Congress Fears Blackmail by FBI

NewsMax.com ^ | 6/19/02 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Many in Congress are so terrified the FBI will blackmail them, they are afraid to criticize the Bureau.

A top aide to Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told the New York Times that many Congressmen and Senators won't speak out against the FBI "because rightly or wrongly, they think the FBI will find dirt on them, and it will wind up in the public domain."

Kris Kolesnik, who was Grassley's chief investigator for 18 years, told the New York Times that the Iowa Republican has been more vocal than other Senators "because he's such a Boy Scout; he has no skeletons in his closet."

The Times reported today how little criticism about the FBI has emanated from Capitol Hill, with the sharpest criticism of the FBI and CIA "has not come from liberal Democrats but from two conservative Republican senators," Grassley and Richard Shelby of Alabama.

"Mr. Grassley, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaks almost daily nowadays about the 'culture of arrogance' and the 'cowboy mentality' at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, tells anyone who asks that George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, has failed in his job and should resign."

Grassley said: "I consider myself more a watchdog than a critic. The FBI seems to be the one now that needs some watchdogging."

The two senators aren't especially close, the Times says, but "speak almost as one when they blame Congress for being too deferential over the years" to the FBI and CIA.

"Everyone's in awe of them," Grassley scoffed. "Everyone just melts in their presence, and so they have always gotten a long leash. I think that may change now."

"You can be too cozy with the people you are supposed to have oversight of," Shelby said. "I don't think that's healthy. And I think that after Sept. 11, it's going to be different."

Kolesnik's comments are sure to spark speculation about which Capitol Hill power brokers fear being blackmailed by the FBI, and why. Here's one case where lame-duck Rep. Gary Condit is not alone.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

War on Terrorism

[WakeUpChristian]

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[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

But then again... look at the responses this thread got..(Even with this reply to you, we will be lucky to reach 25!!) just goes to show the complacency that is the cancer in our society.

[PhiKapMom]

Something is wrong on here! Put up a Bush bashing thread and it gets hundreds of hits with everyone fighting. I put up the thread about the leak of the classified Intel information by someone from Congress and the same ones of us are posting. It even includes the Rules under which the Senate Intel Committee operates.

For an activist site, there sure is very little activism anymore!

[LarryLied]

Care to wager that foreign intelligence services don't have stuff on our congress critters too?

[PhiKapMom]

Not going to get me to wager! I would think you are probably right and what the Foreign Intel such as Israel has would be more intersting I bet than what the FBI has.

[ladyinred]

Time for a HUGE house cleaning. Just get it all out there on the table, then let the voters decide who they keep, and who they fire. I'm so sick of this crap! It is preventing the kind of laws and progression we need in this country. I say let it all out on the table!! COME CLEAN!! Then you can't be blackmailed, by anyone!!

What you said ditto x's infinity!
We need to get rid of most of these jokers in Congress who represent themselves only, and get some in there who know the constitution and will actually abide by it. DemoRATS don't even think it should exist anymore in it's present form so they should be the first to go, followed by the rinos who are only caring about getting reelected!
This is exactly why Bill Clinton was allowed to stay in office!

[c-b 1]

We need to get rid of most of these jokers in Congress who represent themselves only, and get some in there who know the constitution and will actually abide by it. DemoRATS don't even think it should exist anymore in it's present form so they should be the first to go, followed by the rinos who are only caring about getting reelected!

That would leave half a dozen or less, left standing, sounds like a terriffic idea, too bad it isn't going to happen.

[LarryLied]

Wait until next year. Rahm Emmanuel will be in Congress.

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Tradition! Tradition!

[Ronin]

The Times reported today how little criticism about the FBI has emanated from Capitol Hill, with the sharpest criticism of the FBI and CIA "has not come from liberal Democrats but from two conservative Republican senators."

That's because the liberal democRATs do have skeletons in their closets.

[PhiKapMom]

Now that did not make my day. Emmanuel in Congress is an afront to honest folks!

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[SUSSA]

If they don't the FBI will make something up. Grassley is toast after this. The FBI will frame him or worse.

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[DaGman]

J Edgar Hoover has come back from the grave in his pink nightie.