Christopher Ruddy
Tuesday, June 4, 2002

If he did leave office, it would fly in the face of all recent history.

We have learned over the past decade that government officials are not to be held accountable for any of their actions or failure to do their jobs. Think Ruby Ridge, Waco, Vince Foster, Travelgate, Chinagate, Monicagate, Pardongate, TWA 800, Richard Jewell and on and on.

Certainly Mueller's culpability for the 9-11 attacks should be small. He took the helm of the FBI just days before the attacks.

And since then, I thought, as did many Americans, that Mueller had been doing a good job in reforming the FBI and working to protect Americans.

But the facts show that Mueller clearly and knowingly misled the public about the knowledge the FBI had before 9-11 and the significance of the evidence that had come from the FBI's Phoenix and Minneapolis offices.

Only after a leaked copy of FBI legal counsel Coleen Rowley's 13-page memo was published by Time magazine did Mueller offer mea culpas.

The FBI supervisor who quashed the Rowley warnings about Moussaoui was promoted, while the FBI director obfuscated the Moussaoui evidence.

When the facts became transparent that the FBI could have done more, that the FBI bureaucracy blocked the proper dissemination of critical information and that Mueller himself was covering up for bureau officials, only then did Mueller apologize and praise Rowley.

Mueller may be a competent administrator and he may be well-intentioned. But in the wake of Sept. 11, America is demanding – and needs – honest leaders who demand accountability from their subordinates.

America became the greatest nation the world has ever known precisely because we held our leaders accountable as no other nation ever had.

Unfortunately, Mueller has demonstrated that he is part of the recent cancer corrupting our system that led to 9-11.

We know that he rose through the ranks at the Clinton Justice Department. And we know that political considerations in that administration came before law and accountability.

Some could dismiss the Rowley incident as an isolated one. But then there is veteran FBI agent Robert Wright.

Wright had been in the FBI's counterterrorism unit – until he complained about the FBI's handling of such cases. He warned his superiors at the FBI that Americans would die unless corrective actions were taken.

As in the Moussaoui case, Mueller wasn't on the job when Wright made his complaints. But when Wright sought to go public with his allegations, Mueller and the FBI tried to muzzle him.

Last week, in fact, when Wright gave a press conference with his lawyer, Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman, Klayman said that agent Wright was severely restricted in what he could tell him.

According to Klayman, the Justice Department, at the behest of Director Mueller, wrote a letter to Wright telling him that he risked criminal prosecution if he spoke publicly about FBI malfeasance.

Klayman revealed to me why Mueller is so worried about Wright. According to Klayman, there are other FBI agents just like Rowley and Wright ready to come forward to expose FBI misconduct.

Over a decade ago, a large majority of Americans said they viewed the FBI "very favorably." A recent CNN/Gallup poll, however, found that only 24 percent of Americans now view the bureau "very favorably."

Like most Americans, I want to think the FBI are the good guys. We want them to win. We want them to beat the terrorists.

But it has become apparent that Mueller, who has lost the confidence of the American people, is not the man to rebuild the bureau and do the job America expects.

America can regain its greatness only when the ideas that made us a great nation – in particular, the concept that our representatives are accountable to the people and to the law – are once again an intrinsic part of public life.

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