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Report due on FBI record-handling

By Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- The FBI was bracing for a scathing evaluation of its records-management system today, nearly a year after lawyers for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh were denied thousands of government documents before his trial.

The report of the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General is expected to find fault with the FBI and recommend disciplinary action for some bureau employees, sources with knowledge of the Justice review said Monday.

Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the review in May when it was disclosed that the FBI failed to turn over about 3,000 case documents to McVeigh's defense lawyers. The discovery prompted Ashcroft to delay McVeigh's execution for a month.

Upon review, federal courts ruled the documents had no bearing on McVeigh's guilt in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. McVeigh was executed in June -- the first federal execution in nearly 40 years.

Until the Sept. 11 attacks, McVeigh's crime was the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil. The bombing killed 168 people. The Sept. 11 attacks killed more than 3,000.

In the report, the inspector general finds that some agents were generally unaware of the expanded rules of what to turn over as evidence in the McVeigh case. The rules were issued by the judge in the case and called for the government to turn over virtually every document generated in the extensive investigation of the bombing.

The report cites a culture in which some FBI agents decided for themselves what documents were relevant. It says the agents shared with prosecutors and defense lawyers only those documents that met their criteria.

However, the report cites no instance in which FBI agents intentionally withheld material that might have been helpful to McVeigh's defense.