On Sunday I read an article 
about the connections between some American and a terrorist group in Iran. One American in particular worked for the CIA. Then when it no longer trusted him he moved over to the FBI. When it was reluctant to support one of his adventures he found a willing hand and source of funds in the Defense Department. Just reading the story showed how despite our best efforts our federal intelligence and enforcement communities rather than cooperating are playing games of one-upmanship with each other. This game and lack of coordination reminiscent of how we operated prior to September 11, 2001, will surer than snow this winter be responsible for enabling the next terrorist attack on our shores.
But that’s beside the point, as are the facts in the article that show that rather than taking action against the terrorist group the federal agencies were supporting it. Apparently in the eyes of these government agents it is all right to murder Iranian civilians for that is what this group was doing. It recalled to me a recent comment from my man in Ireland Henry that the federals are two-faced when it comes to terrorism. It’s all right if it is done against people we don’t like; or if it pleases a significant in-favor ethnic group in the country such as the Irish or Cubans, but is not when done by some misguided young kids who do nothing more than seek to join ISIS.
I was not surprised reading that but what struck me most in the article, which shows the media’s lack of understanding of the on-going situation in America, was the article’s reference to Whitey Bulger. Here’s what it said:
“Still, the risk of such arrangements [with the terrorist] is that atrocities committed by people working with the United States could be seen as sanctioned by the government. In Guatemala, for example, a military officer working with the C.I.A. ordered the killing of an American citizen in 1990. When that came to light, it became a major scandal that forced the C.I.A. to review its entire informant network. The F.B.I., too, has a checkered history in this area. In one widely publicized case, F.B.I. agents in Boston used the mobster James (Whitey) Bulger as an informant, even as he and his gang committed murder. That scandal led the F.B.I. to rewrite its rules, which now require extensive record keeping and scrutiny of informants who commit crimes.”
The sense I get from reading that is that the FBI’s use of Whitey was an outlier done in Boston. That is the myth that the FBI has successfully put out. The truth is what happened in Boston happened in many other FBI offices throughout the country. That is a matter that has yet to be investigated. To this date we do not know how many Top Echelon Informants of the FBI were committing murders while working with the FBI. We only know in Boston there were at least three and of several others in New York, Cleveland and Chicago. All of these were approved by the bosses at FBI headquarters.
Worse, there is the pretense that the FBI rewrote it rules and the practice stopped. We know that is false. Back in 2011 the FBI had a Top Echelon Informant named Mark Rossetti who is supposed to have been involved in several murders.
What we don’t know and as a nation we should know is how many informants the FBI used who were murderers and continue to murder while working with the FBI. We should know how the FBI protected these informants. We should also know how many is it using today.
We saw in all the proceedings surrounding the Wolf hearings in 1997 that the FBI had all the proper rules and records in place but it never enforced them. There is no reason to think that it is doing that today. Until once and for all the Top Echelon Program is exposed to the light of day, which it probably never will be because of the enormous liability the United States would incur if sued by all those families who lost loved ones because the FBI was protecting their murderers, there is every reason in the world to believe the FBI is still working hand-in-hand with murderers to the detriment of all us American citizens just as it has done in the past.
Matt, as for that Barney Fife, hick sheriff from Tulsa Oklahoma, he was paranoid and prejudiced against the FBI as many local law enforcement types are: interdepartmental rivalries and jealousies. 1. the hick sheriff went to a Family Law judge, not the Grand Jury, to get a warrant to arrest Paul Rico and then was the cheerleader and poster boy persecuting Rico; 2. the hick hated city slickers and when he first met John Connolly he said Connolly looked like A Mafia Man. 3. He was prejudiced against FBI agents and Big City cops from the get-go. 4. He had zero comprehension that FBI agents were instructed to protect their Informants from idiotic locals. 5. As for Connolly frustrating the hicks’ investigations, the hick was a bull in a China Shop and Connolly had everyone reason not to credit his theories, which then seemed like narrow minded country hillbilly bluster. 6. I’d refrain from using that discredited local sheriff riding his high horse to impugn anyone’s character. Sincerely, brother Bill, just another Savin Hill Billy.
William:
It wasn’t who you call “the hick” who asked for assistance on the investigation of the Wheeler homicide it was the FBI office in Tulsa. Both requests went to Agent Connolly. He closed both of them out without doing anything that was requested.
I believe that this story attributed to Winston Churchill applies here:
Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?”
Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… ”
Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”
Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!”
Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price”
How is this relevant?
Well, once you have established that a sworn law enforcement officer at any level is willing to look the other way when a crime is committed, why are we quibbling about the severity of the crime?
Ed:
Life isn’t that easy or simple.
Try it.
The question is this: Was the FBI policy of telling TE informants that they could continue crimes, but “no violence” followed? To determine it was not followed you would have to identify a Top Echelon Informant (TEI), determine that he committed violent crimes while he was an informant (or murdered while he was an informant) and third and most importantly the FBI knew—knew—he was committing violent crimes or murder, and did nothing about it. In the 1980s, the FBI did not know that Whitey or Flemmi were continuing to murder. I’ve seen zero evidence that the FBI, State Police, Local Police or anyone in Journalism linked a specific murder victim with a specific murderer. If the FEDs, State Police, or Local Police knew that an informant was continuing to kill, they were under an affirmative duty to arrest him. Remember, too, that as far as recruiting informants who had committed past murders, every Mafiosa made-man is said to have committed murders. So, to recruit anyone inside the Mafia, you presumed you were dealing with a killer, a murderer. The question is who in the FBI knew that a specific Informant while an informant committed a specific murder while he was an informant. That last question pertains to the past informants and present ones. John Connolly always said that if he had known any of his informants had committed murder while they were informants he would have arrested them. I’m sure that all FBI agents, excluding admitted crooks like Morris, would confirm that. I’m sure that State Police and Local police who use informants would immediately arrest any informant they knew committed a murder while he was an informant. Of course, people looking back 20 to 40 years, like to stone throws and pretend they would have acted differently under the circumstances. Monday morning quarterbacking always involved 20-20 vision.
William:
1. It wouldn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out Wheeler, O’Halloran and Callahan murders were connected. You must remember the Boston FBI office refused to help the Tulsa FBI investigate the Wheeler murder and Connolly twice buried requests from that office for its help. You also forget that Connolly himself said he knew Whitey and Flemmi were murderers and said that was who the FBI had him working for.
2. The horror is the FBI recruited murderers to work with it. It had no reason to believe they would not continue the course of life that they had been on. The FBI was quite cute in shutting its eyes to the acts of its informants. You have FBI agents Condon and Rico recruiting of all people Stevie Flemmi’s brother who they knew was a murderer and who there were reports on where he said he wanted to be the top hit man for the Mafia. When asked about it both said they did not remember recruiting him. I suppose if they were asked further they’d have said they would have arrested him.
Matt, you feign shock that murderers were recruited as Informants. Every made Mafia man was a killer and many throughout the country were used as informants. The FBI stated and written policy was past murderers could be used as informants, but they were officially informed “no more violence.” You do not suggest that no gangster who ever murdered should ever be used as an informant, do you? Do you not appreciate the fact that John Connolly knew that most of his informants were murderers (past murderers, as all of the made men in the Mafia were) but that he did not know of any then current murders they had committed while TEIs, nor did the State Police or Local Police? Not a difficult concept to grasp. I take exception to your insinuation that only Connolly or only the FBI knew that their informants were continuing to murder in the 1980s, when the State Police or Local Police did not. You can’t argue the State or Locals did, because if they did they were under a duty to arrest. Arrests were not made for one simple fact: no one knew with reasonable certitude (probable cause) who killed whom back in the 1980s. 2. It’s simply wrong to write that Connolly knew Flemmi was a murderer without distinguishing past murders from on-going murdering. The FBI knew no more than the State Cops or local DAs, all of whom knew they were dealing with murderers when recruiting informants, none of whom sanctioned or condoned continuing murderers; any State Cop or Local cop who knew someone killed someone else was under a duty to arrest them. Why didn’t the Norfolk DA or Suffolk DA arrest these men in the 1980s? Come on!. Because the DAs, State Cops and Local Cops simply did not know. 3. If you are implying John Connolly knew Flemmi or Bulger were involved in the killing of Callahan, Castucci and Halloran, then you are simply ignoring the fact that the Boston Federal Jury acquitted Connolly of any involvement in those murders. Not guilty! Innocent! It’s not fair to continue to accuse, to pretend you know better than the jury. 4. You can disagree with a jury verdict until you are blue in the face, but all the so-called “evidence” of Connolly’s involvement has been amply aired in public, and he has been fully acquitted. Not guilty. End of the story. 5. So let’s stop throwing mud at people by innuendo: it’s ridiculous to argue that they all should have known—the federales, the staties, the local police—-because we now know forty years after the fact who killed who in the 1980s. 6. If law enforcement people knew then, why was nobody arrested? Who else knew? No one in the DA offices, no one in the State Police, no one in the local police, no reporter. No one, except the killers themselves, who carefully concealed their killings. 7. The FBI did not have handcuffs on the local police nor state police, although the FBI did on occasion frustrate a few local investigations to keep TEI’s out of jail. Why didn’t the Staties or locals make arrests? Blame Bush? The FBI did not have muzzles on the press. Where are the press releases proclaiming who killed whom? Blame Bush? The simple fact is no one knew back then. Not you, not I —although we heard street talk and rumors—-not the authorities, federal or state. 8. We all found out at the same time who killed homw: when Martorano and Flemmi started testifying in the late 1990s or early 2000s, ten years after Connolly retired. The killers carefully concealed their murders. 9. The DAs didn’t know then, nor did the State Cops nor the Local Cops. 10. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. 11. It’s too easy to say in 2014 that Mr. X in 1980 should have known what nobody else knew in 1980. Insinuations are a bad form of character assassination. 10. You certainly would not like it if people started writing that Delahunt must have known Martorano, a fellow Miltonite, killed x, y and z back in the 1970s and 1980s, and did nothing about it. To do so would not be just to accuse Delahunt of malfeasance in office, but complicity in murder. It’s easy to throw stones. John Connolly is an innocent as Bill Delahunt.
William:
What the state or local police may have done is not relevant. I’m concerned with the FBI and its Top Echelon Informant program. I suggest that the FBI should not have had a secret program where it allied itself with people with reputations for murdering people on a long term basis and as part of it agreeing to protect them from other law enforcement agencies.
2. Flemmi was not a state or local informant. I don’t know of any state or locals who were murderers. I believe it is extremely naive to take a guy who was as past murderer (he had been indicted for that and for blowing up a car) and think if you offer him protection he will not continue his past exploits. The Top Echelon Informant program was corrupt from its inception. Jury verdicts prove little. Remember OJ Simpson. Plus a jury in Florida convicted Connolly of murdering Callahan so the argument about a Boston jury only goes so far. No one has to agree with a jury. You certainly don’t with the Florida jury. Plus Boston jury never heard from Whitey’s partner Flemmi which would have been additional evidence that may have changed its mind. I’m not talking about what we know now, I’m talking about what was known then.
Let me ask you as simple question: “Why did Whitey murder Brian Halloran?” Answer that and all things begin to fall into place.