FBI Scientist Probed On OKC Blast (Oklahoma City Bombing)

The internal FBI probe is only the latest indication that the defense team was deprived of potentially important evidence.

(CBS/AP) The FBI internal affairs office is investigating their crime lab's chief of scientific analysis about his conduct in the Oklahoma City bombing case, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The Associated Press reported last spring that a transcript of a Justice Department interview showed that FBI scientific analysis unit chief Steven Burmeister initially had alleged in 1995 that his lab colleagues performed shoddy work in Timothy McVeigh's case, but then retracted several statements before appearing as a prosecution witness at the trial.

AP also reported that lawyers for some FBI lab employees sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001, just days before McVeigh was executed for the April 1995 bombing, alleging Burmeister may have been pressured to give false testimony in the case.

No action was taken and the allegation was never divulged to McVeigh's lawyers. It surfaced this spring during the trial of McVeigh conspirator Terry Nichols.

The FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations against agents, recently opened an internal investigation into Burmeister's conduct in the McVeigh case, including his recantation, according to persons familiar with the investigation.

FBI officials refused to discuss the investigation but when AP first reported the existence of the transcripts of Burmeister's interview by the Justice Department inspector general, FBI lab director Dwight Adams said he considered Burmeister to be one of the bureau's top lab experts.

Adams said Burmeister was not pressured to change his testimony about problems at the FBI lab in the McVeigh case and rather did so because he learned some of his earlier allegations to the inspector general were inaccurate or imprecise.

"He made the effort because he is such a meticulous, honest person that he wanted the IG report to be correct," Adams said. "He truly is one of our best."

The Burmeister investigation is not the first hint that McVeigh's defense team was deprived of potentially important information on the case.

McVeigh was put to death on June 10, 2001, in the first federal execution in 39 years, for the bombing that killed 168 people.

He had been scheduled to die about a month earlier, but won a postponement when it emerged that the Justice Department had failed to turn over thousands of documents to his defense team.

McVeigh tried but failed to get an additional stay of his execution; his lawyers argued that some of the 4,500 withheld documents pointed to possible other conspirators.

Several documents obtained earlier this year by AP were not provided to the bomber's defense before he was convicted, and his original lawyer said he believes the omissions kept jurors from considering other possible accomplices in the case.

Some evidence was evidently destroyed. Documents show the FBI and prosecutors ordered the destruction in 1999 of evidence from a bank robbery they once suspected linked McVeigh to white supremacists who were threatening before McVeigh's bombing to attack the government.

The Burmeister investigation concerns forensic evidence in the case, and conflicting stories he gave interviewers in 1995 and 1995, including:

In 1995 he said that one of his lab colleagues, unit chief Roger Martz, "erred in some examinations" he performed. But in 1996, just before testifying at McVeigh's trial, Burmeister said: "I don't think he erred in any of these exams. … I think he did an acceptable job there."

In 1995 interview, Burmeister criticized Martz's decision to vacuum clothing suspected of having explosives evidence, calling it an "unqualified technique." But in his 1996 interview, he said, "I'm incorrect in saying that because I do believe the vacuuming technique, overall, is a qualified technique."

On the lab's handling of a knife, Burmeister said in 1995 that his colleagues should have rinsed it, rather than using a moistened swab to loosen possible explosive evidence. But in 1996, Burmeister said that both swabbing and rinsing were "viable sample-removing techniques."

Burmeister retracted his 1995 comment that Martz had not been qualified to perform one of the explosives tests he performed on McVeigh evidence. "I'm incorrect in saying that he is not qualified. … I would consider him fully qualified," he said in 1996.

FBI Probing Lab Specialist's Conduct in Oklahoma City Bombing Case

Thursday, August 28, 2003

WASHINGTON — Opening a belated chapter in the Oklahoma City bombing case, the FBI has started an internal investigation into the conduct and testimony of the crime lab's chief of scientific analysis during the Timothy McVeigh (search) prosecution, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The Associated Press reported last spring that a transcript of a Justice Department interview showed that Steven Burmeister initially had alleged in 1995 that his lab colleagues performed shoddy work in McVeigh's case, but then retracted several statements before appearing as a prosecution witness at the trial.

AP also reported that lawyers for some disgruntled FBI lab employees sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft (search) in 2001, just days before McVeigh was executed for the April 1995 bombing, alleging Burmeister may have been pressured to give false testimony in the case. No action was taken and the allegation was never divulged to McVeigh's lawyers.

The revelation about Burmeister, however, became an issue in the Oklahoma state murder trial of McVeigh co-conspirator Terry Nichols (search) this spring. Burmeister had given key testimony against McVeigh and was originally slated to be a prosecution witness in the new trial for Nichols, whom Oklahoma prosecutors want to put to death.

Burmeister has been withdrawn as a state witness by the prosecutors.

The FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations against agents, recently opened an internal investigation into Burmeister's conduct in the McVeigh case, including his recantation, according to persons familiar with the investigation.

One of Burmeister's former colleagues said the FBI contacted him in the past month.

"I was contacted by my attorney and told that the FBI OPR was looking to talk to me about an OPR investigation on Burmeister," said Frederic Whitehurst, the former FBI scientist whose whistleblowing allegations in the mid-1990s divulged shoddy work inside the FBI lab and led to widespread changes.

FBI officials refused to discuss the investigation but when AP first reported the existence of the transcripts of Burmeister's interview by the Justice Department inspector general, FBI lab director Dwight Adams said he considered Burmeister to be one of the bureau's top lab experts.

Adams said Burmeister was not pressured to change his testimony about problems at the FBI lab in the McVeigh case and rather did so because he learned some of his earlier allegations to the inspector general were inaccurate or imprecise.

"He made the effort because he is such a meticulous, honest person that he wanted the IG report to be correct," Adams said. "He truly is one of our best."

A letter obtained by AP shows that lawyers for FBI lab employees, including Whitehurst, wrote Ashcroft 10 days before McVeigh was executed in 2001, claiming Burmeister may have given false testimony about key forensic evidence in the case. The FBI denies the allegations.

An Oklahoma City woman who lost a daughter and her inlaws in McVeigh's bombing said it was time for the government to release all documents -- embarrasing or not -- in the case to help ease the concern of surviving family members.

"This is another piece of the never-ending saga," Kathleen Treanor said Thursday. "It is not going to change the fact that McVeigh was guilty. But it is just another insight into the whole bureaucracy and stupidity that the government has gotten itself into."

The transcripts in question show Burmeister originally told the Justice Department in 1995 that one of his lab colleagues, unit chief Roger Martz, "erred in some examinations" he performed in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

Burmeister reversed course in late 1996, just before testifying at McVeigh's trial. "I don't think he erred in any of these exams. ... I think he did an acceptable job there," Burmeister said.

In his 1995 interview, Burmeister criticized Martz's decision to vacuum clothing suspected of having explosives evidence, calling it an "unqualified technique." But in his 1996 interview, he gave a different assessment.

"I'm incorrect in saying that because I do believe the vacuuming technique, overall, is a qualified technique," Burmeister said.

On the lab's handling of a knife, Burmeister said in 1995 that his colleagues should have rinsed it, rather than using a moistened swab to loosen possible explosive evidence. But in 1996, Burmeister said that both swabbing and rinsing were "viable sample-removing techniques."

And Burmeister retracted his 1995 comment that Martz had not been qualified to perform one of the explosives tests he performed on McVeigh evidence. "I'm incorrect in saying that he is not qualified. ... I would consider him fully qualified," he said in 1996.

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