FBI Officials Could Face Charges Over Ruby Ridge

WASHINGTON - Four months after the disastrous 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, federal prosecutors in Idaho sent an urgent request to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

A frustrated prosecutor was trying to build a murder case against the white separatists involved in the standoff and needed to review FBI records. But he ran into an unusual problem. The FBI refused to produce the materials, claiming at first that they contained "sensitive information" about the events that led to the shooting deaths of Vicki Weaver and her son at a remote Idaho cabin.

The prosecutor appealed and his boss called a high-ranking Justice Department official to complain about the lack of FBI cooperation.

What seemed at the time like a bureaucratic tug of war over paperwork now has taken on new significance as U.S. Attorney Eric Holder probes a possible high-level cover-up of FBI actions at Ruby Ridge. A Justice Department task force report concluded last year that high-ranking FBI officials went to great lengths to keep documents from prosecutors trying Randy Weaver on charges of murdering a federal marshal.

Evidence of files destroyed

Most of the bureau officials criticized by the task force for failing to produce documents, including former Deputy Director Larry Potts, have now been suspended pending Holder's investigation.

The task force also found evidence that a number of documents sought by prosecutors may have been destroyed - not just the one

document that the Justice Department has privately acknowledged, according to sources. One FBI official has been suspended for destroying a record that could have shed light on the use of deadly force against the Weaver family. The task force cited missing faxes, notes from headquarters and drafts of the operations plan for the siege.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., yesterday said September hearings on Ruby Ridge will not focus on suspected obstruction of justice by FBI agents. Specter told the Washington Times that the Justice Department had asked him to avoid the issue in the hearings, pending its criminal investigation.

Holder is trying to decide if a full-scale criminal investigation should be launched into possible obstruction of justice, perjury and other charges.

The task force concluded that the FBI's refusal to turn over the materials impaired the prosecution of Randy Weaver for the slaying of the U.S. marshal in the standoff at the isolated cabin. Weaver was acquitted of murder charges, and this week, the Justice Department announced it will pay the Weaver family $3.1 million in an attempt to help "heal the wounds" from the deaths of Weaver's wife, Vicki, and 14-year-old son, Sammy.

The task force - a group of Justice lawyers and FBI inspectors - found that records disappeared despite an early request by federal prosecutors "to preserve and produce" papers related to the shooting of Weaver's wife, who was killed by an FBI sniper.

"We were distressed by the persistent intransigence shown by FBI headquarters personnel," the task force found.

"Odd" FBI appointment

Potential problems with the Ruby Ridge case began early, the report shows, with the selection of E. Michael Kahoe to head the FBI's administrative review of the incident. Kahoe, one of the FBI officials recently suspended and accused of destroying a document, had been involved in the headquarters oversight of the standoff.

Kahoe headed the shooting incident review group, which found the actions at Ruby Ridge lawful and within FBI guidelines. His oversight role left some of his FBI colleagues uncomfortable. "At the time, some of us in the bureau thought it (Kahoe's appointment) a little odd," said a former senior headquarters official. "He was potentially a subject of the review, and here he was in a position to oversee the review."

A critical question involved the FBI's approval of the rules of engagement for snipers at the scene. An FBI sniper said he shot Vicki Weaver while operating under "shoot-on-sight" instructions that he understood had been approved by FBI headquarters. But senior FBI officials gave conflicting accounts about who had approved the rules, which later were deemed to be unconstitutional. Potts denied approving the final rules, but his account was contradicted by two senior FBI officials who were involved in supervising the incident.

High-level "intransigence"

The task force report shows that obstructionist behavior by the bureau continued. In April 1993, the Weaver defense filed a subpoena, which was approved by the federal judge overseeing the case. Weeks passed before the bureau responded, and the task force noted there was "conflicting evidence" as to whether the FBI ever told federal prosecutors about the subpoena.

Prosecutors obtained some FBI records via fourth-class mail in June 1993 - after the trial was well under way. The trial judge fined the FBI $1,920 for providing the documents late, calling it "totally inexcusable" and noting he was disturbed about this "pattern" of behavior.

And at the Justice Department, an official noted in a memo that "the bureau's intransigence appears to emanate from Potts' level or above."