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WPTV, Channel 5 Florida
October 7, 2002
[transcription of broadcast]

[Jim Sackett] Thank you. Tonight, questions about a possible connection to the worst day in American history. Did an admitted con man turned informant tip authorities, including a state senator and a U.S. senator, to a threat against the World Trade Center? Newschannel 5's Kathleen Walter is joining us with the results of a Newschannel 5 investigation tonight. Kathleen.

[Kathleen Walter] Well Jim, Randy Glass is a man with a criminal past but someone the government trusted enough with very sensitive and classified intelligence information. There is no dispute he was wired into international arms deals and may have heard about terrorist threats to the United States. What did a local and US senator from Florida do with the information he says he passed along?

It's the unthinkable. Terrorists using airplanes as deadly weapons to attack the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. But to Randy Glass, the idea that terrorists wanted to bring down the twin towers came as no surprise to him.

[Randy Glass] I felt incredibly uncomfortable. Because I knew that something was going to happen.

[Kathleen Walter] For more than two years, Glass was caught up in an international arms deal. An admitted con man living in Boca Raton, Florida, Glass put his skills to work for the government. An informant to the FBI and Florida's Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Glass and other agents posed as international arms dealers. Hawking arms purportedly diverted from US armories and luring in prospective weapons buyers who might have been linked to terrorism. His life as a secret agent was chronicled on tape.

[tape recording] Glass: "What would you do?"

Mohssen: "I'll kill him! I'll kill you!"

[Kathleen Walter] Through accused middleman Diaa Mohssen, Glass was introduced to weapons buyers who said they had connections to Islamic militant groups with possible links to Osama bin Laden.

[tape recording] Mohssen: "You know who supplies them with money?"

Glass: "Who?"

Mohssen: "Osama bin Laden."

Glass: "That's very nice. Thanks for mentioning that."

[Randy Glass] Americans were the enemy. And that the purpose of obtaining these weapons systems and nuclear materials was to use against Americans.

[Kathleen Walter] And Glass says threats against Americans didn't end there.

[Randy Glass] I did know there was a plan of attack on the United States. And the World Trade Center had been mentioned.

[Kathleen Walter] But in the summer of 2001, Glass's undercover work came to an end. Three months before September 11th, he reached out to Florida State Senator Ron Klein and told him about threats against national security. Klein says he doesn't recall any mention of World Trade Center threats.

[Ron Klein] This is before September 11th and all that. Um, again, it was enough information for me to say I don't know exactly what to do with this other than to contact one of my federal colleagues...

[Kathleen Walter] And so State Senator Ron Klein contacted the office of Florida Senator Bob Graham, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. According to Graham spokesperson Jill Greenberg, case worker Charlie Yonts spoke with Glass last summer, prior to September 11th, Glass claiming he had at least six conversations with the case worker. And while we've been unable to corroborate the nature of those conversations, Greenberg confirms some of that information was passed along to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

[Reporter interviewing Graham] A few months before September 11th, your office received information from A.T.F. informant Randy Glass who also worked on the terrorism task force. And, he also advised your office of terrorist intentions to bring down the World Trade Center. This was before September 11th. Your office tells me it forwarded information from Mr. Glass to the Intelligence Committee. And my question is, why did no one from the Committee follow up with Mr. Glass to pursue this?

[Bob Graham] Because we in turn gave that information to the appropriate intelligence agency. Uh, we are an oversight and legislative agency. The acutal operations of collection of information, interviewing possible sources, is the responsibility of the F.B.I. if it's a domestic matter or the C.I.A. if it's foreign.

[Kathleen Walter] And according to State Senator Klein, three weeks after he made the initial contact with Senator Graham's office, staffers there confirmed to him Glass's information had been passed on to the intelligence community.

[Reporter] So they confirmed to you that they sent it along.

[Ron Klein] Um hm. They said - they said to me that they had spoken, uh, they had processed it through their office, um, and um, spoken to Randy I believe is what they said and they had processed it.

[Bob Graham] I had a concern about that and a dozen other pieces of information, uh, which were emminating in the summer of 2001.

[Reporter] So you did forward Mr. Glass's information...

[Bob Graham] Yeah.

[Reporter] Along to ... to whom?

[Bob Graham] I, I cannot say what agency but the agency that we felt was the most appropriate for the nature of the information that he was providing.

[Kathleen Walter] Despite his keen insight into the world of terrorists, Randy Glass says that until recently no one from any intelligence agency had contacted him. And since our interview with Senator Graham in Boca Raton last month his office offered this clarification. That:

"Mister Glass didn't provide any information to our office prior to Sept. 11, 2001, that needed to be pursued by intelligence agencies. When I was interviewed in Boca Raton, I said I did know of this individual and that he had been in touch with the Intelligence Committee, but I didn't indicate when that contact had taken place. It was earlier this year, not prior to Sept. 11, 2001."

[Kathleen Walter] Even though Graham's press aide Jill Greenberg and State Senator Klein says Glass's information did go before the intelligence community prior to September 11th, 2001, the senator still maintains that's not the case, even though that's what he initially told us.

[Jim Sackett] Kathleen, a lot of information to digest, but do we know exactly what information did go to the senator?

[Kathleen Walter] Well, at the end of the day we just don't know. We called Graham staffer Charlie Yonts several times to find out more about his conversations with Mr. Glass, but he did not return our phone calls. We are still investigating, and hope to have answers in the coming weeks. Live on the night beat, Kathleen Walter, Newschannel 5.