On Oct 17, 11:01 am, "Jacek Kawecki" wrote:

Kilka dni temu, rudy publicznie chwalil sie swoja znajomoscia
Irlandii, a dzisiaj
straszy komuna. Ten kierownik zakladu pogrzebowego, powinien poznac
metody dzialania FBI w stosunku do politykow pokroju Sawickiej. Wyslij
mu to szczylu, moze sie czego duren nauczy:

WASHINGTON -- The new chief of the FBI's Criminal Division, which is
swamped with public-corruption cases, says the bureau is ramping up
its ability to catch crooked politicians and might run an undercover
sting on Congress.

Assistant FBI Director James Burrus called the bureau's public-
corruption program "a sleeping giant that we've awoken" and predicted
that the nation will see continued emphasis in that area "for many,
many, many years to come."

So much evidence of wrongdoing is surfacing in the nation's capital
that Burrus recently committed to adding a fourth 15- to 20-member
public- corruption squad to the FBI's Washington field office.

In the past year, former Republican Reps. Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney
have pleaded guilty to corruption charges. FBI agents are
investigating about a dozen other members of Congress, including up to
three senators. Dozens of agents are actively engaged in a massive
investigation of illegal influence in the Alaska Legislature.

If conditions warrant, Burrus said, he wouldn't balk at urging an
undercover sting like the famed Abscam operation in the late 1970s in
which a U.S. senator and six House members agreed on camera to take
bribes from FBI agents posing as Arab sheikhs.

"We look for those opportunities a lot," Burrus said, using words
rarely heard at the bureau over the last quarter-century. "I would do
it on Capitol Hill. I would do it in any state legislature. ... If we
could do an undercover operation, and it would get me better evidence,
I'd do it in a second."

Philip Heymann, who oversaw the Abscam investigation as chief of the
Justice Department's Criminal Division during the Carter
administration, expressed surprise to learn of the FBI's willingness
to attempt another congressional sting after the outcry from Capitol
Hill over Abscam.

"It shows courage at the FBI," said Heymann, now a criminal law
professor at Harvard University. He said he concluded, after watching
a recent public television documentary and listening to experts, that
"there is more corruption (on Capitol Hill) than I ever thought
imaginable" and that a single FBI sting "might result in very large
numbers of prosecutions."

But even without an undercover operation, Heymann and other observers
say they have been pleased with the GOP-controlled Justice
Department's willingness to pursue old-fashioned investigations, even
if they hurt congressional Republicans in Tuesday's elections.

Nationally over the last year, 600 agents worked 2,200 public-
corruption cases, resulting in 650 arrests, 1,000 indictments and 800
convictions, Burrus said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, who listed public corruption as his top
criminal investigative priority when he shifted the FBI's focus to
terrorism in 2002, said last month that the surge in convictions
"sends the message that public corruption will not be tolerated."
Despite the realignment, the number of agents working on public
corruption has remained constant.

Burrus argued that the FBI is "uniquely qualified" to handle such
cases, pointing to the bureau's political independence, exemplified by
Mueller's 10-year term. Burrus said that Alice Fisher, the politically
appointed chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division with
whom he confers weekly, also has "an aggressive attitude" about
pursuing public officials.

"Operation Rainmaker," the FBI's broad investigation of a Washington
lobbying ring, has already led to a handful of convictions, including
Ney's guilty plea last month. The inquiry was one reason for the
resignation last year of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who
also faces state campaign finance charges. Other investigations seem
to be sprouting everywhere.

But Reid Weingarten, a former Abscam prosecutor who now is a high-
profile Washington criminal defense lawyer, said he would bet that the
flurry of congressional cases has resulted from evidence "falling in
their (investigators') laps" rather than a programmed FBI hunt for
corruption.

The FBI does appear to be stepping up its use of electronic
surveillance and has conducted stings of state politicians. Bureau
agents secretly taped Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., before finding
$90,000 in his freezer during a raid last May. Cell phones were
wiretapped for four months in an investigation of Rep. Curt Weldon, R-
Pa., government sources say.

In "Operation Tennessee Waltz," 10 Tennessee state officials,
including five current and former legislators, have been prosecuted in
a scheme in which hidden cameras whirred as FBI undercover agents
offered payoffs in return for help for a dummy company. Burrus said
some targeted Tennessee legislators were moving so quickly that "we
were actually having to discuss how we were going to slow it down" so
that bills aiding the phony firm didn't become law.

A separate undercover inquiry led to the indictment of three members
of San Diego's city council.

In Alaska, the FBI has more than doubled its manpower in a massive
investigation of illegal influence in the Alaska Legislature by the
international oil-field service company Veco and other businesses. On
Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, the FBI conducted two dozen raids and searched
the office of state Sen. Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-
Alaska. No charges have been filed, but the FBI has said the
investigation continues.

Burrus declined to discuss any investigation but said the FBI will
focus on more state capitals over the next year "because we have seen
a trend in cases that leads us to believe there's more out there."

When he arrived as deputy chief of the criminal division in 2004, he
said, field offices frequently told him they had "no idea" how to
pursue public- corruption leads. Since then, he said, agents in about
30 of the bureau's 56 field offices have been trained. FBI agents in
Washington have studied congressional activities that might invite
bribes, such as hard-to-trace "earmarks," in which members appropriate
money for pet projects and often keep their involvement off the public
record.

"Public-corruption cases have to be fished out," he said, noting that
crooked politicians tend to do secret deals with one other person and
often try to disguise their actions as "for the public's good."

Controversial new legal theories are also helping prosecutors bring
cases in which they can't prove outright briberies. A vaguely written,
28-word 1988 law, for example, makes it a fraud for a politician to
deprive taxpayers of his "honest services." It was among the charges
lodged against Cunningham, Ney, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the
San Diego councilmen.

Burrus said the FBI has to prove "that this person engaged in the
activities specifically to receive this stream of benefits and knew
that stream of benefits would stop if he did not support these
particular projects."