A classified Justice Department report says a former FBI translator who complained that bureau linguists produced sloppy and incomplete translations of critical post-September 11 terrorism intelligence was dismissed, in part, because of her accusations, which were never aggressively investigated by the agency.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that while the department’s Office of the Inspector General did not conclude that the FBI had retaliated against the translator, Sibel Edmonds, it found that her accusations against the bureau “were at least a contributing factor” in her termination.
Mr. Mueller told Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican and committee chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and committee member, and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking member on the panel, that he has requested a follow-up investigation by the bureau to determine whether “any discipline of FBI employees would be appropriate.”
In the two-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, Mr. Mueller also said that the FBI would review its handling of Mrs. Edmonds’ accusations and “conduct additional investigation as appropriate.”
“I want all FBI employees, as well as our contractors and detailees, to know that I encourage them to raise good faith concerns about mismanagement or misconduct,” he said in the July 21 letter. “I embrace the whistleblower protections and will not tolerate reprisals or intimidation by any bureau employees against those who make protected disclosures.”
Mrs. Edmonds, fired by the FBI in March 2002 after six months as a contract translator, charged in a lawsuit that she was dismissed after repeatedly complaining to FBI executives about incorrect translations of court-authorized wiretaps.
She also told the executives that a fellow translator of Turkish at the FBI’s Washington field office with a relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised national security by passing wiretap information to an investigative target.
On July 6, a federal judge in the District dismissed the July 2002 suit, ruling that information needed for the case was classified and protected by what is known as the “state secrets privilege.”
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, in his ruling, agreed with Justice Department and FBI arguments in the case that the suit — if allowed to go forward — could compromise or disclose national security information.
Mrs. Edmonds said her First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Privacy Act rights had been violated by the government and sought monetary damages and re-instatement to a contract job. She also said that the FBI had violated her free-speech and due-process rights when it fired her, a termination she said was in retaliation for whistleblowing.
But Judge Walton ruled that Mrs. Edmonds “is unable to establish her First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Privacy Act claims without the disclosure of privileged information,” adding that the government also would be unable to defend itself against her accusations without the same disclosures.
“The plaintiff’s case must be dismissed, albeit with great consternation, in the interests of national security,” Judge Walton wrote.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, in defending the state secrets privilege, said in a declaration to the court that “further disclosure of the information underlying in this case, including the nature of the duties of the plaintiff or the other contract translators at issue in this case reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security interests of the United States.”
Mr. Mueller also noted in the letter that Mrs. Edmonds, as a contract employee, “did not qualify for whistleblower protection.”
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, in a July 15 letter to the committee, said his investigation into the Edmonds accusations and a separate audit of the FBI’s foreign intelligence translation program had been classified as “secret.” He said a third report examining the FBI’s handling of intelligence information related to the September 11 attacks had been classified as “top secret.”
But Mr. Fine said it would be “preferable” to publicly release some version of each of the reports and that his office was working with the agencies whose classified information is contained in the documents “in an attempt to produce an unclassified version.”
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