble Outreach appeared to have significant support from public officials. Milbrath and his partner, Bart Hungerford, had brokered a 30-year deal with then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin for exclusive rights to offer EB-5 investments in New Orleans, they established office addresses at the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington and in the D.C. suburbs. They unveiled glossy plans to build a hotel, restaurant and conference center development in a blighted lot in Algiers, a neighborhood in the shadow of the New Orleans skyline, and in 2010, at the groundbreaking event, there was a line of local officials waiting to grab a golden shovel for the photo opportunity.

But the investor lawsuit alleges that behind the scenes, Noble Outreach had established a tangled web of corporate entities through which the investment money moved without the investors’ knowledge.

ABC News

PHOTO: The empty lot in New Orleans where investors say a hotel complex is supposed to be.

During an 18-month period beginning in 2009, the suit alleges that one of those entities paid Milbrath and Hungerford and their wives $1.82 million in salaries. The suit alleges that the two partners “in fact, converted millions of the fund’s assets ($6 million at least) for the their own ultimate personal benefit.”

Some of Noble Outreach’s early investment money went to finance other ventures, including coffee shops and restaurants in the city’s bustling French Quarter. Investors say those ventures were structured in a way that Hungerford and Milbrath retained a controlling interest, and the jobs those ventures created did not result in any investors receiving Green Cards or a financial return.

The addresses Noble Outreach listed on its promotional material, it turns out, were a borrowed desk at a travel agency in the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington, D.C., , and a rented mailbox at a UPS store in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Addresses in New Orleans were for a law firm that no longer represents the company and an economic development agency.

When ABC News tracked down Milbrath at an event last month, he said he and his partner did not enrich themselves in the deal. The projects stalled, he said, because the firm could not recruit enough investors. He said the company struggled to get support from the federal immigration agency that was supposed to process visas.

“I just know that what we did was completely within what we thought was our purview to do for the program, I really do,” he said.

Milbrath said he wanted to be able to explain why the ventures have not yielded the promised benefits for the investors, but because of the lawsuit he cannot. But he did tell ABC News he believes the real fault rested with difficulties Noble Outreach had in dealing with the immigration agency that oversees the EB-5 program, USCIS. At one point, Milbrath and Hungerford enlisted help from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, who wrote a letter to the agency on their behalf.

“Congressman Van Hollen’s office asked DHS and USCIS to respond to [Noble Outreach’s] request for information before we became aware of any investigation or complaints against the company,” Bridgett Frey, the spokeswoman for the congressman, told ABC News. “Once Congressman Van Hollen learned of complaints against NOR, he informed his staff to cease any interaction with them. Congressman Van Hollen believes that the allegations against NOR are troubling, and, if true, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Frey added that Van Hollen, who is now a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland, also supports a systematic review of the EB-5 Visa Program, which he believes “is clearly is in need of reform.”

Sumpter said the greatest insult from his experience in participating in the immigrant investor program has not been the loss of money – though he estimates that between the failed investment and legal fees, the experience has cost him upwards of $750,000. It has been the refusal of his Green Card. Once two years had expired and his investment had failed to create the required 10 jobs, the government began deportation proceedings.

He said he and other Noble Outreach investors now live in limbo. If they leave the United States, they have little chance of returning as anything more than a tourist, he said.

“I know one of the investors left on business to go to Europe and now he can’t get back in,” Sumpter said.

He said he remains in his own brand of immigration limbo, unsure if he leaves, whether he will ever be able to have the life he does now.

“I’m here because I want to be,” Sumpter said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve only done everything by the book, what has been asked of me, and it seems I’m being punished for that.”

Read the whole story

 

· · · · · · · · · · ·

FBI Director James Comey in a Q&A about terrorism

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 5:37 PM

FBI Director Talks About Terrorism, Lauderdale Cops And Lone Wolves - Sun Sentinel

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FBI Director James Comey recently visited Broward County to dedicate the agency's new Miramar headquarters. Special agents who report there are responsible for protecting a territory that spans nine counties, from Key West to Fort Pierce.

The region is important for federal crime fighters: The men who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001 trained to fly here, and suspects in terrorism cases have been convicted in South Florida courts.

In March, Fort Lauderdale police fired three officers and a fourth officer resigned after texts and a video that city leaders called racist and offensive came to light. The scandal prompted the NAACP and defense attorneys to request federal investigations. Prosecutors have dropped charges against arrestees in more than 30 cases and more cases involving those officers are being reviewed.

Following Friday's ceremonies, Comey talked to the Sun Sentinel about those issues and "lone wolves" who may aspire to wreak mayhem.

He also discussed Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, killed in the days after the April, 2013 attacks. Tsarnaev was interviewed by the FBI in 2011 on behalf of an unnamed foreign government that feared he was about to join "underground groups," according to the bureau. The FBI said it found no terrorism activity at that time.

There are reports of investigations into lone-wolf types happening in every state. How worried should America be, and what is the FBI doing about it?

"I think Americans should be comforted knowing that we're working on this all day long, every day. I have a lot of people focused on this in all 50 states and we are covering it, I think, in a good way. It's a challenge for us given how hard it is to spot these people because they're on the Internet, in their homes. But as you can see, we're locking a bunch of them up. So we're making some good progress against this."

Is the FBI getting involved in any investigation of officers on behalf of Fort Lauderdale police?

"We've been in touch with the department, as has the Department of Justice, but I don't want to comment on what we're doing in particular."

What kind of lessons has the bureau learned from the Tsarnaev case?

"Well we've learned a lot of lessons. The first is we did a pretty good job with that investigation, but that we could work better with our partners and our joint terrorism task forces, and then a bunch of things related to our systems. We use every single case as an opportunity to learn and grow and there was learning there. But I think on balance we did a pretty good job there."

What could have been done better?

"One of the issues was local police chiefs felt like they didn't have a clear view of what cases we were closing, in case they wanted to do something additional. So we changed our process so that we now meet in every joint terrorism task force with the local chiefs and review the inventory: 'Here's what came in, here's what we're closing, are there any questions?' That was a very important change."

So more people are watching these lone-wolf suspects?

"Yes. But our relationship with our state and local partners is critical to these investigations. So one of the things that grew out of Boston is we even improved that relationship."

How important is the FBI Miami Division to the bureau's mission?

"FBI Miami is one of the top five offices. Not only are they responsible for all the work that goes on here in South Florida but they are one of my international offices, so they cover kidnappings or counterintelligence matters or counterterrorism matters in the whole hemisphere. So their responsibilities are even broader than they might appear to the people of South Florida."

Is this division going to grow?

"Everything the FBI does we do here in the Miami division and we do it very well, from violent crime to corporate fraud and health care fraud and counterterrorism and drug trafficking and public corruption, all of it is done in this great office. So this is one of my leading offices. It has grown fairly significantly over the last few years. I sent at least a couple dozen new positions here last year and if the threat warrants it, I'll send more. But I don't have anything on my plate right now."

What causes you to lose sleep at night?

"Not much, because I work like a maniac during the day so I need to sleep. I worry a bit about the unknowns, when it comes to travelers to the war zones in Syria and Iraq. Who don't I see? And I worry about the people who may be in their basements radicalizing that I can't see. So those are two big worries of mine. But like I said, we're spending a lot of time working on it, in a good way, I believe."

Ltrischitta@Tribune.com, 954-356-4233 or Twitter @LindaTrischitta

Copyright © 2015, Sun Sentinel

Read the whole story

 

· · ·

Florida Ex-Senator Pursues Claims of Saudi Ties to Sept. 11 Attacks

Monday April 13th, 2015 at 3:12 PM

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MIAMI LAKES, Fla. — The episode could have been a chapter from the thriller written by former Senator Bob Graham of Florida about a shadowy Saudi role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A top F.B.I. official unexpectedly arranges a meeting at Dulles International Airport outside Washington with Mr. Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after he has pressed for information on a bureau terrorism inquiry. Mr. Graham, a Democrat, is then hustled off to a clandestine location, where he hopes for a breakthrough in his long pursuit of ties between leading Saudis and the Sept. 11 hijackers.

FBI News Review

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11/04/15 11:05 from fbi - Google News
ABC News FBI Launches Civil Rights Investigation Over Alleged Beating Video ABC News The FBI has launched a civil rights investigation into a video that appears to show sheriff's deputies beating a man in California after he attempte...

» FBI: ISIS Backers Deface Websites - BankInfoSecurity.com
11/04/15 09:54 from fbi - Google News
BankInfoSecurity.com FBI : ISIS Backers Deface Websites BankInfoSecurity.com Another FBI alert, to members of the FBI -private industry partnership InfraGard, says several extremist hacking groups indicate they would participate in an op...

» FBI probing videotaped beating by San Bernardino deputies - Los Angeles Times
11/04/15 08:30 from fbi - Google News
NBC Southern California FBI probing videotaped beating by San Bernardino deputies Los Angeles Times Ten San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies were placed on paid administrative leave Friday after TV news video showed them beating ...

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11/04/15 05:16 from NYTimes.com Search
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» Tribal water compact supporters maneuvering to move bill to House floor - Montana Standard
11/04/15 04:04 from house judiciary committee - Google News
Tribal water compact supporters maneuvering to move bill to House floor Montana Standard House Minority Leader Chuck Hunter, D-Helena, said Democrats are designating Senate Bill 262 as one of their “silver bullet” bills that require only...

» Tribal water compact supporters already maneuvering to move bill to House floor - Helena Independent Record
11/04/15 02:47 from house judiciary committee - Google News
Helena Independent Record Tribal water compact supporters already maneuvering to move bill to House floor Helena Independent Record House Minority Leader Chuck Hunter, D-Helena, said Democrats are designating Senate Bill 262 as one of th...

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