In 1988 – I place the time then because it was in that year that the Boston Globe came out with the Spotlight Team article on the Bulger brothers – I received a call from Kevin Cullen a Globe columnist. I’d talked to Kevin on occasion over the years. This time he wanted to know if I thought Whitey Bulger was an FBI informant. Without hesitation I said no. He didn’t offer any reason for asking. I forget if I explained why I did not believe it. But had I, my answer would have been simply that it is law enforcement 101 that you don’t have a person who is the leader of a criminal enterprise and who is believed to be a cold vicious killer as in informant. I thought no more of his question until the Spotlight Team article appeared wherein it said that Whitey Bulger seemed to have a special relationship with the FBI.
Even reading that I did not give much credence to it, I figured the Globe was trying to figure out why Whitey seemed an untouchable and that was the best explanation they could come up with. I believed Whitey was an extremely disciplined guy, rarely drank and if he did very little, spoke to one or two other people and never in a location where he could be overheard. I knew from the cops who had a bug in his condo that when he went into it he always turned the music up to hide the conversations. Little did I know the Globe had two FBI agents telling the Globe he was an FBI informant. One, John Morris, then working in the Boston FBI office told the Globe hoping to get Whitey killed; the other, Robert Fitzpatrick, a retired former ASAC in Boston who told the Globe because he wanted to get revenge on the Boston FBI office.
I continued in my little world thinking that the FBI was on the level and would never, ever, in a million years have Whitey as an informant. Prosecutorial investigative basics lesson one was you work up the ladder. You don’t start at the top and work down. Just the thought of using Whitey reminded of the time when the DA before Delahunt used a drug dealer to squeal on all his users; the dealer got a good disposition for turning in his customers. I thought it was an absurd but those were the days when drug use was rare and you could garner a good headline by arresting a dozen people for drug possession.
When I learned in 1998 from Judge Wolf’s hearings that Whitey was in fact an FBI informant I had a hard time believing it. Even worse the FBI had his partner Stevie Flemmi another vicious killer along for the free ride. What was the FBI thinking I wondered. It seemed to me the FBI had turned the business upside down, they were getting the big criminals to squeal on the little criminals. The criminals had taken over the business. I couldn’t figure out how it had happened.
I tried to figure it out. I realized I did not know the identities of the informants of the investigators who worked with me. Maybe the FBI did not know they were informants of John Connolly. Maybe Connolly wandered off the ranch in signing them up?
By the time Connolly’s trial arrived the fact of the matter was still obscure to me. At his trial I heard Connolly’s supervisor testify that he and many others in the Bureau up to the Director knew Whitey and Stevie were FBI informants. Connolly had the approval to use them. I figured then that the knowledge was limited to a few misguided individuals on a need-to-know basis until a witness named Ford testified. He used to work in the Boston FBI office as a file clerk. He said knowledge of Whitey’s status was so widespread in the office among the clerical staff that he went to Connolly to tell him about it. Connolly told him not to worry and then added that Stevie Flemmi was also his informant.
It became clear to me that if the staff of the office knew, then every agent in the Boston who had worked there over the fifteen years Whitey and Stevie were informants had to know this. It would turn out that the knowledge went far beyond the Boston office, as it would in any event with the transfer in and out of the office of agents, but right up through the chain of command to the Director, the assistant directors, and the agents in charge of all criminal investigations. The widespread knowledge of this is shown in a recent book by a retired agent Fitzpatrick, Betrayal, the same one mentioned above who broke the FBI most sacred code of protecting the identity of informants. (I’ll stick to the FBI now but it was also known to at least on prosecutor in the US Attorney’s office, Jeremiah O’Sullivan.)
How was it then that upwards of a thousand FBI agents knew Whitey and Stevie were informants whose reputations made it clear that they were cruel and heartless criminals and the leaders of an evil murderous group of individuals who controlled the bookmakers, the drugs, and were involved in the crimes associated with these activities such as leg breaking, extortion and loan sharking yet no one in the FBI had any problem with it?
How is it that no one spoke out publicly when it was known that the job of an FBI agent is to protect his informants? These thousand or so of FBI agents knew Whitey and Stevie had become part of their team yet no one cried out foul. These were men whose job it was to investigate and stop criminal activity, not to empower it.
A clue to this comes from one of the top FBI criminal investigators, Bill Roemer who spent his career in the FBI and who wrote several books about the Mafia. He had this to say: “The FBI is the greatest law enforcement organization in the world. And Mr. Hoover was the greatest law enforcement administrator of all time. He had his idiosyncrasies, and he was a tough man to work for. But as I often said then, “If you don’t want to work for the man, don’t, just get out.”
He went on explaining: “He wouldn’t tolerate mistakes because they detracted from the reputation of the Bureau. And that was the reputation he worked hard to build and maintain.”
Roemer pretty much spelled out what it was to work for Hoover. You toe the line and protect the FBI’s reputation because that was Hoover’s reputation. He mentions nothing about Hoover wanting them to do a good job investigating cases. It was all about image. In a previous post I spoke about the First Commandment of the FBI, “Don’t Embarrass the Family.” The many hundreds of agents kept their mouths shut and let their Bureau become partners with criminals because their first loyalty was not to the American people but to their agency. It is difficult reconciling that with the idea it was “the greatest law enforcement organization in the world” as it and the true believers in Congress keep telling us.
One aspect of this blog is to attempt to understand how so many good, intelligent and courageous men (and most of the agents during Hoover’s 48 year reign were men) were turned into people who appeared to value Omerta above the truth or fidelity to the organization before their integrity. Unless we understand this, we won’t understand Whitey’s upcoming trial.
Nothing to do with Jimmy directly, but it seems FBI “confidential informants” are everywhere — soon you begin to ask how much of what they’re reporting they are actually causing.
The latest:
The man who gave the Black Panther Party some of its first firearms and weapons training – which preceded fatal shootouts with Oakland police in the turbulent 1960s – was an undercover FBI informer, according to a former bureau agent and an FBI report.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Activist-Richard-Aoki-named-as-informant-3800133.php
I tend to view the FBI as a component of our criminal justice system.
As a voter and taxpayer as well as a primary consumer of the criminal justice system I am concerned about how my tax dime is spent.
When I think FBI I think law enforcement as well as courts and prisons.
From 1989-2002 we organized a conference in New England looking at a wide variety of crimes committed by FBI agents.It was held at Boston University the first year then moved to Bates College in Lewiston Maine for the next 11 years. The last year in 2002 it was held at the University of Maine in Farmington Maine.
What I learned from these experiences and what drives my consciousness currently is working to move American society toward embracing a model of Restorative Justice.
I am also working to have voters and taxpayers take direct control
of their criminal justice system through the use of volunteer civilian controlled review boards that set standards for the police, courts and prisons while have subpoena powers to enforce those standards as well as hire and fire personnel.
Last but not least I am working to create a curriculum where law is taught in grades 1-12 so when you graduate from high school you can pass the Mass Bar Exam.
The organizational model for this system is designed to empower voters and taxpayers to become smart criminal justice consumers. Think PTA.
I am also concerned about the evolution of the human species and how its evolution is shaped by the institutions it creates.
I want to see a criminal justice system that allows a community to deal with violence and aggression not contract it out to 3rd party vendors.
a species that hires bodyguards to protect them looses the ability to protect itself and is doomed to extinction
Couple back stories to this puff piece blog on the Boston FBI
The New York FBI office recently tried to have single mom forensic investigator Angela Clemente killed when sh had the Brooklyn DA file murder charges against FBI agent Lyndley DeVecchio
google angela clemente strangled fbi
It seems Matt Conolly has been missing in action since the President Kennedy -Martin Luther King assassination.
For prima facie evidence linking FBI agents to helping assassinate both men google
mlk fbi mafia
google
jfk fbi mafia
also google
mlk rockwell douglass
To view over 300 pages of crimes committed by FBI agents including a 9 page long list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia google
fbi watch rigorous intuition forum data dump
also google
san diego tribune forums fbi watch
also google
goupstate forum news a day in the life of a taxpayer funded crime family
I’ve read the stories about the FBI involvement in the JFK and MLK assassinations and 9/11. I’ve read about Angela Clemente. There are lots of theories about the FBI and those matters. I don’t have the time to conduct a thorough examination of them. Other authors have already taken on that challenge. As with anything to do with the FBI, you only learn what it wants you to learn.
This blog is about the Whitey Bulger matters. I’m trying to deal with that. There are lots of things I’m going to omit. I like to stick to the case before me. But thanks for commenting because you gave me a chance to do some more critical thinking about what I want to say about the FBI. My feeling now is that most of its agents are good, dedicated Americans. There will always be a few bad apples in any group. The FBI has done good work at times but on other occasions one has to shake his or her head. We know very little about its foibles because of the way its structured. I hope to talk about some of these things as I go along.
Any understanding of what happened with the Whitey Bulger case
has to be looked at in light of the organizational model of the FBI.
In some circles it has been long understood the organizational model of the FBI was that of a death squad posing as a law enforcement agency.
If I am correct about this then the next logical question to follow is:
How do you shut down the FBI?
Was the FBI action in Boston comparable to what they did in NY? There they used Sammy Gravano, a reputed vicious killer as an informant to get at high ranking Gambino crime family nembers including Gotti. Didn’t they put the top 40 Mafia guys in NY in jail? They traded one killer for 40. That is trading up. In Boston they did the same thing using 2 bad guys to get many made men. In Iran they have some nuts who are Holocaust deniers. In Boston they have many Mafia deniers. Fitzpatrick asserts that the Winter hill gang was bigger than the Mafia.It had 20 members and hundreds of associates he claims. The cable tv program on the Luchesse family (one of the 5 in NY) claims 105 made men and more than 1000 associates. The Mafia dwarfed Winter Hill, that is why there was a national program to go after LCN. It had nothing to do with ethnicity as is claimed in “Betrayal” 2. What punishment was metered out to Gotti’s wife or Gigante’s wife or Anguillo’s, Salemme’s, Winter’s or Martorano’s wives? What about Bin Laden’s spouse? The answer is none. The only wives or girlfriends who are prosecuted and recieve a harsh sentence are women connected to South Boston. Grieg and Gianelli get 8 years for minor offenses. Why the disparate treatment? Were their civil rights violated ? Equal protection of the Law doesn’t apply in Southie? A Special Counsel is needed to look into this. 3. It would appear that the 2 worst cops of the last 25 years are Morris and Schneiderham. If this is so how do you account for Foley’s Promethean effort to get Connolly and his lack of enthusiasm in the Schneiderham matter. Did he even bother to testify against Schneiderham? He was fooled by the FBI as a young trooper but he’s not young when Schneiderham is arrested. The effort by Foley and others to portray the FBI as bad is substantial but they are blase about Schneideham’s much worse conduct in compromising Naimovich. Did the State Police bosses have a guilt complex after they betrayed innocent Naimovich? Does that explain the vitriol toward the FBI? Why is Connolly in jail and Morris and Schneideham aren’t? Did Wyshak trade up or down when he let Morris go and chased Connolly? It was all political.
CNN exclusive: FBI misconduct reveals sex, lies and videotape
By Scott Zamost and Kyra Phillips, CNN Special Investigations Unit
January 27, 2011
Washington (CNN) — An FBI employee shared confidential information with his girlfriend, who was a news reporter, then later threatened to release a sex tape the two had made.
A supervisor watched pornographic videos in his office during work hours while “satisfying himself.”
And an employee in a “leadership position” misused a government database to check on two friends who were exotic dancers and allowed them into an FBI office after hours.
These are among confidential summaries of FBI disciplinary reports obtained by CNN, which describe misconduct by agency supervisors, agents and other employees over the last three years.
I have no reason to doubt anything you wrote about. Put 14,000 to 15,000 men and women (mostly men) into any environment and you’ll get a little bit of everything. For every FBI agent who strayed there are many who didn’t. You’ll note as I go along is that I do not want to focus on the agents or any specific actions, although I will at times, but upon the environment these agents worked in. I’m first going to try to get a good idea of what Hoover was like and the environment those under him worked in. My goal is to try to figure what was it in the FBI that caused it to create a monster like Whitey — I think it involved more than sex takes, or porno videos, or involvement with exotic dancers.
I hope to alert some people as I have done in previous blogs of the great unconstitutional powers which I believe the FBI is using. I do not want to sweep too broad a brush.
We can only hope you tell us what you hope to accomplish by
writing this blog about Whitey Bulger.
In effect give of some standards of performance we can use to judge your writing with.
See earlier comment on the purpose of the blog
Let me know when you decide to discuss the psychological implications to a species when they hire bodyguards to protect them.
Do they loose the ability to protect themselves?
You sound like the only person in the country that missed seeing the documentary called THE SECRET FILES ON J EDGAR HOOVER aired on Frontline in 1993.
The documentary is famous for the interview with Mrs Rosensteil
who claims to have seen Hoover having sex with “young boys”
She claims that Hoover was dressed in drag and called himself Mary.
G Gordon Liddy and Vice President Mondale appear in this documentary
discussing how the FBI blackmails members of Congress.
see http://zomobo.net/play.php?id=lFBxvpmzkfQ
In the mid 1990’s we brought Leonard Gates to speak at our conference.
Gates was committing voter fraud for the FBI during the 1970-80’s
see http://www.thelandesreport.com/Donsanto.htm
Any wonder Congress calls the FBI great?
I didn’t see the documentary, I read books about J. Edgar Hoover and cross-dressing and chasing boys around. I don’t believe them. He always made a good target for stories and the mob was always happy to try to denigrate him. There is a book out called From the Secret files of J. Edgar Hoover by Athan Theoharis. I read it a while ago and did not find much in it. We all know hHoover had a close relationship with Clyde Tolson. some said it was a homosexual relationship but that’s really their business. I’m trying to look at the effect his personality had on the Bureau and his sexual preferences don’t play into it.
I went to the library system to check my memory of the book and I see there is a new book out called “Enemies: A History of the FBI.” I’m not too happy about it because it looks like a good book so I’ll have to add it to my reading list. I read about Gates. He has an interesting point of view. Where I vote the ballots are still on paper so the FBI can’s affect my ballot unless they’ve put some coating on the ballot that makes my vote fade away before it is counted. If Gates is correct that the FBI is controlling our elections, I can’t figure out what side they would be on or do they leave it to the individual SACs. I’ll look at it more but maybe I’m too naive to believe it.
As far as the FBI and Congress, there is no doubt in my mind that Congress is subservient to it. The Church hearings in the ’70s were the only attempt to reign it in and the hearings took place because J. Edgar Hoover had died and the FBI was vulnerable. I’ll be writing about the hearings into the Boston FBI by the Committee on Oversight about ten years ago and how that spun out of control. The FBI is extremely powerful. It’s not only the present agents but the tens of thousands of retired agents that cheer it on like its a football team. It’ll never change much but I think with a few adjustments it can become better and the American people a little safer.
Thanks for your interest.
I tend to view your blog as a psychological soup kitchen for the FBI/ Whitet Bulger down and out , did I mention oppressed?
An active barometer of how out of touch people working in the judiciary
are with the real FBI is the book written by North Carolina attorney Alec Charns called CLOAK and GAVEL. Charns using FOIA request documents from the FBI shows the FBI illegally phone tapping the US Supreme Court to effect the outcome of cases as well as rigging who gets appointed to sit on the Supreme Court.
Any useful discussion of the FBI must begin with a definition of the organizational model of the FBI, eh?
Warning: I am going to segue now.
Sitting under your very nose in Quincy Mass is a national treasure,
Ed Tatro ,who has followed and researched the President Kennedy assassination since he was a college student.
Tatro recently retired as an English teacher at Quincy High School after 30 years of teaching.
Back in the 1990’s I contacted Ed to arrange a meeting between him and Allan Witwer, a man who ran the Del Charo Motel in California for the oil millionaire Clint Murchison.
Hoover and his lover Tolson spent their summers at the Del Charo while Hoover would gamble at the nearby Del Mar race track.
Heads of organized crime families would sit at nearby tables
when Hoover ate at the Del Charo.
Witwer was present when Murchison helped plan the assassination of President Kennedy.
In 1995 Ed Tatro scripted the last show in a 9 part series called THE MEN WHO KILLED KENNEDY which provides prima facie evidence for Hoover,
Murchison and Lyndon Johnson assassinating President Kennedy.
Shortly after airing the show the History Channel pulled it off the air
and refuse to sell the video but you can watch the program on youtube
Google the guilty men jfk youtube
Watch the 45 minute version. Tatro appears in the film.
Give Tatro a call. Tell him I sent you.
Thanks. I’ll do that but it may take a bit. I’d like to talk to Tatro. Ill try to track him down. I’ve read about Hoover and Clint Murchison and Del Mar racetrack. Hoover was a first class free loader having a special cabin set aside for himself an Tolson at Del Charo. I know both men loved the horses.
You probably picked up one of my earlier posts where I expressed concern about the new powers the FBI has been given by our courts that seem to forget there’s a Fourth Amendment. The agents can now demand anyone who deals with you to turn over whatever records they have on you. They don’t even have to open a file to do it. We used to think that stuff was for dictatorships and third world countries and we could depend on our courts to stop it. But the judges seem to be getting more and more out of touch — I suppose it had to happen when you start given people guaranteed life time jobs.
Over $200 million dollars in civil lawsuits have been filed against taxpayer funded FBI agents in the Boston FBI Crime Family office whose head capo is special agent tricky dicky DeSauliers..
Congress will not do anything,
You do know what to do, eh?
Yeah , reach in your pocket and take out your wallet.,
You know the drill fool.
see
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/09-1950/09-1950p-01a-2011-02-28.html
2 reads
1st read
see link for full story
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/09/13/judge-opens-window-for-family-suit-against-fbi-for-whitey-bulger-misdeeds/EZ7P0zErkoAIKQHhgsKJlI/story.html
Judge opens window for family’s suit against FBI over Whitey Bulger misdeeds
09/13/2012
By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff
A federal judge has opened a window for the family of one of James “Whitey” Bulger’s alleged victims to continue with a federal lawsuit against FBI agents who monitored the notorious gangster when he was a prized informant.
US District Judge William G. Young said Thursday in a 32-page ruling that a lawsuit against the agents can continue in spite of an appeals court ruling last year that dismissed a claim that the family had brought against the federal government.
In that ruling, the First US Court of Appeals found that the family of homicide victim Michael Donahue and the family of another one of Bulger’s alleged victims did not file a claim against the government before a federal statute of limitations had expired.
The ruling effectively vacated multimillion-dollar judgments the families had won that found that that the government was responsible for the agents allowing Bulger to commit murder. The family of Brian Halloran unsuccesfuly petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear the case. Donahue’s family meanwhile asked for Young to consider the case against the agents.
2nd read
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/formerly-gagged-fbi-whist_b_269787.html
August 27, 2009
Formerly-‘Gagged’ FBI Whistleblower Details Congressional Blackmail, Bribery, Espionage, Corruption in Remarkable Videotaped Deposition
Sibel Edmonds’ full under-oath testimony transcript from Ohio election case, details explosive allegations against key members of Congress and other high-ranking State and Defense Department officials…
Just over two weeks ago, FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was finally allowed to speak about much of what the Bush Administration spent years trying to keep her from discussing publicly on the record. Twice gagged by the Bush Dept. of Justice’s invocation of the so-called “State Secrets Privilege,” Edmonds has been attempting to tell her story, about the crimes she became aware of while working for the FBI, for years.
Thanks to a subpoena issued by the campaign of Ohio’s 2nd District Democratic U.S. Congressional candidate David Krikorian, her remarkable allegations of blackmail, bribery, espionage, infiltration, and criminal conspiracy by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials, and agents of the government of Turkey are seen and heard here, in full, for the first time, in her under-oath deposition. Both the complete video tape and transcript of the deposition follow below.
Though there was much concern, prior to her testimony, that the Obama Dept. of Justice might re-invoke the “State Secrets Privilege” to keep her from speaking, they did not do so. Nor did they choose to be present at the Washington D.C. deposition.
The BRAD BLOG covered details of some of Edmonds’ startling disclosures made during the deposition, as it happened, in our live blog coverage from August 8th. The deposition included criminal allegations against specifically named members of Congress. Among those named by Edmonds as part of a broad criminal conspiracy: Reps. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA), as well as an unnamed, still-serving Congresswoman (D) said to have been secretly videotaped, for blackmail purposes, during a lesbian affair.
High-ranking officials from the Bush Administration named in her testimony, as part of the criminal conspiracy on behalf of agents of the Government of Turkey, include Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Marc Grossman, and others.
During the deposition — which we are still going through ourselves — Edmonds discusses covert “activities” by Turkish entities “that would involve trying to obtain very sensitive, classified, highly classified U.S. intelligence information, weapons technology information, classified Congressional records…recruiting key U.S. individuals with access to highly sensitive information, blackmailing, bribery.”
Speaking about current members of Congress during a break in the testimony, Krikorian told The BRAD BLOG that “for people in power situations in the United States, who know about this information, if they don’t take action against it, in my opinion, it’s negligence.” (More video statements from Krikorian, Edmonds and attorneys from all parties, taped before, during, and after the 8/8/09 testimony, are available here.)
Edmonds’ on-the-record disclosures also include bombshell details concerning outed covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s front company, Brewster Jennings. Edmonds alleges the front company had actually been shut down in August of 2001 — three years prior to Bob Novak’s public disclosure of the covert operative’s identity — following a tip-off to a wire-tap target about the true nature of the CIA front company. The cover was blown, Edmonds alleges, by Marc Grossman, who was, at the time, the third highest-ranking official in the U.S. State Department. Prior to that, Grossman served as ambassador to Turkey. He now works “for a Turkish company called Ihals Holding,” according to Edmonds’ testimony.
An unclassified FBI Inspector General’s report, released on her case in 2005, declared Edmonds’ classified allegations to be “credible,” “serious,” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI.” In 2002, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), then the senior members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, co-wrote letters on Edmonds’ behalf to Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and DoJ Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, calling on all of them to take action in respect to her allegations. And in a 2002 60 Minutes report on Edmonds’ case, Grassley noted: “Absolutely, she’s credible…And the reason I feel she’s very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.”
The 8/8/09 deposition was brought by Krikorian as part of his defense in a case filed against him before the Ohio Election Commission (OEC) by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH). The 2nd district Congresswoman has accused Krikorian, an Armenian-American who ran against her as an independent in 2008, of “false statements” during the campaign last year alleging that she had accepted “blood money” from Turkish interests. Krikorian says that Schmidt, co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Committee, accepted more money from Turkish interests during last year’s campaign than any other member of Congress, despite few, if any, ethnic Turks among her local constituency. He has suggested she may have been instrumental in helping to hold off a Congressional vote on a long-proposed, much-disputed resolution declaring the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during WWI as a “genocide” by the Turks.
Edmonds herself happens to be a Turkish-American, though she was recently attacked by the Turkish Lobby, following her long-sought, long-blocked testimony.
The complete transcript of Sibel Edmonds’ under-oath testimony, may now be downloaded here [PDF]. The complete video-taped testimony follows, in five parts, below…
The Edmonds case is very interesting. I should know more about it than I do. The use of the “State’s Secret Privilege” or re-classifying things as top secret to keep them from the public has become quite common. I believe the Administration says any information about drones is top secret and it won’t admit we are even flying them. It all runs contrary to having an informed electorate but at least we still have the right to speak out until the day comes when it will be made unlawful to criticize the government. I knew about the decision of Judge Young but have not commented on it because I did not read it.
The money being given out by the courts is outrageous. The huge sums are meant as punishment to the government for having an out of control FBI yet no one in the FBI other than one agent is punished. Of course, punishing the government is punishing the taxpayer. It makes no sense. If the judges had to pay out of their own pockets they wouldn’t be so free with the money. I can’t figure out why someone gets a hundred million for being locked up for thirty years, it’s not that the guy was going to earn three million a year. A couple of million would be more than generous. But when judges and juries play with other peoples money it becomes like monopoly money.
1/ I’m not familiar at this point with NY. The FBI in Boston protected two known murderers for over 15 years who have admitted to upwards of 19 murders. The 2 informants Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi were not necessary to bring down Gerry Angiuolo’s operation. Quinn had already written his affidavit when Morris told him to rewrite it to include Whitey and Stevie so that Morris and Connolly could tip them off to stay away from 98 Prince Street. It’s difficult to put a finger on how many Mafia people Whitey and Bulger were responsible for bringing to justice.
2/ I know of no Mafia deniers. Fitzpatrick was right that the Mafia in the Boston area was not as large as the Winter Hill group. Nationwide it was obviously larger. No one disputes that. I would be equally unhappy with the FBI if it had Gerry Angiuolo and Larry Zannino as top level informants.
3/ It wasn’t Fitspatrick that suggested it was an ethnic thing. That was Connolly’s pitch to Whitey that he should rat out the Italians and then the Irish gangsters could take over.
4./ Greig’s sentence I believe was excessive. What I learned abouy Gianelli “Mary Ann Gianelli pleaded guilty to 19 counts of racketeering, money laundering, filing false tax returns, and illegal structuring of cash transactions. Under a plea agreement, the government dropped an additional 141 money laundering counts against her.” The Globe also reported, “Prosecutors said they would recommend an 18-month jail term. Her lawyer said he would recommend probation with a period of house arrest.” I don’t know what she got but it was far from 8 years.
5./ The idea that there is a federal conspiracy against Southie I don’t believe. Whitey waa a vicious, cold blooded murderer who had killed at least 19 people, two of them women.
6./ Foley is a good cop who had an excellent career. My only bone with him is I suggest he had a blind spot with respect to Naimovich but so did most of the atate police. Foley did testify against Schneiderhan. I think Foley believed Connolly was much worse than Schneiderahn. I’m not so sure that was the case.
7./ Schneiderhan did not compromise Naimovich. It was the FBI crew of Ring and Connolly that did that along with some state troopers.
8./ Morris agreed to cooperate with Wyshak; Connolly refused to cooperate. Wyshak took what he had offered him.
Couple years back I attended the Congressional hearings held in Boston about the Boston FBI-Bulger collaboration called Murderers R US.
Congress issued their report called
108th Congress 2d Session HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Report
108-414
_______________________________________________________________________
Union Calendar No. 237
EVERYTHING SECRET DEGENERATES: THE FBI’S USE OF MURDERERS AS INFORMANTS
———-
THIRD REPORT
by the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
What transpired in Boston did not happen in a vacuum.
I suggest people do some reading.
a 6 page long single spaced annotated bibliography exists on page 1 of the post titled FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE
at rigporousintuition dot ca in their forum section titled data dump
I read the report of the Committee on Government Reform. I intend to discuss it. You’ll note that after outlining all of the horrible things the FBI agents did the Congress Committee early on in its report said: “The United States Department of Justice is, without a doubt, the finest federal law enforcement organization in the world. The men and women of the Justice Department are dedicated, professional public servants. The
integrity of the vast majority of these men and women is beyond reproach.”
How will anything ever change with that attitude that it is not the institution and the way it operates that produces these results but a few bad men in the institution. Year after year when abuses are revealed the bottom line is the FBI is the greatest organization in the world. I’ll write about this but we’ve got to stop fooling ourselves. As i said earlier no organization can be great when its first principle is to keep everything it does that may be wrong secret.