Former FBI agent wins suit
Whistleblower awarded $565,000 in 2001 sexual discrimination case
BY TAD VEZNER, Feb 6, 2007
Pioneer Press

After weathering retaliatory reviews, an unwanted transfer, threats of being fired and a resignation under duress, former Minneapolis FBI agent and whistleblower Jane Turner was awarded more than $500,000 in compensation Monday for the agency's actions following her filing of a sexual discrimination claim.

A U.S. District Court jury in Minneapolis awarded Turner $565,000 — including $60,000 in lost wages and $505,000 for emotional distress and damage to her reputation.

"Today is a true vindication for whistleblowers in the FBI," Turner said after the verdict. Several jurors embraced her, in tears.

The 2001 case — dismissed in 2004 and then reinstated in 2005 by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — focuses on Turner's stint as an FBI agent in Minot, N.D., in 1998 and 1999.

A 20-year agency veteran at the time, Turner, 55, of St. Paul, noted in her lawsuit that she had always received performance ratings of at least "satisfactory" but usually "superior" or "exceptional."

But in 1998, she filed a discrimination claim with the FBI alleging that female agents were not being given equal credit for cases.

Turner said her immediate supervisor, Craig Welken, then began to retaliate: not assigning Turner to a high-profile child pornography case involving a North Dakota man named Larry Froistad, who stood accused of distributing child pornography and murdering his 5-year-old daughter.

The then-U.S. attorney for North Dakota, John Schneider, intervened, demanding Turner be placed on the case because of her expertise in investigating crimes against children.

"She had already established herself as a leading national expert in profiling and obtaining confessions in child sex crime cases," said Stephen Kohn, a Washington attorney who served as Turner's lead counsel.

"She was able to get confessions on these really horrendous child crime cases that nobody else had ever done — that's why these prosecutors (who worked for the Department of Justice) were willing to come in and testify," Kohn added, referring to two North Dakota assistant district attorneys who spoke on Turner's behalf during the trial.

Government attorneys representing the FBI could not be reached for comment on the verdict.

Welken agreed to Schneider's request, and Turner obtained a confession from Froistad, who was sentenced to life in prison. Schneider later credited Turner for the conviction in a private e-mail to her.

But Turner said Welken criticized her handling of the case, accusing her of "poaching" it from a male agent and "sandbagging" him with Schneider.

Turner complained to Welken's superior, James Burrus, who then forwarded the complaint back down to Welken.

Days later, in an unscheduled interim performance review, Welken gave Turner her first negative marks in 21 years, rating her "minimally acceptable/unacceptable." Two more negative reviews followed that year, and despite her protests, FBI managers transferred Turner to a Minneapolis desk job, which she began in May 2000.

Things did not go well in Minneapolis: By May 2003, the bureau said they intended to fire Turner because her performance did "not meet expectations." She said she received few job assignments in her area of expertise, and the year before, she accused agents in Minneapolis of stealing a Tiffany crystal globe from the wreckage of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She reported the theft to other federal authorities, and the Department of Justice's inspector general later confirmed the allegation.

Still, Turner resigned in October 2003, before the firing process could be completed.

The jury Monday found that Welken's negative performance reviews were retaliatory — but the involuntary transfer was not.

And a separate case remains before the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, pertaining to the FBI's push to fire her after her report about the Tiffany globe. That case was on hold, pending the outcome of Monday's verdict — which, like Turner, Kohn called "a complete vindication" with national implications.

"The culture of the FBI has been one to punish employees that have attempted to come forward," he said. "They knew that documentation was wrong, and they refused to chase it. One can only hope the FBI will reform its ways."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Statement of Jane Turner

After twenty-five years of faithful, and honorable service as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I was constructively discharged after submitting to FBI management evidence of malfeasance and criminal activity of fellow FBI agents, as well as evidence on the theft of artifacts from Ground Zero after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Prior to providing FBI officials proof of misconduct by FBI managers, I had been consistently rated as ?Exceptional? or ?Superior? in my duties. The United States Attorney and the Assistant United States Attorney for the Department of Justice, who I had the privilege of working closely with in a highly specific jurisdictional area for the FBI, described my investigative abilities and accomplishments as one of the best, if not the best in the nation.

After notifying senior management and the Office of Professional Responsibility for the FBI of theft of evidence by FBI personnel, and the removal of official paperwork from case files that corroborated criminal behavior by FBI agents, I suffered retaliation and reprisal.

At one point, a senior official offered me a favorable and highly desirable assignment if I would drop all allegations of misconduct by FBI managers. I refused.

Although Director Mueller has publicly stated that the FBI does not retaliate against whistleblowers, I am here today to stand as a witness that retaliation and reprisal is alive and well at the FBI. I stand shoulder to shoulder with Sibel Edmonds and every other FBI whistleblower who has exposed wrongdoing, and suffered terrible consequences. Whistleblowers in the FBI lose their career, their financial stability, and are subjected to terrible reprisals. These reprisals take the form of lower performance reports, isolation, ostracism, loss of assignments and equipment, and diminished status. From my contacts with other FBI whistleblowers, specifically through a website dedicated to FBI whistleblowers (fbiwhistlestop.com), I have discovered that the treatment of FBI whistleblowers is consistent, typical, and routine.

FBI whistleblowers are subjected to a series of debilitating actions taken by senior FBI officials in order to not only break the whistleblower, but also send a message to everyone in the FBI that whistleblowing will not be tolerated, and will clearly be retaliated against. Personnel in the FBI are fully aware that protection for whistleblowers is non-existent. The names of FBI whistleblowers from Fred Whitehurst onward, are known in every FBI office, by every FBI agent, not because of what the whistleblower brought to light, changed, or sacrificed, but rather for what the FBI did to the whistleblower.

An October Surprise for Bush and the FBI?

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds talks about her case --and hints at a forthcoming scandal


by Steve Perry


Sibel Edmonds's claims of incompetence, malfeasance, and possible espionage in the FBI's translation unit have received only sporadic attention since she first aired them widely in a 60 Minutes report in October 2002--not least because of the veil of silence that the Bush Justice Department has tried to draw over the case. In July of this year, a Bush-appointed judge dismissed Edmonds's lawsuit against the FBI on the grounds that the case would necessarily expose state secrets. Judge Reggie Walton's logic parroted that of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who in May 2004 issued an order retroactively classifying all the information that had been presented to Congress in her case because of its alleged national security sensitivity.

But l'affaire Edmonds is heating up again. Last month Edmonds filed a new lawsuit seeking to compel release of the documents in her case under the Freedom of Information law. And last Tuesday's page one New York Times story about the 120,000-hour backlog of untranslated intelligence tapes the FBI is presently sitting on lent additional credence to her charges. (Some al Qaeda communiqués, the Times reported, were automatically deleted by the overloaded computer system in the department before they could be translated.)

It wasn't the first time Edmonds had been featured on the front page of the Times; she was the subject of a July 29 dispatch which disclosed that the DoJ Inspector General had completed a report--classified, of course--concluding that her whistleblowing activities were a factor in her April 2002 firing, after just six months-plus of employment at the FBI.

Despite the legal walls the FBI and the Bush administration have attempted to build around her case, it's nonetheless clear from letters and documents that are already irretrievably in the public realm that Edmonds's claims (give or take those of Richard Clarke) may be the most explosive yet lodged against the U.S. government's anti-terrorism work post-9/11.

Certainly she is the most dangerous whistleblower the FBI has spawned to date, because her allegations include claims that the FBI not only failed to do its job, but also knowingly employed a foreign-born translator with ties to individuals and at least one organization then under investigation. Edmonds claimed that this translator actively obstructed the translation and dissemination of communiqués involving foreign suspects to whom she had personal ties. In addition, Edmonds has charged that the FBI suppressed evidence that it received a specific, detailed, and ultimately accurate description of the 9/11 plot from an Iranian source in April 2001.

The following conversation took place by phone on Tuesday, September 28.

City Pages: As I understand it, you're currently barred from even discussing publicly the claims you made about the translation department. Is that correct?

Sibel Edmonds: Not exactly. Everybody else is barred. They have not personally barred me. However, I'm restricted because of the classification issues, because I would be liable. But in terms of official gagging, they have done that with the Congress. This happened in May 2004. They gagged the Congress by retroactively classifying everything that had to do with me and my case. For example, congressmen can no longer even talk about what languages I spoke. They also barred the courts from processing this case, and basically had them drop the case by invoking this rarely invoked state secrets privilege. They barred the Inspector General's office by entirely classifying their report. So far they have not allowed them to have even a small part declassified.

When you look at it, every other venue has been gagged on my issue. But I have not been officially gagged. But I'm bounded by the classification and nondisclosure issues.

CP: Your case was dismissed by a judge in July, again on the grounds of secrecy. I assume you're appealing.

Edmonds: We're absolutely appealing that. We've already filed our notice of appeal. We brought that suit in July 2002 and the judge did not hold any hearings, no oral arguments, no discovery. And then, in a hasty manner in June 2004, he dismissed it based on the state secrets privilege the government asserted. The reason it was hasty was that the victims of 9/11 family members have an attorney who wanted to subpoena me as a key witness. The judge had to rule quickly so that they wouldn't subpoena my deposition.

We are appealing that, and we believe ultimately it's going to wind up in front of the Supreme Court.

CP: Has your attorney given you any indication of how long this battle may go on?

Edmonds: Well, July 2002 we filed it, and it took this judge--with no hearings, no activity--two years to rule against it. Now, with the appeals court, it should be faster than that. However, as we know, the government tries all sorts of ways to stall this whole thing, by asking for extensions, etc. However, considering these latest developments, and more developments that are going to occur this month, in October, I believe they are going to have a hard time dragging out this appeal thing. Either they have to rule against it or actually overturn this judge's decision. So I'm optimistic with this new lawsuit and the appeal process.

CP: Are you at liberty to discuss any of the other news that will be breaking in October?

Edmonds: No, but many pieces of the various information has been out. However, the dots to this date have not been really connected. That is, the issues I reported to the Inspector General's office in the Department of Justice, and also to the 9/11 Commission and to Congress, can be classified in three different categories. One had to do with intentional blocking of translations by certain translators for various reasons. The other had to do with just pure incompetence. Certain translators were hired through back doors, even though these individuals failed proficiency exams or background security checks. And the third, most important issue had to do with [the fact] that the state secrets privilege was invoked not to protect state secrets, but invoked--and this hopefully will be out before this election--to cover up some other issues that had nothing to do with national security or state secrets, but [with] intentional action, some of them criminal actions, by certain authorities here in the United States.

Again, these issues were reported; I reported them to the Congress, to the Inspector General, and the 9/11 Commission, along with evidence. And they have been sitting on it. Once this comes out, they are going to be liable, too, by not doing anything about these issues, and abiding by these gag orders, considering that the gag orders were illegal in the first place. Even the National Security Archives called it illegal. Because Ashcroft had to meet three criteria in order to retroactively classify these investigations, and he did not meet these three criteria.

CP: The ironic thing, of course, is that so much regarding the substance of your claims is easily accessible on the internet--it was even summarized pretty well on the front page of the New York Times a couple of months ago. So why the extraordinary lengths to prevent any congressional or court action, do you think?

Edmonds: Because if they don't do that, the court proceedings would have gone on, and that would have exposed the issues they want to cover up. For example, thousands of websites contain these letters written by Senators Grassley and Leahy since 2002 about the unclassified meeting the Judiciary Committee had with FBI officials, during which the FBI officials confirmed all my allegations and denied none. Now, using this and using these letters that were written--these were public letters, and that puts the government at a disadvantage. They can't say, Well, this is secret, we can't talk about it, because they divulged this information during unclassified meetings themselves.

They are playing it both ways, but unfortunately no one is challenging that. Not the courts, especially this particular judge. Which is very interesting. My case went from one judge to another judge, mysteriously, without being provided any explanation on why, until it landed with this judge, Reggie Walton, who was recently appointed by President Bush. And it stayed in front of him. So neither the judges nor Congress is challenging these actions.

As far as the Congress goes, the whole attitude has been, they're afraid to be labeled unpatriotic. Or things such as, "Well, this is Ashcroft, and you don't mess with him. This guy's crazy." This is what the senators, even Republicans, are saying.

CP: Most of the other whistleblowers say the Bureau tried to destroy their reputations or portray them as mentally unstable. Did they seek to do that to you at any point?

Edmonds: Absolutely not. In fact, for two and a half years--and this surprised me, because it's rare--either with their briefings in front of the Senate, or when they talk off the record with other papers, they have not done that, because I think, in a way, they know that if they do it, then based on information, evidence, documents that I have, it's going to get worse for them. So they have refrained from doing any of these name-smearings. The worst thing they said, initially, which they backed off, was that Sibel Edmonds's contract was terminated purely for the government's convenience. That's the only reason they cited. Months later, the FBI leaked this information, actually inaccurate information, to the Associated Press, telling them that I was fired due to being disruptive with my whistleblowing and my allegations. Then later on, they backtracked on that.

CP: Tell me how the 9/11 families organization helped bring your story to light.

Edmonds: That's an interesting story. In May 2003, I wrote to 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, sent a certified letter to his office, telling him that he needed to interview me because of the direct information I had about 9/11 issues. And also I knew of other witnesses I worked with who were willing to provide testimony to the 9/11 Commission if they were asked. They couldn't go voluntarily, because some of these witnesses are still working for the FBI, but they wanted the Commission to subpoena them so they could give this information.

Interestingly, after following up with them, they said no, the Commission had very limited time, and most of the witnesses with related information would not be interviewed. So I let it go, but months later I met with some of the 9/11 family members, and I told them about what happened, and I showed them the letter. They were outraged, because they had been promised by the Commission that no witness was going to be turned away. They were going to talk to everybody, and look at every single document.

So we met with the 9/11 Commission in January 2004. We went there and we had meetings with some of the members. And boom, a month later they scheduled me to go out and provide testimony. And also I myself drove certain other witnesses--translators, assets, informants--to their offices to be interviewed. However, lots of these issues were not discussed in the report. They just referred to the IG report. And the IG report, as you know, is highly classified so far.

Later I attended the public hearings that the Commission held, and I worked with the family members and introduced them to other witnesses. Some of them are still working for the Bureau, so I would arrange meetings for them with the family members. They trusted the family members more than the Commission. They knew this Commission would not really put out most of the facts.

CP: Have you had any members of Congress in your corner during this battle?

Edmonds: So far it has been very disappointing, and not even in a partisan way, which is very surprising. I have gone to so many people, banged on so many doors in the past two and a half years that you would be amazed. The response has not been partisan. I have had certain Republicans who have been very supportive, and I have had certain Democrats who have been supportive, and I have had certain Democrats who have wanted to do absolutely nothing with it. In fact they would say that they don't want to mess with it, because considering the upcoming election, it would hurt the Democrats.

So I haven't seen any partisan attitude about it. Senator Grassley's office, and Senator Grassley himself, have been by far, by far, the most straight to their word, the most consistently supportive person out there. He has defied all these fear reactions that other senators and congressmen have: We don't want to be labeled, we don't want to touch this thing. He has been talking to the press; he has come on various TV news programs and has been plainly outspoken about the issues. His staff and his office have been absolutely valuable. In fact, if it was not for Senator Grassley and Senator Grassley's office, the IG would have not even talked about finishing this report. They demanded that the report and investigation be expedited. They also provided the press with information and confirmation that was necessary to get the story out there. Because what happens, many media outlets will hear your story and think you may be crazy. You may be a liar. You may have an agenda. They want to go somewhere and verify the issues. With Senator Grassley, and to a certain extent with Senator Leahy, they have been very effective and very good. I don't think they've gone all the way, but relatively speaking, they have been the best.

· · Vol 25 · Issue 1244 · PUBLISHED 10/6/2004
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