| Louis Joseph Freeh | |
|---|---|
| Official portrait | |
| 5th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation |
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| In office September 1, 1993 – June 25, 2001 |
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| President | Bill Clinton George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Floyd I. Clarke |
| Succeeded by | Thomas J. Pickard |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 6, 1950 Jersey City, New Jersey |
Louis Joseph Freeh (born January 6, 1950) was the 5th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serving from September 1993 to June 2001.
Freeh began his career as an agent of the FBI, and was later an assistant United States Attorney and a United States district court judge, the position he held when appointed FBI director. He is now a lawyer and consultant in the private sector. He acquired Italian citizenship on October 23, 2009.[1]
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Born January 6, 1950 in Jersey City, New Jersey, Freeh graduated from St. Joseph's High School in West New York in 1967[2] . Louis Freeh was then educated by the Christian Brothers and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University in 1971. He received a J.D. degree from Rutgers School of Law-Newark in 1974 and an LL.M. degree in criminal law from New York University School of Law in 1984. Freeh was an FBI Special Agent from 1975 to 1981 in the New York City field office and at F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1981, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York as an assistant U.S. attorney. Subsequently, he held positions there as Chief of the Organized Crime Unit, Deputy U.S. Attorney, and Associate U.S. Attorney. He was also a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve.[3] In 1991, President George H. W. Bush appointed Freeh a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a position he held until he was appointed FBI director by President Bill Clinton in 1993. As a youth, Freeh became an Eagle Scout in 1963 and in 1995 was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America.[4][5]
Freeh and his wife, Marilyn, have 6 sons. He is a devout Roman Catholic, although is not a member of the Opus Dei prelature (as rumors have stated).[6][7] According to The Bureau and the Mole, a book by David A. Vise, Freeh's son was enrolled at the private The Heights School in Potomac, Maryland, which Vise describes as "an Opus Dei academy".[8] Several of his sons are now enrolled in Archmere Academy, a Catholic school in Claymont, Delaware. One of his sons currently attends Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
A notable case Freeh was associated with was the "Pizza Connection" investigation, in which he was lead prosecutor. The case, prosecuted in the mid-1980s, involved a drug trafficking operation in the United States by Sicilian organized crime members who used pizza parlors as fronts. After a 14-month trial, 16 of 17 co-defendants were convicted. The "Pizza Connection" case was, at the time, the most complex criminal investigation ever undertaken by the U.S. government.[9]
Shortly before and during Freeh's tenure, the FBI was involved in a number of high-profile incidents and internal investigations.
Among other Justice Department officials (including Attorney General Reno), Freeh was named a co-defendant in Zieper v. Metzinger, a 1999 federal court case. The American Civil Liberties Union assisted the plaintiffs who sued due to the FBI's conduct in investigating "Military Takeover of New York City", a short (fictional) film made in October 1999 that discussed riots and a military takeover of Times Square on New Year's Eve, 1999.[10]
In May 2000, he reached an agreement with Rep. José Serrano, then Puerto Rican Independence Party senator Manuel Rodríguez Orellana and then Puerto Rico Senate Committee on Federal Affairs chairman Kenneth McClintock, the islands' current Senate President, to release FBI files on Puerto Rican political activists. Nearly 100,000 pages have been released and are being catalogued by the Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico.[11]
In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Freeh said that the widespread use of effective encryption "is one of the most difficult problems for law enforcement as the next century approaches".[12] He considered the loss of wiretapping to law enforcement as a result of encryption to be dangerous and said that the "country [would] be unable to protect itself" against terrorism and serious crimes.[13]
An investigation of the August 1992 incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in which an FBI sharpshooter killed the wife of a wanted suspect, was ongoing when Freeh became Director. A paramilitary FBI unit, the Hostage Rescue Team, was present at the incident; Freeh later said that had he been director, he would not have involved the HRT. FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi was later charged with manslaughter; Freeh said that he was "deeply disappointed" at the charges, filed by a county prosecutor and later dropped.[14][15][16]
Freeh was not censured for alleged managerial failures in the investigation of the incident, although a Justice Department inquiry had made such a recommendation.[17]
An investigation of the events of April 19, 1993 when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) Special Agents served a warrant on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas was ongoing during Freeh's tenure. While the event had taken place before he became Director, a highly controversial investigation ensued, including allegations of a cover-up by the FBI, and tensions developed between Freeh and Janet Reno, then-Attorney General. Reno, who had herself been blamed for mishandling of the confrontation and investigation, sent U.S. Marshals to FBI headquarters to seize Waco-related evidence.[18]
Shortly before 10 a.m. on June 25, 1996, members of a terorrist group detonated a truck bomb outside building 131 (also known as Khobar Towers) of the King Abdul Aziz Airbase. Inside the building were almost exclusively members of the U.S. Air Force who were there to patrol the southern Iraqi no-fly zone enacted after the Gulf War. In the attack, 19 U.S. military personnel were killed and 372 were wounded, making this the most deadly terrorist attack on Americans abroad since the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. Louis Freeh said in his book My FBI that he felt the deepest about the Khobar Towers investigation, and it was not until Louis Freeh's last day in office, June 21, 2001, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia returned a 46-count indictment against 14 defendants charged with the Khobar Towers attack.[19] This was just before some of the counts would have expired due to a five-year statute of limitations. In the book Freeh maintains that he was obstructed by the Clinton Administration for political reasons in investigating the bombing and bringing the terrorist to justice.
The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information heard testimony from Freeh regarding the leaking of Richard Jewell's name to the media in connection with the bombing at the 1996 Olympic Games. Freeh testified that he did not know how the name of Jewell, who had been falsely accused in the bombings, had been leaked to the media.[20]
Freeh and the FBI were praised for the handling of the 81-day standoff between law enforcement agents and the Montana Freemen, a fringe political group. Director Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, which had issued reports critical of the Freemen and encouraged their prosecution, commended the "peaceful conclusion" to the standoff.[21]
Theodore Kaczynski, the "Unabomber," was apprehended in 1996 after his manifesto, Industrial Society and its Future, was published in the New York Times and Washington Post. Freeh and Attorney General Reno recommended publication, acceding to Kaczynski's offer to "renounce terrorism" if it were. A tip from the bomber's brother David, who recognized the writing style, assisted the FBI in his capture.[22][23]
Robert Hanssen, a 25-year veteran of the FBI, was arrested in 2001 and charged with spying for the Soviet Union and Russia, beginning in 1985. Freeh called the security breach "exceptionally grave" and appointed a panel, led by former FBI and Central Intelligence Agency head William Webster, to review the damage done by Hanssen's espionage.[24]
In 1999, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired from his job; in 1999 he was arrested and held without trial for 278 days while his handling of sensitive nuclear information was investigated. Freeh accused him of downloading a "portable, personal trove" of U.S. nuclear secrets. Lee pled guilty to one of the fifty-nine counts brought against him, after which he was freed from jail.[25]
A Justice Department report of the investigation of Lee said that Director Freeh was not fully informed about the investigation until over a year after it began, and that the F.B.I. as a whole "bungled" the case.[26]
In February 1997, the media announced that Freeh personally blocked the sharing of intelligence information regarding China's alleged plot to influence U.S. elections with the White House.[27][28] The following month, Freeh testified before Congress that his investigation into campaign finance irregularities of the 1996 U.S. presidential and Congressional campaigns was not focusing on individual criminal acts, but on a possible conspiracy involving China.[29] Later that year, Freeh wrote a memorandum to Attorney General Janet Reno calling for an Independent Counsel to investigate the fund-raising scandal. In his memo he wrote: "It is difficult to imagine a more compelling situation for appointing an Independent Counsel".[30] Reno rejected his request.
Other cases handled by the FBI during Freeh's tenure included the death of White House counsel Vince Foster (in 1993), allegations of incompetence at the FBI crime laboratory, investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing (1995) and the capture and prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, and investigation of the crash of TWA Flight 800 .
In 2000, the editorial staff of Business Week called for the resignation of Director Freeh, citing the Carnivore communications monitoring system, the Waco cover-up, and insubordination to Attorney General Reno as reasons.[31]
A National Geographic television special titled "The FBI" stated that Mr. Freeh was averse to the usage of computers. He had his removed from his office, did not use E-mail, and more importantly, did nothing to update the old and poorly working FBI computer system.
In June 2001, he resigned amid criticism that the FBI needed stronger leadership, particularly after allegations of spying by Robert Hanssen. Upon his resignation, he was praised by Attorney General John Ashcroft, who called him "a model law enforcement officer".[32] He was replaced by Thomas J. Pickard who served for 71 days, who was in turn replaced by Robert Mueller.
Freeh approached acting New Jersey Governor Donald DiFrancesco, and offered to serve, without salary, as the state's anti-terrorism "czar". Di Francesco approached both major-party candidates for governor to secure their approval; Bret Schundler, the Republican candidate, agreed "in principle". However, Democrat Jim McGreevey, who won the gubernatorial election, turned down Freeh in favor of Golan Cipel. It was later discovered that McGreevey and Cipel had been involved in a sexual relationship. McGreevey was heavily criticized for giving the post to Cipel rather than Freeh or another experienced individual.[33]
In September 2001, Freeh was appointed to the board of directors of credit card issuer MBNA; he also served as the bank's general counsel, as well as corporate secretary and ethics officer. Likewise, Bristol-Myers Squibb elected him to its board of directors.[34]
Freeh is also a member of the board of consultants of the Gavel Consulting Group, formed by current and former federal judges and high-ranking government officials to provide advice and counseling to the private sector.[35][36]
Beginning in 2004 Freeh began moonlighting as an adjunct law professor for Widener University School of Law. Drawing on his years of experience, he has taught White Collar Crime.
In 2007, Freeh formed Freeh Group International Solutions,[37] a consulting and investigative firm headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware with regional offices in Washington DC and New York.
In 2009, Louis Freeh was hired by Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan as his legal representative on issues surrounding the Al-Yamamah arms deal, appearing April 7, 2009 on the PBS series Frontline: Black Money.[38]
In late May 2011, Freeh was retained as an independent investigator by the Ethics Committee of FIFA in the bribery scandal centering around Mohammed bin Hammam and Jack Warner.[39]
In November 2011, Pennsylvania State University announced that Freeh would lead an internal investigation into the Penn State sex abuse scandal involving Jerry Sandusky and several high-ranking university officials.[40] He annouced that the team assisting him in his investigation would include former FBI agents and federal prosecutors. [41]
Also in November, 2011, Freeh was named trustee for the MF Global bankruptcy case,[42] the largest Wall Street bankruptcy since Lehman Brothers' in September 2008.[43] He was appointed by U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis working under the authority of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn.[42]
An editorial by Louis Freeh critical of the 9/11 Commission appeared in the November 17, 2005 edition of the Wall Street Journal.[44]
In 2005, Freeh (with Howard Means) published a book about his career in the FBI entitled My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror. It is highly critical of both President Clinton and former counter-terrorism advisor Richard A. Clarke. Freeh made an appearance on The Daily Show to promote the book.[45] A New York Times review called it "A strangely shallow offering by a man who is anything but...".[46]
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Floyd I. Clarke |
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation 1993–2001 |
Succeeded by Thomas J. Pickard |
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