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Prosecutor Removed From Waco Case
By Michelle Mittelstadt
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, September 14, 1999; 3:05 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal prosecutor who raised questions
about a possible Justice Department cover-up in the Waco standoff was
abruptly removed from the case along with his boss, according to a court
filing made public today.
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder recused U.S. Attorney James W.
Blagg in San Antonio and assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston in Waco
from any further dealings in criminal or civil proceedings related to the
siege.
Holder appointed the U.S. attorney in a neighboring district as a ``special
attorney to the U.S. attorney general.'
The court filing in Waco, Texas, does not state why the move was made
but said it took effect last Friday. Attorney General Janet Reno last week
removed herself from the case, saying she may be a possible witness in the
independent inquiry she ordered into the fiery end of the 1993 siege.
In correspondence made public on Monday, Johnston wrote Reno
warning that aides within her own department were misleading her about
federal agents' roles.
``I have formed the belief that facts may have been kept from you -- and
quite possibly are being kept from you even now -- by components of the
department,' Johnston wrote in an Aug. 30 letter.
Johnston also has been at odds with Blagg, his superior, and other Justice
officials over the investigation of the government's actions during the
standoff with the Davidians at their compound outside Waco. It was
Johnston who pressed Justice Department officials to allow independent
filmmakers to review evidence sifted from the charred ruins of the
Davidians' compound -- evidence that led to the FBI's recent admission
that potentially incendiary tear gas canisters were fired on April 19, 1993.
That disclosure, after six years of denials, sparked a furor on Capitol Hill
and has led to congressional inquiries and Reno's appointment of an
independent investigator.
The recusal notice provides no explanation for Holder's action.
Blagg, Johnston and the Justice Department provided no immediate
comment.
The action came a day after a key House Democrat released evidence
provided four years ago to Congress showing that the Justice Department
did notify lawmakers about the FBI's use of potentially incendiary tear
gas.
That evidence, Rep. Henry Waxman said Monday, was overlooked by
Rep. Dan Burton, the House Republican who is leading a new inquiry into
the government's deadly standoff with the Branch Davidians -- and who
has accused Reno and the Justice Department of possibly concealing the
truth from Congress and the public.
``There is no indication that Chairman Burton or his staff thought to review
these documents before accusing the attorney general of a cover-up,'
Waxman, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to the special counsel investigating the
recently revived Waco controversy.
``Contrary to the allegations of cover-up, substantial evidence of the use
of military tear gas rounds was, in fact, provided to Congress in 1995,'
said Waxman, who is top Democrat on the House Government Reform
Committee.
Burton, who chairs the committee, said the Justice Department buried the
panel in an avalanche of documents shortly before the 1995 hearings
began, and congressional investigators depended on a Justice summary to
guide them.
``The Justice Department dumped 100,000 documents on the committee
three days before the hearings, knowing that they couldn't possibly go
through them,' the Indiana Republican said in an interview. Although
Burton was on the Government Reform Committee in 1995, he was not
on the subcommittee that led the investigation.
Burton also noted that the Justice Department was forced to acknowledge
last week that it failed in 1995 to give Congress the key page from a 1993
FBI lab report mentioning the use of military tear gas. The final page of
that 49-page report, with the key tear gas mention, was missing, he noted.
``I don't think that's a coincidence,' he said.
Almost six out of 10 Americans believe the FBI has been intentionally
trying to cover up its actions at Waco, an ABC News poll released
Monday indicated. Only one out of five polled said they thought Reno
should resign, based on what they now know. The poll of 1,008 adults
was taken Sept. 8-12 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3
percentage points.
The records Waxman cited, discovered among more than 40 boxes of
material compiled during the earlier House hearings, include an FBI pilot's
1993 statement recalling a radio transmission in which agents had a
conversation ``relative to the utilization of some sort of military round ... on
a concrete bunker.' And post-raid interview summaries include an
unnamed FBI agent's explanation that smoke captured on film ``came
from (an) attempt to penetrate bunker with one military and two
(non-incendiary) rounds.'
Until the FBI's recent admission that a ``very limited number' of
pyrotechnic rounds were fired, Justice and FBI officials had publicly
denied the use of potentially incendiary tear gas. That about-face sparked
congressional outrage and led Reno to appoint an outside investigator,
former Sen. John Danforth.
Cult leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died during the blaze,
some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds.
The FBI and Reno maintain that Davidians deliberately set the fire. They
have said the pyrotechnic canisters bounced off the roof of a concrete
bunker and rolled harmlessly into a field hours before the blaze began. |
