Word: fbi
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...further prosecutions. But, obviously reluctant to pursue the case further, he delayed on the chance that the judge in any Kearney trial would throw out the indictment. Instead, Kearney's lawyer, famed Washington Defense Attorney Edward Bennett Williams, went to court and demanded so much information from the FBI that the trial was repeatedly postponed...
...December, Bell decided to concentrate on tracking down the FBI decision makers who had ordered the illegal actions. When he announced the indictments of Gray, Felt and Miller, he dropped the charges against Kearney. According to Bell, his problem was that while trying to investigate the FBI, he also had to run it. Said he: "I have to consider what's good for the FBI...
...included not telling investigators immediately about documents stored for five years in a filing cabinet in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Among them were memos from Mark Felt-dubbed "one-liners" by investigators-giving Edward Miller explicit orders for break-ins and other illegal activities. The cabinet, say FBI sources, was tucked away in a corner of a little-used public room of the building and only came to light when a low-level employee suggested that it was an eyesore and should be thrown out. But it was opened first-and lo, the much-sought-after evidence was inside...
Bell ordered newly appointed FBI Director William Webster to investigate the hiding of the documents and take disciplinary action, ranging from reprimands to dismissals, against 68 agents who had carried out illegal acts under orders from Gray, Felt and Miller...
Moreover, many FBI agents remain unhappy at the disciplinary measures faced by their colleagues. Some were particularly upset with Bell's treatment of J. Wallace LaPrade, 51, an assistant FBI director and head of the bureau's New York office. According to investigators, he was vulnerable to perjury charges for denying to a grand jury in January 1977 that the FBI had acted illegally in the Weatherman cases. Bell stripped LaPrade of his New York command and called on him to resign, but LaPrade refused, hired a lawyer and took his case to the public...