by James V. Grimaldi, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - In separate cases, two new FBI whistle-blowers are alleging mismanagement and lax security — and in one case possible espionage — among those who translate and oversee some of the FBI’s most sensitive, top-secret wiretaps in counterintelligence and counterterrorist investigations.
The allegations of one of the whistle-blowers have prompted two key U.S. senators — Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa — to pose critical questions about the FBI division working on the front line of gathering and analyzing wiretaps.
That whistle-blower, Sibel Edmonds, 32, a former wiretap translator in the Washington field office, raised suspicions about a co-worker’s connections to a group under surveillance.
Under pressure, FBI officials have investigated and verified the veracity of parts of Edmonds’ story, according to documents and people familiar with an FBI briefing of congressional staff. Leahy and Grassley summoned the FBI to Capitol Hill on Monday for a private explanation, people familiar with the briefing said.
The FBI confirmed that Edmonds’ co-worker had been part of an organization that was a target of top-secret surveillance and that the same co-worker had “unreported contacts” with a foreign-government official subject to the surveillance, according to a letter from the two senators to the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General. In addition, the linguist failed to translate two communications from the targeted foreign-government official, the letter said.
“This whistle-blower ... made these allegations in good faith and even though the deck was stacked against her,” Grassley said. “The FBI even admits to a number of her allegations, and on other allegations, the bureau’s explanation leaves me skeptical.”
The allegations add a new dimension to the growing criticism of the FBI, which has centered in recent weeks on the bureau’s failure to heed internal warnings about al-Qaida leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Finding capable and trustworthy translators has been a special challenge in the terrorism war. FBI officials told government auditors in January that translator shortages have resulted in “the accumulation of thousands of hours of audiotapes and pages” of untranslated material. After the attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a plea for translators, and hundreds of people applied.
Margaret Gulotta, chief of language services at the FBI, said the bureau has hired 400 translators in two years, significantly reducing the backlog on high-priority cases while upholding strict background checks.
“We have not compromised our standards in terms of language proficiency and security,” she said.
In the second whistle-blower case, John Cole, 41, program manager for FBI foreign-intelligence investigations covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, said counterintelligence and counterterrorism training has declined drastically in recent years as part of a continuing pattern of poor management.
Cole also said he had observed what he believed was a security lapse regarding the screening and hiring of translators.
“I thought we had all these new security procedures in place, in light of (FBI spy Robert P.) Hanssen,” Cole said. “No one is going by the rules and regulations and whatever policy may be implemented.”
Edmonds and Cole have written about their concerns to high-level FBI officials. Edmonds wrote to Dale Watson, the bureau’s counterterrorism chief, and Cole wrote to Mueller. Both cases have been referred to the Office of the Inspector General.
The FBI said it was unable to corroborate an allegation by Edmonds that she was approached to join the targeted group. Edmonds said she told Dennis Saccher, a special agent in the Washington field office who was conducting the surveillance, about the co-worker’s actions and Saccher replied, “It looks like espionage to me.”
Edmonds was fired in March after she reported her concerns. Government officials said the FBI fired her because her “disruptiveness” hurt her on-the-job “performance.” Edmonds said she believes she was fired in retaliation for reporting on her co-worker.
Edmonds said that on several occasions, the translator tried to recruit her to join the targeted foreign group. “This person told us she worked for our target organization,” Edmonds said in an interview. “These are the people we are targeting, monitoring.”