Occasionally, a piece of intelligence passes my desk that deserves more than a cursory nod.

One such report was an in-depth look at FBI Director Louis Freeh, completed by Reed Irvine, Editor of the Accuracy in Media Report.

It’s hard to believe the Bush administration wants to keep a man like Freeh at the helm of an organization that has been so untrue to its mission statement.

We all assumed the FBI would be attempting to protect the American people from criminals both foreign and domestic, at work within our borders.

What we have received from the Louis Freeh FBI is a history of double-standards, selective investigation, mismanaged lab results, political gamesmanship and the hoodwinking of the American people.

Quite a set of accomplishments for a man with three years remaining on his ten-year contract.

Let’s examine the Freeh record. As you may recall Bill Clinton named Freeh to head the "Agency" in 1993. Knowing Clinton’s track record, that should be reason enough to thoroughly probe Freeh’s credentials and credibility.

Irvine’s report paints an unflattering image of FBI life under "Louis the 1^st."

Conveniently, Freeh replaced no-nonsense Bush Sr. holdover William Sessions on the day before the alleged Vince Foster suicide. Sessions later blamed his dismissal on his own unwillingness to make political compromises with the White House when Clinton administration officials wanted to interfere with his agency.

Was it any surprise, then, that the new Clinton appointee would turn the death investigation of one of the highest ranking members of the executive branch over to the control of the U.S. Park Police?

Next, we return to Ruby Ridge and Freeh’s decision to promote Larry Potts to Deputy Director of the FBI. Potts had given the controversial shoot-on-sight orders that took the innocent life of Vicki Weaver as she held her infant at the door of the family cabin. When the Potts appointment caused an unexpected groundswell of opposition, Freeh was forced to withdraw the promotion. But again, the initial judgement was poor, at best.

Freeh apparently was willing to rewrite drug use and polygraph policies of the Bureau simply to permit the employment of two friends who had applied for work with the FBI. Both applicants were eventually denied jobs when they could not pass even the newly relaxed drug use standards.

We must consider the case of Craig Livingstone, White House aide, who asked for and received the private FBI files of 339 political enemies. Although Freeh called the decision to ship those files to the White House "a mistake," no one was ever fired for political collusion.

The FBI under Freeh apparently worked closely with the Clinton administration to try building a bogus case against White House Travel Office manager Billy Dale, who had faithfully served in that position since the days of John F. Kennedy.

When whistleblowers like Frederick Whitehurst of the FBI and Notra Trulock of the Department of Energy emerged, their concerns about mismanagement at the FBI were quickly brushed under the rug. Whitehurst complained about substandard procedures in the FBI lab. Trulock questioned the FBI’s decision to question and detain only Los Alamos physicist Wen Ho Lee when 12 names were on the suspect list he provided to the FBI during the investigation of missing nuclear secrets.

Once again, Louis Freeh was at the helm.

We could go on and on about Freeh’s errors in judgement and outright attempts to mislead the public, including the efforts to discredit eyewitnesses undertaken by his subordinate, James Kallstrom, the FBI assistant director in charge of the TWA Flight 800 investigation.

Similar FBI pressure was brought to bear against Patrick Knowlton, whose version of events that transpired at Ft. Marcy Park did not gibe with the official, sanitized White House whitewash of the Vince Foster death.

For the Bush administration to stand by Louis Freeh, a man who has taken the Federal Bureau of Investigation from a position of honor to the pits of corruption, indicates one of two things, either poor homework or bad judgement.

If this were a baseball team, Freeh's contract would already have been sold to Poughkipsee.

We urge the President to rethink his hasty and ill-conceived decision to extend the checkered career of FBI Director Louis Freeh.

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