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52–800 PDF 2009

S. HRG. 111–115 

OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF 

INVESTIGATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 25, 2009 

Serial No. J–111–14 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Republican Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., Leahy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ........ 1 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 134 

Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania ................. 3 

WITNESSES 

Mueller, Robert S., III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department 

of Justice, Washington, D.C. ............................................................................... 5 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Responses of Robert S. Mueller, III, to questions submitted by Senators 

Leahy, Feingold, Durbin, Whitehouse, Wyden, Hatch, Grassley, Coburn ....... 45 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Burton, M. Faith, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative 

Affairs, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., letter ................................. 113 

Dugan Patrick, Assistant District Attorney, Chief of the Rackets Bureau, 

New York, New York, letter ................................................................................ 119 

Grassley, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa, letter .......... 123 

Heintz, Vincent G., Esq. Bronx, New York, letter ................................................ 126 

Mueller, Robert S., III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department 

of Justice, Washington, D.C., statement ............................................................ 136 

Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania, letter ...... 152 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF 

INVESTIGATION 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room 

SH–216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer, Durbin, 

Cardin, Whitehouse, Wyden, Klobuchar, Kaufman, Specter, Grassley, Kyl, and Sessions. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Chairman LEAHY. Good morning. Oversight is one of the Congress’ most important responsibilities, and one that this Committee 

will continue to fulfill, as it has in past Congresses and will in this 

Congress. Today, we welcome back to the Committee Director 

Mueller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, no stranger to this 

Committee. It is now 6 months since our last FBI oversight hearing, and we will soon hold an oversight hearing with Secretary 

Napolitano, and then with Attorney General Holder, who had his 

confirmation hearing before us 2 months ago. 

So we will talk about the effectiveness of the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation in carrying out its critical missions to keep us secure 

while upholding the rule of law. 

We had a commemoration—and I was pleased to be there—of the 

100th anniversary of the FBI last year. I want to quote something 

from what Director Mueller said. He said: 

‘‘It is not enough to stop the terrorist—we must stop him while 

maintaining his civil liberties. It is not enough to catch the criminal—we must catch him while respecting his civil rights. It is not 

enough to prevent foreign countries from stealing our secrets—we 

must prevent that from happening while still upholding the rule of 

law. The rule of law, civil liberties, and civil rights—these are not 

our burdens. They are what make us better. And they are what 

have made us better for the past 100 years.’’ 

I talked to the Director after that and commended him for that 

speech. In fact, I referred to it on the floor of the Senate and put 

it into the record. 

There are many vital issues on which we have to work together. 

One of particular importance is aggressive enforcement of the mortgage fraud and financial fraud that contributed to the massive ecoVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
2 

nomic crisis we are facing. I see Senator Grassley here. He and I 

introduced and passed out of this Committee legislation, which I 

understand may be on the Senate floor next month in that regard. 

As Director Mueller will share with us, the FBI’s mortgage fraud 

caseload has more than doubled in the past 3 years, with all signs 

pointing to a continued increase in fraud cases. Then there is, of 

course, the need to police the use of the recovery funds. All these 

are straining the FBI’s resources. 

I think the FBI is taking good steps to bulk up fraud enforcement and using creative measures, including new technologies and 

also interagency task forces. In his budget outline, the President 

showed leadership by committing to provide additional resources to 

the FBI to investigate and prosecute mortgage fraud. In my view, 

we have to do still more. More is needed to give investigators and 

prosecutors the resources they need to aggressively detect and 

prosecute these insidious forms of fraud. The Fraud Enforcement 

and Recovery Act of 2009 that I have mentioned—Senator Grassley 

and Senator Klobuchar and Senator Kaufman and Senator Schumer and I introduced that legislation—will do exactly that. I appreciate the Bureau’s assistance in developing this important legislation. Yesterday, the Majority Leader said he is going to try to have 

it on the floor during the first week we are back after the Easter 

recess. I suspect it will pass overwhelmingly, and I hope we can get 

a time agreement to do that. 

Over the last couple of years, the Director has identified public 

corruption as the Bureau’s top criminal priority. Recent high profile 

cases make clear the importance of aggressive enforcement of corruption laws. The Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements 

Act—that is a bill I introduced with Senator Cornyn of Texas—will 

give investigators and prosecutors the tools they need in this regard, and that has also been reported to the Senate. 

There are other issues that have arisen during the past few 

years. One is the misuse of ‘‘exigent letters,’’ to obtain phone 

records and other sensitive records of Americans, including reporters, without a warrant. These letters claimed emergency conditions 

that were not applicable and promised a follow-up legal process 

that never came. I hope that the Director will be able to assure us, 

and the Inspector General will confirm, that appropriate steps have 

been taken to prevent a repeat of that abuse. I will ask the Director to address concerns we have that the records may have been 

illegally obtained through these exigent letters and then inappropriately retained by the Government. 

I have been concerned—and I have discussed this with the Director—about the FBI’s responsiveness to requests for information 

under the Freedom of Information Act. Open Government is key to 

a strong democracy. It is a principle that has been embraced by the 

new President and the Attorney General. The FBI has got to be 

faster in their responses. 

Now, during this hearing we will discuss, as we always do, the 

good and the bad: how the FBI worked to clear the backlog in 

name checks for immigration and voting purposes; how the FBI has 

improved its crime lab testing; but also which problems remain; 

and the expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act. 

3 

In the area of violent crime, there are disturbing signs that crime 

rates may increase significantly in response to the financial crisis, 

and we will talk about that. 

But, mostly, I applaud the Director’s efforts to recommit the FBI 

to its best traditions. He has done it through not only his statements but his personal example and leadership. And I appreciate 

his openness to oversight and accountability. I might state parenthetically that there has never been an instance when I have 

called him when I have had a question about some action that the 

Director has not been on the phone immediately and been responsive. 

Senator Specter. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before addressing the oversight hearing today, a very important 

one, on FBI Director Mueller, I want to comment about a matter 

which you just raised with me, and that is the confirmation hearing of nominee Judge Hamilton for the Seventh Circuit. I wrote to 

you yesterday on the subject because of concern which I have, as 

well as my caucus, on the timing, and I would ask that that letter 

be made a part of the record. 

Chairman LEAHY. It was answered. You read it first in the press, 

and then I read it second, and so it has been in the public record 

because we have already viewed it in the press, but we will put it 

in the record. As I also mentioned to you this morning, I have had 

a number of times that at requests from your side of the aisle, I 

have delayed hearings and all, confirmation hearings, and then had 

further delays put in even though I have tried to cooperate that 

way, Attorney General Holder being one example where we delayed 

it for a week or two, and then it was put over another week, and 

then delayed for another week on the floor. And he subsequently 

was confirmed with the largest vote of the last four Attorneys General. 

I mentioned at a markup here recently having put over, at the 

request of Republicans, a couple nominations and delayed them to 

give them more time, and then unexpectedly they were put over 

under the rule by the Republicans, and I was somewhat frustrated 

that it seemed to be one-sided. But I know that Judge Hamilton 

is strongly supported by Senator Lugar and Senator Bayh. We will 

have the hearing, but then we will have almost 3 weeks after that 

before any markup comes up because of the Senate calendar. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, if I may return to the subject I started 

on and thought I had the floor on, the issue is not the time after 

the hearing on preparation. The issue is on time for preparation to 

ask questions at the hearing. That is what the hearing is about. 

And I was about to say that Judge Hamilton has a very extensive 

record on the Federal district court, some 1,200 opinions. 

Now, in the time sequence set forth in the letter—and let me say 

that my Chief Counsel handed me a note that we did not release 

the letter to the press. And if there is any proof to the contrary and 

we identify somebody on my staff who did it, he will not be on my 

staff any longer. 

4 

But let us get to the substance, which is important, on the confirmation process, and that substance is that it is a lifetime appointment. And when a comment is made by the Chairman to me 

that when you have a conservative Senator like Dick Lugar approving this nominee that is sufficient, well, it is not sufficient. There 

is a little thing called the Constitution, and it calls for confirmation 

by the Senate. It does not call for approval or recommendation by 

the home-State Senator. True, that is indispensable under our blue 

slip policy, or at least under the blue slip policy when we had a 

Republican President. And that is another practice that the Republican Caucus is going to insist on continuing. But Dick Lugar does 

not confirm. The Senate does, and the recommendation of the Judiciary Committee is indispensable on that. 

There needs to be time to make an analysis. To have a period 

of time after the hearing, does not do any good unless there is another hearing. And I know that is not contemplated and that is not 

necessary. 

Now, Director Mueller, thank you for coming and on to lesser serious subjects like terrorism and violent crime and the death penalty and other subjects which are very much in the forefront of the 

concern of the American people and this Committee. 

Terrorism remains a major problem in this country, and the first 

question I am going to ask you is whether you are in a position to 

assure the American people of two things: No. 1, that the mistakes 

on 9/11 will not be repeated; and, second, that we have made significant advances overall on coordination in the fight against terrorism with respect to the duties that the FBI has. 

We have enormous problems on violent crime, and we have a 

way in this country of saying that we cannot afford to pay for the 

prosecution and incarceration of violent criminals because of our 

government’s other financial obligations. Well, that is unsatisfactory. Security is number one. National security is at the top of the 

security list, and terrorism is at the top there. But so is domestic 

security. And where you have public officials saying the death penalty ought to be eliminated because we cannot afford to enforce it, 

well, in my view, that is not acceptable. 

If there is a decision made in this country that we ought to 

change the rules and not have the death penalty, that is one thing. 

My own view, from experience as a district attorney, is that it is 

a deterrent if it is properly used. It has to be properly used, but 

that is a complicated subject. The issue as to whether we can afford 

it is one which I want to take up with you. Our prisons are overcrowded, but we cannot let violent criminals loose. 

Now, if we can make better judgments as to who ought to be detained, fine. We ought to be doing that. If we can work through 

prevention, rehabilitation of drug addicts, mentoring of at-risk 

youth, taking second-chance people and getting them out of the 

crime cycle so they do not go back to prison, that is something we 

need to do. And you have some important things to say on those 

issues. 

Then I want to talk to you about white-collar crime. I see too 

many major prosecutions ending in fines which turn out to be licenses to do business, licenses to violate the law. Certainly prison 

is a deterrent for white-collar crime, and I want to know what is 

5 

going on. Actually, it is not that I want to know, America wants 

to know what is going on with all of the fraud which has led us 

to the terrible economic situation we have now where there have 

been misrepresentations about balance sheets and widespread selling of insurance around the world without a reserve. Has there 

been a representation here which has been breached? Is there 

fraud? Fraud is a crime. In this magnitude, there ought to be jail 

sentences to deter others, and that is a subject that I will want to 

talk to you about. 

Then I am going to want to ask you about what kind of oversight 

there is on corruption prosecutions. There was the prosecution of 

a Senator, Ted Stevens, which has drawn severe criticism from the 

presiding Federal judge, contempt citations against Federal prosecutors; an FBI agent was implicated—there is an issue as to what 

happened there, and it may be a matter for oversight by this Committee when the case is finished, or perhaps even sooner. It is a 

matter for the Chairman. But I will want to know what the FBI 

is doing on that case and what the FBI is doing in terms of providing oversight. 

As a district attorney, I saw many young prosecutors cut corners 

looking for big targets, publicity, high-profile cases, and the prosecutors have to be quasi-judicial and not do that. And that applies 

to the FBI agents as well, a subject that I want to take up with 

you. 

Finally, you come on a very busy day, Director Mueller, but you 

are used to that. We have Justice O’Connor testifying before another Committee that I am on. We have Governor Rendell testifying before a third Committee. So, as you know, Senators will 

come and go. But we are very concerned with what you have to 

say. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT S. MUELLER, III, DIRECTOR, 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. MUELLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Specter, and Members of the Committee. 

As you know, we in the FBI have undergone unprecedented 

transformation in recent years, from developing the intelligence capabilities necessary to address emerging terrorist and criminal 

threats, to creating the administrative and technological structure 

necessary to meet our mission as a national security service. 

Today, the Bureau is a stronger organization, combining better 

intelligence capabilities with a longstanding commitment to protecting the American people from criminal threats. And we are also 

mindful that our mission is not just to safeguard American lives, 

but also to safeguard American liberties. 

Certainly the threats currently present in the national security 

arena continue to be a grave concern. Terrorism remains our top 

priority, and as illustrated by the recent Mumbai attacks, we cannot become complacent. Al Qaeda, lesser known groups, and homegrown terrorists will continue to pose a threat to the United States. 

6 

We must also continue to guard our country’s most sensitive secrets from hostile intelligence services and remember that our Nation’s cyber infrastructure is vulnerable to compromise or disruption, be it from a terrorist, a spy, or an international criminal enterprise. 

But these three are by no means our only priorities. While Americans justifiably worry about terrorism, it is crime in their communities that often most directly impacts their daily lives. 

Public corruption continues to be our top criminal priority. The 

FBI has 2,500 pending public corruption investigations and in the 

last 2 years alone has convicted more than 1,600 Federal, State, 

and local officials. And we remain committed to ensuring those 

given the public trust do not abuse it. 

Economic crime is, of course, a critical concern now more than 

ever. For example, the FBI’s mortgage fraud caseload has more 

than doubled in the past 3 years from 700 to more than 2,000 active investigations. We currently have more than 560 pending corporate fraud investigations, including cases directly related to the 

current financial crisis. 

In response, we have been shifting personnel within the criminal 

branch to the extent possible; we have been using new analytical 

techniques to better identify trends and violators; and we have 

been building upon existing partnerships to further leverage expertise and resources. 

For example, we created the National Mortgage Fraud Team at 

FBI headquarters to prioritize pending investigations, provide additional tools to identify the most egregious violators, and provide 

strategic information to evaluate where additional manpower is 

needed. We have also established 18 mortgage fraud task forces 

and 47 working groups with other Government agencies across the 

country so that we may more effectively focus on particular problem areas. 

While the FBI is surging to mortgage fraud investigations, our 

expectation is that economic crimes will continue to skyrocket. The 

unprecedented level of financial resources committed by the Federal Government to combat the economic downturn will lead to an 

inevitable increase in economic crime and public corruption cases. 

Historically, the Bureau handled emerging criminal threats by 

transferring personnel within its criminal branch to meet the new 

threat. After 9/11, we have lost some of this elasticity. In response 

to the September 11th attacks, the FBI permanently moved approximately 2,000 of its criminal agents to our national security 

branch. This transfer has substantially improved our counter terrorism program, and we have no intention of retreating from preventing another terrorist attack on American soil as our No. 1 priority. 

But the logical consequence of cannibalizing our criminal resources to augment our national security efforts is that we have reduced the ability to surge resources within our criminal branch. Although we have begun an effort to rebuild our criminal resources 

back to our pre-9/11 levels, we still have a substantial way to go. 

As always, the FBI will set priorities to attack the most severe 

threats, but a note of realism is in order in light of the scale of the 

7 

FBI’s existing mission after September 11th and the degree of 

strain on our current resources. 

Violent crime is also a very serious concern, and although data 

indicates violent crime declined across the country in recent years, 

the citizens of many communities, especially small to mid-sized cities, continue to be plagued by gang violence and gun crime. Since 

2001, our gang cases have doubled, and the spread of international 

gangs, such as MS–13, has increased. The FBI continues to combat 

this threat through more than 200 safe streets, gang, violent crime, 

and major theft task forces across the country. These task forces 

enable us to work effectively with State, local, tribal, and international partners to provide an immediate response to surges in 

violent crime. And so, too, must we continue our work with State 

and local counterparts to combat crimes against children, the most 

vulnerable members of our communities. 

We are also deeply concerned about the high levels of violence 

along the Southwest border. Gang activity, drug cartel competition 

for supremacy, murders, and kidnappings plague the border in both 

the United States and in Mexico. These crimes can even impact 

communities deep in America’s heartland. 

In recent visits with my counterparts in Mexico, I was again convinced that they are as concerned and certainly as committed as 

we are. This commitment is underscored by the fact that several 

of the top police and justice officials with whom we have in the 

past forged relationships have been assassinated by drug gangs. 

We will continue our strong alliance with our Mexican law enforcement partners to address this border-related crime. 

I also want to update you on key changes we have made within 

the FBI, both in our structure and in the way we do business to 

more effectively meet the challenges presented since September 

11th. 

We know that the FBI’s best and strongest asset is our people, 

and so we have paid attention to recruiting, training, and maintaining a work force with the skills necessary to meet the challenges of today’s mission. Our hiring goals includes agents, analysts, IT specialists, linguists, and professional staff. In this year 

alone, we have received more than 300 applications and have extended already 4,400 job offers. 

We have strengthened our training at the FBI’s Quantico Training Academy for both agents and analysts. The numbers of State, 

local, and international law enforcement executives graduating 

from the FBI National Academy has grown, and we are revamping 

our approach to developing leaders at all levels within the FBI, recognizing that today’s new employees are the leaders of tomorrow’s 

FBI. 

Finally, a few words regarding improvements in FBI technology. 

Sentinel, our web-based case management system, is on time and 

on target. Blackberry with Internet capabilities have been issued 

to over 24,000 of our personnel. We currently have more than 

30,000 workstations in the FBI Unclassified Network providing 

desktop Internet connectivity to employees throughout the enterprise. We are also strengthening several information technology 

programs described more fully in my formal statement that will 

8 

allow us to communicate and share information with our law enforcement and intelligence partners. 

In closing, let me thank this Committee for your support for the 

men and women of the FBI, and I look forward to working with the 

Committee on these and other challenges facing our country. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mueller appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Director Mueller, and 

let me just on a couple of the things you talked about and that we 

have talked about here. I mentioned the wave of mortgage and securities fraud, and, of course, when you have an economic downturn and you add mortgage and securities fraud, it just makes it 

worse for all Americans. 

The number of mortgage fraud allegations throughout the country has increased almost tenfold since 2002. I know the FBI’s mortgage fraud investigations have doubled in the last few years. We 

can talk about the unprecedented fraud and scandals like the 

Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme. If you saw that in a book of fiction a year ago or a couple years ago, everybody would say that is 

impossible. But they have undermined confidence in our economy, 

and I think that may be the tip of the iceberg. 

Now, the FBI can only do so much. It has had people reassigned 

to counter terrorism and other areas. We have seen white-collar 

crime prosecutions drop off as a result, or investigations. I think 

back to the 1980’s during the savings and loan debacle, and I read 

with—Senator Specter made reference to the fact that it might become just a cost of doing business if you are just having fines. And 

I feel very strongly in some of these instances that if the people involved in it think they are actually going to go to prison, that 

shapes their mind a lot more than losing 5 percent off their profits 

in a fine. That is why I mentioned Senator Grassley, Senator Kaufman, and others introduced this Fraud Enforcement Recovery Act. 

In our act, we have increased tools and resources for the FBI, 

and I mean this seriously: Are those increased tools and resources 

things that would actually help the FBI? Would it make you more 

effective in this area of mortgage fraud and white-collar crime? 

Mr. MUELLER. Absolutely. Certainly whatever additional resources we can receive or do receive with regard particularly to 

mortgage fraud, the sub prime crisis, will go to addressing the 

caseload of over 2,000 that we have currently around the United 

States, with an expectation that will increase. 

I will note that in the stimulus package the Senate had recommended adding 165 special agents, and that was not adopted by 

the House. But that additional complement of resources would 

have been exceptionally helpful, and those resources that are in the 

Fraud Enforcement Recovery Act will be put to good use. 

Also, the redefinition of the definition of ‘‘financial institution,’’ 

expanding securities fraud provisions to include fraud relating to 

options, futures, and commodities, and a number of the other provisions of FERA will be tremendously helpful in giving us the tools 

to investigate, ultimately to help prosecutors prosecute, and, finally, to obtain the convictions and the jail sentences that are the 

deterrent to this activity taking place in the future. 

9 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. I notice that today the Secretary 

of State has gone to Mexico, and the relationship has been somewhat strained, and the question of drug crime and the drug cartels. 

A recent article I read in a major publication asked is Mexico becoming a failed state or a mediocre state, either way being bad 

news to the United States. I am not asking you to state what kind 

of a state they are. But they are our second largest trading partner, 

and they are a democratic country, and yet since January of last 

year, they have had more than 7,000 people killed in drug-related 

violence. Some of it is horrendous—police, military, people involved 

in drugs, ordinary citizens, kidnappings, extortion, a lot of it spilled 

over the borders, into California and Texas and other border 

States. You have traveled to Mexico. 

You have seen some of these problems firsthand. The Obama administration announced a plan to redouble our efforts to work with 

them. How do we work with them with the amount of corruption 

there is there? I think everybody here wants to work with them, 

wants to help. How do we do this? I seems like an almost Herculean task. 

Mr. MUELLER. Let me start by saying I do believe President 

Calderon is taking an exceptionally principled approach to address 

drug trafficking in Mexico, and as a result of his efforts—his efforts 

to address corruption, his efforts to put in place a police force that 

is free of corruption, his efforts to change the criminal justice and 

judiciary system to eliminate corruption—all of those have resulted, to a certain extent, in a short-term peak of violence. 

But I have no doubt about President Calderon’s desire to address 

this and continue to address this. We work closely with the Attorney General, Medina Mora, and the Director of Public Security, 

Garcia Luna. And every one of those individuals is adamant about 

pressing forward with this war on the narcotics traffickers. 

You asked the question about the extent of public corruption. 

Yes, there is, and we in the Bureau as well as the DEA traditionally have worked with vetted units, and a key to addressing the 

public corruption is having vetted units that are vetted by both 

ourselves as well as the Mexican authorities so that you know that 

those individuals who are handling these cases are free of the corruption that has been seen in Mexico. 

I would also say that the violence has peaked in a number of cities—Juarez and Tijuana, to mention just a few. And it requires, I 

do believe, a thorough and—a surge, if you will, in those cities to 

drive down the homicides that were prevalent in those two cities, 

and we are seeing that now in Juarez as an example. 

Chairman LEAHY. We may want to have your Department send 

somebody up here just for a private briefing of a number of members who have asked questions about this, and we can do it in a 

more secure room and discuss it, because they are concerned. 

My last question before we go into that—and I will up on the 

Mexican thing. The FBI’s General Counsel provided the Committee 

with a briefing on steps the FBI has taken following the discovery 

that more than 700 so-called exigent letters were used improperly 

to obtain thousands of citizens’ telephone and other records. The 

FBI was supposed to use national security letters to obtain this. 

They did not. The FBI supervisors, agents, and analysts from a 

10 

particular FBI unit obtained records in violation of the law by 

sending letters promising that subpoenas would be issued, even 

though none ever were. The Inspector General is investigating this. 

I understand that the FBI has now issued new retroactive national security letters after the fact in order to justify holding onto 

more than half these records. In some cases, the FBI has decided 

to hold onto records without issuing any new letters. 

If the FBI did not have the legal authority to obtain the records 

in the first place, what legal authority do you have to hold onto 

them years later? And what kind of legal authority is there for 

issuing retroactive national security letters? 

Mr. MUELLER. In the cases where we have a legal basis to obtain 

those records—in other words, a touchstone for the issuance of a 

national security letter in which we would have appropriately used 

the particular protocol or format, then we have kept those records. 

But there has to be a touchstone which enables us, gives us the 

legal right to obtain those records. 

Let me say more generally that I believe that the Attorney General—not the Attorney General but the Inspector General, when he 

finishes his report—and he has not yet finished—will find that, 

yes, there were substantial lapses in internal controls, that we did 

use exigent letters in circumstances where we should not, where 

there was not the exigency, and that at least in one area where we 

attempted to rectify it, we did not do it appropriately. 

My expectation is that he will find that those things occurred. 

They occurred back in 2006, 2005, and 2004. We stopped utilizing 

exigent letters in 2007, and my belief is that we put into place a 

number of procedures that will assure that this will not happen 

again, including a compliance office that looks at compliance not 

just when it comes to national security letters, but other areas of 

the Bureau where we have an obligation under the statutes, under 

the laws, to comply, and we want to make certain that we do not 

repeat what happens with the national security letter issue. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. When I come back, I want to go 

back to the retroactive issue. 

Senator Specter. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Mueller, with so many topics to be discussed and only 

7 minutes to do it, I would ask you to submit responses on my terrorism questions in writing. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes, sir. 

Senator SPECTER. And the questions are: On the errors that you 

and I discussed here 7 years ago with Moussaoui and the Minneapolis office and the coordination with the CIA leading to 9/11, 

are those specific problems now corrected? 

Second, overall, are we in better shape today—I know the answer 

is yes; we discussed this informally, but some specification as to 

what has been done I think would be very helpful for the American 

public to have. A statement from the Director of the FBI, not enormous but summarizing what has been done, could give us assurances. Nothing is a foolproof system, obviously, but I know a great 

deal of effort has been undertaken that you have been at the center 

of, and you have been there all the time, unlike the CIA Directors 

or the DNI,which is only a recently created office. So you have a 

11 

unique perspective on it, and if you would respond in writing, I 

would appreciate it. 

Let me take up the question of our ability to afford security from 

violent crime. Taking a look at some of the offenses, Federal offenses which are punishable by the death penalty—assassination of 

the President, espionage, treason, killing of a Federal witness to 

prevent testimony at a trial, drug kingpins, hijacking of airplanes 

resulting in death—in your judgment, should the death penalty be 

retained on those offenses and generally where the Congress has 

established a death penalty? 

Mr. MUELLER. In appropriate cases, yes. 

Senator SPECTER. And while it is not Federal jurisdiction, what 

is your response to the repeated public comments now by State officials that the death penalty needs to be abandoned because it is 

too expensive to carry it out? What do you think about that? 

Mr. MUELLER. I am not familiar with those comments. I would 

go back to the initial question you asked: Is the death penalty appropriate and still appropriate in certain of the actions that fall 

within the statutes that carry the death penalty as the appropriate 

penalty? I believe, yes, there are certain instances where I believe 

the death penalty is appropriate. I know other countries disagree 

with that, but, nonetheless, I believe in certain instances it is appropriate. 

Senator SPECTER. With respect to our prison population, is there 

any substitute for incarcerating violent criminals for public safety? 

Mr. MUELLER. Talking about violent criminals, it depends, quite 

obviously, on the individuals. But generally a person who has a 

proclivity for undertaking violence, the likelihood of rehabilitation 

diminishes, and incarceration may be the only protection for the 

American public. 

Senator SPECTER. Let me ask you this, Director Mueller: With respect to prisoners in the Federal prison system, I would appreciate 

it if you would give some thought to the question of what could be 

done with them. Your Bureau knows them thoroughly; you have investigated them—where could we make a segregation with a view 

to release some of them or differentiate in their sentencing? That 

is a little bit outside your purview, but you have the necessary expertise—I am going to direct the same question to the Attorney 

General. 

I want to move on now to the white-collar crimes. You say you 

have some 700 cases. The thought occurs to me that it would be 

very salutary if you could move ahead on some of them promptly. 

We just had a prosecution in Philadelphia, a Federal prosecution 

of a State Senator, Vincent Fumo. There were more than 100 

counts. The investigation took years. The trial took months. All of 

that was not necessary. I was a district attorney myself, handled 

complex cases. You could move through the cases, and the investigation without bringing hundreds of counts. 

Let me ask you to take a look at that issue, too, and respond in 

writing if there are some of those cases that could be expedited. 

Public attention is very brief, and it would be, I think, very helpful 

to our overall system in this economic crisis to give public assurance—regarding a question I hear all the time: What is going on? 

Where is the accountability? Who is going to go to jail? Well, we 

12 

are not going to send people to jail who do not deserve to go to jail, 

but if they deserve to go to jail, my core question I am sure you 

understand is: What can we do to expedite the investigations and 

prosecutions to narrow the timeframe? If there is some more investigation and prosecution required to succeed, you can investigate 

further. You do not have to have 100 charges. 

A final subject I want to talk to you—— 

Mr. MUELLER. I would just address that very briefly to say that 

we are working with a number of U.S. Attorneys and with the Department of Justice for what we call ‘‘fast-track prosecutions’’ in a 

number of areas, and we are doing—as I indicated in my remarks, 

we are prioritizing our cases to get the most egregious early and 

put those persons away. 

So we share your concern and your desire for a fast-track approach to a number of these cases, of which we have 2,000 at this 

juncture. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, maybe you could narrow the interval 

even further and expedite cases even further as examples for deterrence. 

A final subject that I want to bring up with you is the one I mentioned, the Stevens prosecution, and in this case, the trial judge severely admonished the Department of Justice for inappropriate 

conduct. FBI agent, Chad Joy, alleged that prosecutors knowingly 

withheld Brady evidence, and that a member of the prosecution 

team relocated a witness to keep him from testifying because he 

had done poorly in a mock cross-examination. FBI Agent Joy said 

a female FBI agent had an inappropriate relationship with Allen, 

a key witness. There were also contempt citations, and the FBI 

agent was involved. Now you and I discussed it informally, but I 

think it is important to put it on the record. 

I alluded in my opening statement to problems which I saw 

where prosecutors were anxious for notoriety, to bag a big target, 

and this required a lot of supervision. And my question to you is: 

What kind of supervision—and I am going to put a similar question 

to Attorney General Holder. I understand he is making a personal 

review of the Stevens matter with regard to impropriety on the 

part of prosecutors, which the judge has already made contempt 

findings. 

But what efforts are made at the senior echelon, mature people 

in your Bureau to make sure that your FBI agents do not overstep 

and act inappropriately because of their desire to get a so-called big 

target? 

Mr. MUELLER. Let me start by saying, Senator, as you are aware, 

in that particular case the issues that you raised are the subject 

of post-trial motions and are being addressed not only by the judge 

in the post-trial briefings and hearings, but also by a team at the 

Justice Department that is looking at the allegations where they 

would relate to the prosecutors or the FBI. 

You also, I think, are quite aware that in a public corruption 

case, particularly a serious public corruption case, the decision 

whether or not to take action is overseen by a number of people 

at levels whether it be the Assistant Attorney General in charge of 

the Criminal Division, the Deputy Attorney General, and ultiVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
13 

mately the Attorney General to assure that the case is appropriately brought. 

If in the course of that case there are allegations, whether it be 

attributable or against a prosecutor or an FBI, then that is investigated, FBI agents by ourselves, but also by the Department of 

Justice, as well as the prosecutors by the Department of Justice in 

the form of OPR or others. And so it is going on at least two tracks 

currently, the most important one being the post-trial motions in 

that particular case, and, therefore, I am somewhat precluded from 

speaking more about it. 

Senator SPECTER. The question of the FBI’s procedure regarding 

senior supervision is a generalized one. That was where I led you. 

I was not surprised to hear the reasons you cannot answer in specific cases. I am well aware of those. There is a value sometimes 

in the publicity on a question, even though there is not an answer. 

But the question I asked you does not involve a case specifically: 

Do you have senior people in the FBI supervising conduct, especially in these so-called big target cases? 

Mr. MUELLER. Absolutely. We have it at the supervisory level in 

the field office. We have it at the special agent in charge in the 

field office. Back in the Criminal Division, we have the section chief 

and then the Assistant Director in charge of the Criminal Division, 

all of whom will be familiar with the facts and the conduct of the 

investigation, and ultimately in terms of the conduct both in the 

course of the investigation at trial, it would be myself and my Deputy, John Pistole. There are various levels of supervision. And 

when we receive allegations or assertions of conduct that should be 

investigated of our own people, we initiate that investigation very 

quickly and follow through. 

And to the extent that it is conduct that is raised at a serious 

level, we first go to the Inspector General to determine whether or 

not the Inspector General should take a look at the conduct, looking as an objective third party, and basically in most cases the Inspector General has a right of first refusal. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, I like the detail of that answer, especially the part where you get involved. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator FEINSTEIN [PRESIDING.] I would like, if I might, to go 

over the order. Following my questions, the order is Grassley, Feingold, Kyl, Schumer, Sessions, Cardin, Klobuchar, Kaufman, and 

Whitehouse. 

Welcome, Mr. Mueller, and thank you very much again for your 

service. It is appreciated. My first question is one that involves one 

particular case, and that is the case of a murder in Loudoun County of a highly decorated Special Forces retired colonel and his wife, 

a retired Army captain. They were out for a walk. A van stopped. 

He was beaten to death. She was badly beaten, is in a hospital. It 

is murder and attempted murder. 

Can the FBI become involved in that case? 

Mr. MUELLER. I am familiar with the facts raised in the newspapers. I have not followed up, but I will have to get back to you 

on whether or not we would have some role to play. Certainly if 

requested by the local authorities, yes; otherwise, we would have 

to look and see whether there is a Federal nexus that would warVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
14 

rant our participation. We would, quite obviously, in a case like 

that—— 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I would appreciate if you would look at that. 

This is a very unusual situation, it seems to me, and a horrible 

one. And I think everyone is extraordinarily upset by it, and we 

need to move fast. So I would appreciate it. 

What is the FBI, Mr. Mueller, doing to prevent the supply of 

guns from the United States to Mexico? The Mexican ambassador 

and the Mexican Government has told us that 90 percent of the 

guns going to the cartels in Mexico are coming right from the 

United States of America. So my question is: What is the FBI doing 

about it? 

Mr. MUELLER. I would say that we are supportive. ATF has the 

major role in gun investigations. When we come across in the 

course of our investigations individuals who are trafficking in 

weapons, we immediately bring in the ATF and will work with the 

ATF on joint cases. 

To the extent that we pick up guns in the course of our 

investigation—— 

Senator FEINSTEIN. No, my question is different. Is there a specific effort now going on to take a look at the straw purchasing that 

is going on and other transmitting of weapons down into Mexico? 

Mr. MUELLER. It is, and that is being undertaken by ATF, and 

we are supportive of ATF. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. But do you believe that is sufficient? You 

know, Senator Durbin as the Chair of the Subcommittee and I as 

the Chair of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control had a 

hearing. The Attorney General of Arizona testified, and it is really 

a terrible situation where these guns are just coming down in bulk 

into Mexico and fueling the cartels. And I wonder if just having 

ATF, which has always had, in my view at least, a restricted role, 

is enough to stop this. 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, I will say we do not have a focused effort 

in that particular area. Along the border we address public corruption on our side of the border in which we have substantial numbers of cases, with the drug-trafficking individuals maybe paying 

off persons along the border. We have substantial threats with regard to kidnappings, Americans who will travel to Mexico, either 

because of their businesses or families, who will be kidnapped. We 

have extortions. We have gang activity trans-border, all of which 

keeps us quite occupied. 

We do not have a focused effort on ourselves. We are supportive 

in each of our field offices of ATF’s efforts. But I will go back and 

take a look and see what more we can do in that particular area, 

because I do not disagree at all that substantial numbers of guns 

are coming from the United States, and it is fueling the violence 

south of the border. 

So I would be happy to go and take a look and see if there is 

something more we can do in that regard. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Yes, and you can be assured I will follow up. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I appreciate that very much. 

In September of 2004, Chris Swecker, the Assistant Director of 

the Criminal Investigative Division at the FBI, said that mortgage 

15 

fraud could cause multi-billion-dollar losses to financial institutions. CNN reported that he said that this fraud has the potential 

of being an epidemic and, ‘‘We think we can prevent a problem that 

could have as much impact as the savings and loan crisis.’’ Despite 

this early warning, the L.A. Times reported on August 25, 2008, 

that the FBI has actually reduced the number of agents devoted to 

investigating mortgage fraud. 

Can you tell us exactly what the situation is, why agents are reduced, and what the position of your agency is with respect—I can 

tell you, in California it is a big problem. 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, let me start by saying that I believe Chris 

Swecker was prescient in terms of anticipating it. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I believe that, yes. 

Mr. MUELLER. But you did not see the rise for a couple of years, 

the rise in mortgage fraud. What triggered or what was the catalyst to much of this is the drop in the housing markets. 

We actually had done a number of cases in mortgage fraud back 

in 2000 and 2001, particularly in this area. What we found over a 

period of time is, because the housing market was moving so rapidly ahead, that much of the fraud was, and particularly the values 

were minuscule because the property market kept going up. And, 

consequently, the triggering factor to what you see today in the 

vast majority of the mortgage fraud cases we have were triggered 

by the decline in market values over a period of time. 

That does not mean that we could not have put additional resources on it, but at that time, we had other priorities that we were 

focused on, and not this one. I do not believe, though, had we put 

more agents—it would have been relatively few, and I do not believe that that would have prevented what had occurred over the 

last couple of years. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Well, I can tell you it is out there, it is a 

problem. I can tell you there are people that are selling mortgages 

that are unqualified. They misrepresent, and, you know, we have 

had actual cases. There actually was a special targeted team working the L.A.-Riverside-San Bernardino area. I think the FBI was 

involved. It made several arrests. But that really needs to be done 

on an ongoing basis, and my question, I guess, is: What are you 

going to do about this? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, in the last 2 years, we have had 800, 900 

prosecutions, successful prosecutions across the country. Last summer, we had a series of cases around the country which came to 

fruition about the same time called ‘‘Malicious Mortgage,’’ in which 

we had locked up a number of persons. And you will continue to 

see day in and day out other successful investigations and prosecutions, putting away the persons that are responsible for this. 

But as I have indicated, the numbers of frauds have grown over 

the last 2 years, and we can address just so many with the agents 

that we have. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Yes, but you have reduced the number in Los 

Angeles, and if you would look into that, too, as the third thing and 

let me know why. 

Mr. MUELLER. Over the last 2 years, we have increased the numbers of agents. When he testified—I have not looked back at the 

date when he testified, which I think was maybe 2004, 2005. But 

16 

certainly over the last several years, we have increased the number 

of agents that are doing mortgage fraud. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. All right. Then that report was not correct, 

you are saying. 

Mr. MUELLER. It may have been correct at the time, at or about 

the time that he testified and shortly thereafter. But for the last 

couple of years, we have increased the number. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I am referring to a report in the L.A. Times 

on August 25, 2008, that the number of agents have been reduced 

that are investigating mortgage fraud. 

Mr. MUELLER. As of that date, I do not think—I do not believe 

that is accurate as of that date. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. If you could check. 

Mr. MUELLER. I will check on that, yes. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. This is an area—if you could speak quickly 

a little bit about—well, I am already over my time so do not speak. 

Thank you very, very much. 

Senator Grassley, you are up next. 

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you. As I usually do, I want to give 

you an update on where we are in some of our correspondence. The 

Committee has not received answers from your agency to all questions for the record from either September 2008 or March 2008. 

When I last met with Attorney General Holder—this was in December before he was actually appointed—I provided him with a 

collection of my letters to the Justice Department, including the 

FBI, that were still considered unanswered, and he pledged to review them, if confirmed. I generally ask that my letters be answered within 2 weeks, but, on average, replies were 371 days. 

By the way, I gave him a folder probably that thick. I also gave 

the Secretary-designate for HHS a folder that big of letters that 

have not been answered. So the Justice Department is not necessarily the worst ones. But I get tired of waiting for replies. 

After this hearing was scheduled, I recently received two additional replies to letters that had been outstanding for several 

months, and I want to use the word ‘‘reply’’ rather than the word 

‘‘answers’’ because oftentimes FBI and Justice Department staff 

will send a reply that does not actually answer a question. 

So a very short answer to this question, please: Do you agree 

that it should not take months or years for members of this Committee to get substantive answers to our legitimate oversight questions? 

Mr. MUELLER. Not only do I agree, but I would be—I would tell 

you, the March QFRs from 2008, we sent answers over to the Department of Justice in June. The September 2008, we sent answers 

over in December. I discussed with the Deputy Attorneys General 

the necessity of responding so that I do not get the same questions 

each time that we come—that I appear before this Committee. 

So I am hopeful that—— 

Senator GRASSLEY. I think you are saying that you have answered our questions, but they are buried in the bureaucracy at 

Justice. Is that—— 

Mr. MUELLER. There is a process that one goes through where 

the questions go to Justice for clearance as well as OMB for clearance. 

17 

Senator GRASSLEY. I tried to explain to the Attorney General and 

every other Democratic nominee for Cabinet that you have got this 

stuff unanswered that comes from the Bush administration, surely 

wouldn’t you want to clear this up so if it is answered next September, the Obama administration is not being connected with it 

when it is the fault of some previous administration? It would seem 

to me like you would want to—not you. Everybody would want to 

get them cleared up. 

Well, I am a little bit exasperated because of President Obama’s 

commitment to openness and transparency in Government and the 

policies that the new administration has put in place, and I would 

expect that all of the executive branch agencies would be more responsive to my requests. I say that with confidence because the 

President made a very big issue out of being more transparent during the campaign. 

Let me move on. The Government Accountability Office 2008 

Performance and Accountability Report says the following: ‘‘Most 

departments and agencies are very cooperative with our requests 

for information. However, our experience with some agencies, such 

as the Department of Justice, has proven more challenging.’’ 

Why do you think that the General Accounting Office had to single out the Justice Department as particularly uncooperative with 

its requests for information? 

Mr. MUELLER. I do not know, sir. I would have to look into 

whether that statement encompasses—the Department of Justice 

would encompass the FBI. I am not certain whether it is directed 

at the FBI. If it is, I would want to look at that and see what the 

issue is as we try to cooperate and coordinate—— 

Senator GRASSLEY. Before I ask you the next question, since the 

Chairman is not here, I would like to have the Chairman’s staff 

take note of something I learned from Senator Baucus on our Finance Committee and nominees before that and not getting information out of the administration at that time. He put holds on people that were under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department. 

He put holds on those nominations until he got answers, and I 

think it is about time that not only for my own part but for the 

Chairman’s part, who often says that he does not get answers to 

his letters and inquiries, that we ought to think in terms of doing 

something like that in the case of nominees for Justice Department 

Assistant and Deputy Secretaries. 

For several years before Countrywide Financial was purchased 

by Bank of America, it operated a VIP loan program that gave discounts on mortgages to, among others, influential public figures 

and Government officials. About 30 such loan recipients were publicly named in press reports. House Republicans of the Governmental Oversight Committee obtained some disturbing internal 

Countrywide e-mails where executives explicitly considered borrowers’ ‘‘political influence’’ in making loan decisions. The FBI has 

been investigating these issues since last year. However, my office 

has received reliable information that investigators have not yet 

obtained basic documentations for loans. The last thing that we 

need is slow-walking this kind of investigation. 

Given that American taxpayers’ now substantial investment in 

Bank of America, I would hope that their cooperation with law enVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
18 

forcement would be even more swift and certain. Will you look into 

this matter and assure this Committee that all the relevant documents are being shared with law enforcement entities in them? 

And then before you answer that, is there any legitimate reason 

why investigators would not have actually already obtained the 

Countrywide Financial loan files from Bank of America by now? 

Mr. MUELLER. Let me say generally that I am briefed on the— 

I have for several months been briefed about every other week on 

the cases relating to the subprime mortgage crisis, and in those 

briefings we talk about very generally, not necessarily specifically, 

any issues that might come up that would delay investigations, and 

we address those. We are anxious to make certain that we press 

ahead as fast as we can on all investigations. 

Yes, I would be happy to get back to you with an answer as to, 

without talking about a specific investigation or specific set of documents, whether we have met any hurdles in terms of pursuing 

those investigations. I have not heard of any such, but I will make 

the inquiry and get back to you on that. 

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thank you, Senator Grassley. 

Senator Feingold. 

Senator FEINGOLD. I thank the Chair. And it is good to see you 

again, Mr. Director. 

The last time you were before this Committee, we spoke at some 

length about the draft Attorney General Guidelines for Domestic 

Investigations that the Department was rushing to finalize before 

the last administration left office. I went back and looked at the 

transcript of our conversation, and I just want to ask you a few 

things about that. 

First, you said at that time, despite my complaints about the procedures by which we were being shown the draft that you were incorporating suggestions that had been made by Members of Congress and by outside experts. Yet the final guidelines that went 

into effect in December, in my view, were not appreciably different 

than the draft that we saw prior to your appearance in September. 

As you know, the main concern that many of us had about the new 

guidelines when we saw the draft, and we expressed them to you 

and the former Attorney General, was that they permit FBI agents 

to initiate an assessment without any suspicion of wrongdoing 

whatsoever. And those assessments can include physical surveillance, recruiting sources, and pretext interviews. You chose not to 

revise that basic approach. 

Why do you think it is necessary to give agents such broad authority? And what protections are in place to prevent that authority from being abused? 

Mr. MUELLER. We have had that authority in the criminal side 

of the house for years, as I think we discussed previously. We have 

not had on the national security side. And it is not an authority. 

It is the approval under the guidelines of the Attorney General. We 

have the authority to do it. It is a question of whether it fell within 

the guidelines by the Attorney General. 

When you are looking at trying to prevent an attack in the 

United States, that is far different than doing investigation after 

19 

an attack occurs. And you have to take tidbits of information that 

may relate to a particular individual, a grouping of individuals, to 

determine whether or not those individuals pose a threat. 

I am wont to say if you go back to September 11th and you look 

at the memorandum that was produced by Ken Williams, who is 

an agent out of Phoenix, about individuals who were going to flight 

training who might present a risk to the American public, we were 

excoriated for not following up on that memorandum. You asked 

what should we have done. Should we have then gone to flight 

schools and see whether there was a threat there? The assessment 

process allows us to address threats such as that when there is 

some information that there may be a threat that exists. It requires a proper purpose, not necessarily the predication on a particular individual. And that is an example where I think if we had 

pursued it under the assessment capabilities, perhaps we would 

have come up with something, which is why I think it is important 

that we maintain that capability. 

Senator FEINGOLD. We could debate in that example whether or 

not there was a suspicion of wrongdoing, but I do not want to 

spend all my time on that. So let me ask you about just what protections are in place to prevent abuse. Mr. Director, you have had 

to call me and tell me that there is going to be a disturbing report 

about other authorities that were given to the FBI and say, you 

know, ‘‘I am sorry this happened because sometimes authorities are 

abused.’’ So what would you say about that? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, in sensitive areas, it requires that in order 

to open an assessment you have to go through the counsel on the 

particular office and have the approval of the special agent in 

charge. There are certain other categories that are carved out 

where they are particularly sensitive when it relates to religious institutions or educational institutions and the like, and you want to 

undertake some sort of assessment, there is a scale of approvals 

that are required to look into the particular instance to assure that 

it is not just an agent who is on his or her own undertaking that 

activity without any scrutiny and approval process in place. So we 

have carved out areas that are particularly sensitive for enhanced 

scrutiny and approvals. 

We are working with the Department of Justice to go into our 

field offices periodically and do a scrub and look at the approval 

process to determine whether or not the i’s have been dotted and 

the t’s crossed so that we don’t have another national security letter issue. 

Senator FEINGOLD. All right. Let me move on to another—— 

Mr. MUELLER. Those are two of the things that we are doing. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, and we will pursue this more in 

the future. I will continue to be interested in it. 

Attorney General Holder said at his confirmation hearing that he 

would revisit the guidelines once there had been a chance to see 

how they are working. What is your estimate of the number of assessments conducted using these new authorities? And how many 

of those assessments resulted in preliminary or full investigations? 

Mr. MUELLER. I would have to look at those and get back to you 

on that. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Would you get back to me on that? All right. 

20 

Let us turn to something we have discussed before, the need for 

the FBI to gain the trust of the American Muslim community to 

assist in the effort to stop terrorism. I was disappointed to learn 

of a recent statement from the American Muslim Task Force on 

Civil Rights and Elections, signed by ten leading U.S. Muslim organizations, indicating that they are considering suspending their 

work with the FBI. According to a news report, ‘‘The groups claim 

the FBI has sent undercover agents posing as worshippers into 

mosques, pressured Muslims to become informants, labeled civil 

rights advocates as criminals, and spread misinformation.’’ 

Can you determine and report to this Committee whether 

mosques have been entered by FBI agents who were informants 

without disclosing their identities under the authority of the Attorney General guidelines? And if so, how many? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, there are a number of questions in there. I 

would hesitate to provide information on ongoing investigations, 

quite obviously. I will say that we do not focus on institutions. We 

focus on individuals. And I will say generally if there is evidence 

or information as to an individual or individuals undertaking illegal activities in religious institutions with appropriate high-level 

approval, we would undertake investigative activities, regardless of 

the religion. But we would single that out as an exceptionally sensitive circumstance that would require much vetting before that occurred. 

Senator FEINGOLD. So, in theory, it could include entering a 

mosque under a different identity? 

Mr. MUELLER. I will stick with my answer. 

Senator FEINGOLD. All right. Let me ask you one more thing before my time is up. Do you think—— 

Mr. MUELLER. Could I say one other thing? 

Senator FEINGOLD. Absolutely. 

Mr. MUELLER. You allude to issues with regard to the Muslim 

community. Let me say that the Muslim community has been tremendously supportive of the Bureau since September 11th. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Absolutely 

Mr. MUELLER. They have been supportive. The outreach and the 

relationships have been exceptional. 

Senator FEINGOLD. That is exactly why I am bringing this up. 

Mr. MUELLER. But there are instances where we will have an 

issue with someone or an individual or individuals in the Muslim 

community that needs to be resolved. 

Senator FEINGOLD. All right. Let me ask one more question—— 

Mr. MUELLER. But the vast majority—— 

Senator FEINGOLD [continuing]. Before my time is up, on this 

point, Mr. Director. Do you think that the new Attorney General 

guidelines are helping or hurting the FBI’s relationship with the 

U.S. Muslim community? In light of this task force statement, how 

do you plan to improve that relationship? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, I periodically meet with the leaders of the 

Muslim community. I believe we will be doing it shortly in a future—once again. Each of our offices meets weekly or monthly with 

members of the Muslim community. My expectation is that our relationships are as good now as before the guidelines generally 

across the country. There may be an issue here or an issue there 

21 

with a particular institution or individuals. But I do not believe 

that it undercuts our relationship with the Muslim community 

around the country. The Muslim community understands that the 

worst thing that could happen is that there be another terrorist attack in the United States. It has been tremendously supportive and 

worked very closely with us in a number of instances around the 

country. So I do not believe that the guidelines or the other issues 

adversely impact that relationship. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Director. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thank you, Senator Feingold. 

Senator Kyl, you are next up. 

Senator KYL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Director Mueller, thank you for being here. I want to follow up 

on questions my colleague from Wisconsin just asked because obviously you appreciate how important it is to distinguish between the 

Muslim community, which you just described, and groups which 

support terrorists and obviously, therefore, are the subject, at least 

potentially, of investigative activities. 

On February 23rd of this year, Senators Schumer and Coburn 

and I wrote you a letter commending your decision to sever ties 

with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, and asking 

some questions about the scope of the new policy. I think your staff 

has been advised that I would ask you why we have not received 

a response to that letter yet. We thought that the decision that was 

made was prudent and long overdue, especially in light of the fact 

that the Government itself introduced evidence that demonstrated 

the links between CAIR and Hamas, which led the Government to 

label CAIR and specific members as ‘‘unindicted co-conspirators’’ in 

the Holy Land terror finance trial. In fact, agents of the Bureau 

testified and affirmed the evidence of these links. My understanding is that Representative Wolf has also written a letter 

somewhat similar to ours and made various inquiries. 

Can you tell us why we do not have a response yet and when 

we might be able to expect a response? 

Mr. MUELLER. No. I will go back and see where that is and try 

to get that out swiftly to you. 

Senator KYL. We would appreciate it very much. Just let me 

summarize a couple of the questions. Perhaps these are questions 

you can answer right now. 

Is it, in fact, correct that the Bureau has cut off its ties with 

CAIR? 

Mr. MUELLER. I prefer not to discuss any particular organization 

in the Muslim community. I can tell you that where we have an 

issue with a particular organization, we will take what steps are 

necessary to resolve that issue. 

Senator KYL. Well, whatever the policy is, which I gather you 

will describe, is that a Bureau-wide policy? Does it apply to the regional offices and district offices and so on, the field offices? 

Mr. MUELLER. We try to adapt, when we have situations where 

we have an issue with one or more individuals, as opposed to an 

institution, or an institution, writ large, to identify with some specificity those particular individuals or issues that need to be addressed. We will generally have—individuals may have some 

maybe leaders in the community whom we have no reason to beVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
22 

lieve whatsoever are involved in terrorism, but may be affiliated in 

some way, shape, or form with an institution about which there is 

some concern and which we have to work out a separate arrangement. We have to be sensitive to both the individuals as well as 

the organization and try to resolve the issues that may prevent us 

from working with a particular organization. 

Senator KYL. Even though you have said you prefer not to talk 

about specific organizations in this hearing, I guess the question 

still remains whether the information that we received that this 

particular organization was no longer one with which you were 

having a direct relationship, is that information incorrect? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think what I would prefer to do, if I could, is 

provide that letter to you where I can be more precise in terms 

of—— 

Senator KYL. All right. That is fair enough. 

Mr. MUELLER [continuing]. And have some opportunity to review 

exactly specifically what I say. 

Senator KYL. I appreciate that. Let me maybe carry it a little bit 

further into an easier area for you. The Holy Land case also dealt 

with the Muslim Brotherhood, and I just wanted to quote from one 

Government exhibit, Exhibit Number 3–85, from that trial, and 

this is also known as Ekwan: ‘‘The Ekwan must understand that 

their role in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and 

destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its 

miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so 

that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious.’’ 

Are members of the Muslim Brotherhood or the organization 

itself active at all in the United States, to your knowledge? 

Mr. MUELLER. I would say generally we have investigations that 

would address that issue, yes. 

Senator KYL. And do you have a policy about meeting with that 

organization or its members? 

Mr. MUELLER. I would not say we have a written policy, but I 

can tell you that before we—that in the course of our liaison activities, we certainly search our indices to make certain that when we 

meet with individuals, that they are not under investigation, and 

that we can appropriately maintain liaison relationships with 

them. 

Senator KYL. There has also been a fairly public case—in fact, 

Senator Lieberman held a hearing in the Homeland Security Committee concerning a problem in Minnesota, and I suspect you are 

familiar with that. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. 

Senator KYL. This is the so-called Al-Shabaab group and some 

Somali youth who have left that community and, in fact, at least 

one who is, I gather, believed to be involved in a suicide bombing. 

Can you tell us anything about your work in that area? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think it has been, to a certain extent, publicized 

that individuals from the Somali community in Minneapolis have 

traveled to Somalia to participate with al-Shabaab, and there are 

ongoing investigations into that issue. Again, we are working with 

the Somali community in Minneapolis and other cities around the 

United States to combat that radicalization that has occurred. 

23 

Senator KYL. So then it is correct to describe a radicalization 

process that is occurring at least in one community in the United 

States that has resulted in one of these individuals going abroad 

and at least allegedly committing an act of terrorism? Would that 

be accurate? 

Mr. MUELLER. That is accurate. 

Senator KYL. Can you quantify your belief as to how widespread 

this might be in the United States? And by that, I mean the attempts to radicalize young—— 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, radicalization comes in a number of forums—or fora, perhaps I should say, the Internet being one of the 

principal ones now. It also can be individuals. It can be members 

of a community. I do believe that what we have seen in Minneapolis is not widespread throughout the United States, and that 

it is, I believe, a matter of public record that one individual who 

was so radicalized became a suicide bomber in northern Somalia 

back in October of 2008. We have not seen that occurrence again, 

but we do not want to see it either and the parents of the individuals do not want to see it either. And so, again, we are working 

with the community to make certain that any pockets of 

radicalization are identified and addressed, whether it be in Minneapolis or around the country. 

Senator KYL. I appreciate that and would just note if we could 

get a response to that letter, I think it would be very helpful. I am 

not sure of the origin of it, but for some reason, a lot of my constituents over the last several weeks have approached me and 

asked me questions. Somebody, I think, must be spreading the 

word that there are potentially a lot of these organizations around 

the United States, a lot of people being radicalized, and it is a matter of great concern. And I have tried to suggest that, at least from 

my knowledge, it is not widespread, that the FBI obviously would 

have a handle on it. 

But to the extent that you can get the information to us so we 

can assure our constituents of what is, in fact, going on, I think 

that would be very helpful. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes, sir. 

Senator KYL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY [presiding]. First, I want to thank Senator 

Feinstein for filling in while we were trying to do appropriations 

and this, and, Senator Cardin, please go ahead, sir. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me thank you, Director Mueller, for your service and thank 

you for being here today. I want to talk about the PATRIOT Act, 

if we might. There are three major provisions that will sunset during 2009 that will need to be taken up by Congress, and this Committee will have a significant role in regards to the reauthorization 

and perhaps modifications of the roving wiretap, the business 

records, and the lone-wolf provisions. 

I would hope you could share with us the importance of these 

provisions, whether you believe that there will be efforts made to 

extend these sunsets and whether you will be recommending modifications in these laws, and what process you are intending to go 

24 

through to work with Congress as we take up these issues, which 

in the past have been somewhat controversial. 

Mr. MUELLER. My hope, quite obviously, is that they will be less 

controversial as they come up this time because we have seen their 

use and have some track record with it. 

Starting with the business records provision, 215, we have utilized that 223 times between 2004 and 2007. We do not yet have 

the records or the total for 2008. But it has been exceptionally 

helpful and useful in our national security investigations. 

With regard to the roving wiretap provision, that is also 

sunsetting. We have used that 147 times, and that also has eliminated a substantial amount of paperwork and I would say confusion in terms of the ability for us to maintain surveillance, electronic surveillance on an individual where we can utilize that roving wiretap provision. 

As to the lone-wolf provision, while we have not—there has not 

been a lone wolf, so to speak, indicted, that provision is tremendously helpful. Where we have a difficulty in showing a tie between 

a particular individual about whom we have information that 

might be supporting terrorism and be a terrorist, but we have difficulty in identifying the foreign power for which he is an agent, 

whether it be a terrorist group or otherwise, what we call the 

‘‘Moussaoui problem,’’ where the issue was the inability for us to 

tie Moussaoui to a particular terrorist group, so that also is a provision that has been, I believe, beneficial and should be re-enacted. 

I have not yet had an opportunity with the new administration 

to have a discussion about the position. I know we will be working 

with the Department of Justice on these three provisions, but my 

hope is that the Department will support the re-enactment of all 

three and that we can sit and work with Congress to explain, if 

necessary, more fully how important they are to our work. 

Senator CARDIN. Well, I very much appreciate your response. 

Having the total numbers of use is useful and very helpful. In regards to the business records, there has been some press that has 

been less than favorable on some of the applications, but this may 

not be the right forum to get into more detail. But I do think it 

is important that the Judiciary Committee in its oversight function 

and the Intelligence Committee in its oversight function examine 

more specifics, for two reasons. 

One, I think most of us believe these tools are extremely important, and we want to make sure that you have the tools that you 

need. We want to make sure that there is the appropriate oversight, and we normally get more attention as we get closer to the 

deadlines for extending sunsets than at other times during the 

year. And we want to make sure we take advantage of this opportunity to get a better understanding so we are on the same page 

as to what tools are needed. 

And the third point is there may need to be modifications, not 

necessarily restrictions, there may need to be fine-tuning of these 

provisions to make sure that they are more effective and used as 

intended by Congress. 

I would just encourage you to work with the Chairman of our 

Committee and the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee so that 

we can feel more comfortable working with the administration. I 

25 

know it is early in the new administration, but this issue is going 

to come up quicker than we think, and the one thing I do not want 

to see happen is that we have a deadline without an opportunity 

to be fully comfortable with a bill that would extend the provisions 

in the PATRIOT Act. 

I would like to ask one more question on a different subject, and 

this deals with the security risk assessments for all individuals 

with access to select agents and toxins. As you know, I represent 

Maryland, home of Fort Detrick, where the major problem with Dr. 

Ivins took place, and there was a lot of discussion about looking at 

the procedures used for security clearances and revoking security 

clearances. 

Could you update us as to where we are as far as a comfort level, 

knowing that those people who have access to toxins are, in fact, 

being cleared appropriately for the sensitivity of their positions? 

Mr. MUELLER. I know in the wake of the attacks in October—actually, September or October of 2001, that there were upgrades 

made. But upon the identification of Dr. Ivins as being the principal person involved, a wholesale review was ordered by the Department of Defense. And I am not certain where that review is. 

We would have to get back to you on that. 

Senator CARDIN. And I appreciate that, and that is fine. I do believe you have the responsibility on some of the security clearance 

issues, so it does involve—am I correct on that? 

Mr. MUELLER. In some of it, although I would have to check on 

it, but I think most of the security clearance work is done by DOD 

itself as opposed to us. But I will have to check on that. 

Senator CARDIN. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman, I would just stress I would hope that we will have 

the opportunity to return to the issues of the PATRIOT Act far in 

advance of the deadline for the end of this year where we have to 

act. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. And I can assure the Senator we will, because 

the sunset provisions were put in there basically to force not only 

the Congress but the administration to look at the parts that are 

expiring and make sure, if we renew them, that we do it in a justifiable fashion. So I assure the Senator we will. 

Senator Sessions. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I think the 

PATRIOT Act was carefully constructed. We had some very vigorous hearings, and I believe all the provisions in it are consistent—do you not agree, Mr. Mueller—with traditional law enforcement methods, many of which are being used in other circumstances and even against terrorism and that care was taken 

not to violate any of the great constitutional protections that we 

cherish in this country? 

Mr. MUELLER. I do. I am, not surprisingly, a strong supporter of 

the PATRIOT Act, particularly the areas where it broke down the 

walls between ourselves and the intelligence community. Senator 

Specter alludes to the changes since September 11th. One of the 

substantial changes since September 11th has been, quite obviously, our sharing of information with the intelligence community 

and vice versa, and that was attributable to the PATRIOT Act. 

26 

These three provisions that are to sunset are important provisions that we hope will, again, be re-enacted when it comes up for 

a vote. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, we will need to focus on making sure 

that you report that correctly and that they are used correctly, and 

oversight is always healthy in this country. 

Director Mueller, thank you for your leadership. I think the 

American people can go to bed at night knowing that their Director 

of the FBI is working as many hours as he can put in a day, and 

your team is, to focus on making this a safer, more lawful country. 

I am proud of what you do. But oversight is good, even for the FBI, 

wouldn’t you agree? 

Mr. MUELLER. I agree. 

Senator SESSIONS. You believed that when you were not in the 

FBI, I am sure. 

Mr. MUELLER. I agree. 

Senator SESSIONS. All right. 

Mr. MUELLER. Occasionally, it is tough, but I agree. 

Senator SESSIONS. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Attorney General is considering some Guantanamo subjects. The 

Washington Post today has an article that the outcry is growing in 

Alexandria, Virginia, over a prospect no one seems to like: terrorist 

suspects in suburbs. The historic, vibrant community less than 10 

miles from the White House is a family friendly zone, they say, but 

it looks like now we might be having criminal trials in the Alexandria Federal courthouse. And the quote from the mayor was, ‘‘We 

would be absolutely opposed to relocating Guantanamo prisoners to 

Alexandria. We would do everything in our power to lobby the 

President, the Governor, the Congress, and everything else to stop 

it.’’ 

But the question is: If these individuals are released or tried, to 

what extent is the FBI by necessity forced to direct resources to try 

to make sure that they do not commit terrorist acts inside the 

United States? Does that put an additional burden on you and your 

agency? Don’t you have responsibilities to make sure that someone 

who has been identified, at least at one point, as associated with 

terrorism is not likely to get loose here? 

Mr. MUELLER. I believe we would have the responsibility to 

evaluate the risk and minimize any risk for individuals, whether 

it be Guantanamo or individuals coming into the country about 

whom we have information that they may have been at one point 

in time associated with terrorism. 

Senator SESSIONS. So that is an additional burden on you. 

Mr. MUELLER. We would—— 

Senator SESSIONS. I know a lot of our friends, people watch the 

television and they see these interesting shows. But as a practical 

matter, you are not able to put individual FBI agents on the hundreds of people here if they are moving about this country 24 hours 

a day surveilling them. And those things are not realistically possible in the world we live in, are they? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, we have to prioritize our surveillances, 

whether it be electronic surveillance or physical surveillance, and 

we do that on a daily basis. And to the extent that there are individuals that are coming into this country that have or present some 

27 

threat, we would prioritize and utilize what resources we thought 

were necessary to make certain that an individual or individuals 

did not constitute a threat to the American public. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, we have the Uyghurs who are terrorists, 

apparently, targeting China, a nation that we want to live in harmony and peace with, and they apparently, according to these articles, are one of the groups most likely to be released. So I think 

it is a matter of great importance, and there is no free lunch here. 

We place ourselves at greater risk if more and more of these people 

end up being released because we did not have sufficient evidence 

in a criminal trial when historically, in my opinion, these individuals are unlawful combatants and perhaps were arrested on the 

battlefield. And we may not have the kind of normal evidence you 

would have, wouldn’t you agree, to try a case in a Federal district 

court? 

Mr. MUELLER. There are occasions where we have individuals 

about whom we have information that would either be inadmissible 

in Federal court or because it would disclose sources and methods, 

one would not want to put that information into Federal court. 

There are instances where that is an issue. 

Senator SESSIONS. Mr. Mueller, you and I talked previously, and 

Senator Feinstein raised some of these issues with you. I would 

point out the chart that I think I shared with you that the Administrative Office of Courts shows prosecutions for bank embezzlement, financial institution embezzlement, financial institution 

fraud being tried in the Federal courts to be declining and that 

these are primarily traditionally FBI-investigated cases. 

Are you looking at those numbers? And what do we need to do 

to be able to increase those prosecutions, particularly in this time 

where we are seeing reports of more fraud occurring in our financial markets? 

Mr. MUELLER. In the wake of September 11th, as I have indicated in remarks earlier, we have moved 2,000 agents from the 

criminal side to the national security side to address counterterrorism. Many of those agents have been working—a vast majority—not the vast, but a majority of them have been working on 

smaller drug cases. A substantial number, though, have been working on smaller white-collar criminal cases that we could no longer 

afford to do. The tellers who would be embezzling from a bank, for 

instance, where the losses are relatively small, we had thousands 

of those cases that we could no longer do. We have had to 

prioritize, and we had to prioritize earlier, 5, 6 years ago when we 

had Enron, HealthSouth, WorldCom, a number of large financial 

fraud cases where we needed to allocate appropriate personnel to 

address those cases. 

And so I do not believe you will see the same numbers in Federal 

court because there are so many fraud cases out there, mortgage 

fraud cases, institutional fraud cases, of a size that dwarf some of 

the smaller ones that we traditionally have done. So the numbers 

will not be there. I do believe that the impact and import of the 

investigations and prosecutions will be exceptionally substantial 

compared to some of the work that we had done 5 or 10 years ago. 

Senator SESSIONS. I think that is important. I also like the idea 

that you have a fast track in some of these prosecutions. You can 

28 

take 3 years with one if you want to sometimes, and sometimes in 

6 months a case can be tried and a person sent to jail where they 

need to be. And those are things a good leader like you know how 

to do, and I hope the Department of Justice cooperates with you. 

And I would like to see more of these prosecutions. 

We have always heard, every time this has been raised, ‘‘We are 

prosecuting bigger cases.’’ For the last 30 years, that is what happens. When the numbers go down in an office, you say, ‘‘Well, we 

are prosecuting bigger cases. It takes more time.’’ 

I am not really sold on your argument there. 

Mr. MUELLER. I would ask you to look at the cases. I would ask 

you to look at an Enron or HealthSouth or a WorldCom and the 

impact on it, and you as a prosecutor would know the efforts that 

go into those cases. Look at the public corruption cases, the efforts 

that go into the public corruption cases in terms of the type of investigative activity. And if you look at our record over a number 

of years, the last number of years, particularly since September 

11th, in terms of addressing public corruption, we have doubled, if 

not tripled the number of prosecutions in that arena. 

Senator SESSIONS. There has always been big cases. 

I thank the Chair. 

Chairman LEAHY. We will not get into war stories. All the former 

prosecutors are out here. We had big cases or smaller cases. 

I yield to Senator Schumer. 

Senator SCHUMER. I am one of the—I may be the only nonformer prosecutor on this podium right now. I do not know if Ted 

is a former prosecutor, but maybe he joins me as the lonely group 

of non-former prosecutors. 

Mr. Mueller, thank you again for being here and for your service 

to our country. My first two questions relate to personnel and 

amounts of personnel—first, at the Mexican border. Obviously, 

these drug cartels are a big problem. Obviously, some of the responsibility is DEA, some of the responsibility with the guns is 

ATF, but the FBI has responsibility everywhere. So let me ask you 

these two questions. 

Do you have enough agents to do the job at the border, given the 

increase in the amount of crime that we have that has shocked 

Americans? 

Mr. MUELLER. Our focus on the southwest border has been in a 

number of areas. First of all, public corruption, the monies that are 

generated through narcotics trafficking to various U.S. officers, and 

we have a number of those cases. We have kidnappings that have 

grown, particularly in the San Diego office as well as the El Paso 

office, with Juarez across the river. We have gang activity that is 

north of the border that is in some ways aligned with the cartels 

south of the border. We could always use additional resources. All 

of us could use additional resources. And our hope is that if Congress sees fit to give us resources in that regard, that you do it in 

conjunction with State and local law enforcement. 

Senator SCHUMER. Sure. 

Mr. MUELLER. I believe we work much better if we work shoulder 

to shoulder with State and local law enforcement. 

Senator SCHUMER. Well, look, I think just my perusal, you do 

need more resources, and I think you will find cooperation on both 

29 

sides of the aisle to get them, and it is something I will be working 

for in the new budget. 

What about the creation of an entirely new unit devoted specifically to the investigation and dismantling of violent narcotics cartels at the border? Obviously, again, this presents new challenges. 

It is international, two nations. But some kind of unit that just focuses on this. I have found that when the FBI has these task forces 

and other units, they really get the job done. Whereas if one piece 

is in this division, one piece is in that division, it does not become 

as effective. 

Would you consider setting up a separate unit just focused with 

the right personnel from the right departments to focus on the cartels that are running across our border and doing harm on both 

sides of it? 

Mr. MUELLER. Let me speak to two vehicles already that are 

there. The OCDETF program, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program, in which we are substantial participants, still is, I think, a vehicle that for the last 10, 15 years has 

been looking at the cartels, principally led by DEA, but DEA’s reason for being is to address those cartels. And in the vehicle of the 

OCDETF program, I believe we play an important, a substantial 

role. 

Second, what we have done is, in my trips to Mexico and along 

the border, I do believe that more could be done in consolidating 

the intelligence. Our intelligence would go from our legal attache 

office in Mexico to headquarters and down to our borders. So we 

are establishing a focused unit to bring together the intelligence 

down in El Paso next to the EPIC, which is the El Paso Intelligence Center. 

Senator SCHUMER. I would say, you know, this is a new problem. 

Maybe it is an old problem, but a problem that has gotten a lot 

worse. I would urge some kinds of focused task forces, not just participation in the DEA, because it is a much broader problem than 

just drugs. Drugs are both a cause and effect. 

Let me go to financial problems and financial crimes. What I 

have found, I have heard from my local DAs, particularly my DA 

in Brooklyn, lots of different kinds of mortgage fraud, and not just 

on an individual basis but among different groups. When he goes 

to the U.S. Attorneys there, they say, well, we are busy, we are 

busy with terrorism. This is the Eastern District or the Southern 

District. We are busy with, you know, the airports and drugs and 

all of that. We do not have enough personnel to look into these 

kinds of things, even though Federal law might be more appropriate than State law in some of these. 

And then we have, of course, the kinds of financial crimes, the 

larger financial crimes that were talked about. Senator Leahy, Senator Grassley, and myself have put in legislation to increase the 

number of agents as well as the number of U.S. Attorneys to look 

into this, and I think that legislation, Mr. Chairman, will be coming to the floor in a few weeks. 

Chairman LEAHY. I understand right after the recess. 

Senator SCHUMER. Yes. But we are just adding, I think it is, 75 

agents and a number of prosecutors. I do not recall the number. 

Given that the priorities are shifting—as they always are; that is 

30 

your job—do you have enough personnel to go after both the larger 

and smaller financial frauds which we have seen and seem to have 

become almost endemic over the last decade? Do you need more 

personnel? Is the proposal that we, Senator Leahy, myself, and others have sponsored enough? Could you give us some degree of that? 

Because, again, I am hearing from my local law enforcement that 

when they go to the Feds and say, ‘‘You should look at this,’’ they 

say, ‘‘We would love to, but we cannot. We do not have enough personnel.’’ 

Mr. MUELLER. I would distinguish the U.S. Attorney’s Office 

from the Bureau. 

Senator SCHUMER. Yes, but they are saying the personnel is not 

just the prosecutors but the agents. 

Mr. MUELLER. We have refocused, again, a number of agents, we 

have increased the number of agents that are addressing mortgage 

fraud and a larger financial fraud related to the subprime mortgage market. We have received—I think we received 25 agents in 

the 2009 budget, and my hope is that, thanks to your efforts, we 

will receive additional agents. 

I will tell you that when we went through the savings and loan 

crisis back in, probably, 1992—— 

Senator SCHUMER. Yes. You were very successful. I helped put 

that together. 

Mr. MUELLER. We were. And we had approximately a thousand 

agents working it, as opposed to maybe 500 or 600 that with the 

best effort this year—— 

Senator SCHUMER. So let me ask you, if we gave you more in the 

area of financial fraud, you could certainly use them. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. And what we have had to do is prioritize, utilizing a number of mechanisms to identify the more egregious offenders and focus on those offenders and couple that with a fasttrack prosecution methodology that would push persons through 

the—— 

Senator SCHUMER. All right. One final question. Given the fact 

that we only have an acting DEA, an acting ATF, you know, we 

do not have the people in place, would you consider a trip to the 

Mexican border, provided it is safe, to just figure out what is going 

on and visit it yourself? 

Mr. MUELLER. I have been there. I have been there, Mexico. I 

was there maybe 2 months ago. In the last year, I have been at 

least twice to the border, and I plan to be down there in May. 

Senator SCHUMER. Good. 

Mr. MUELLER. The last time I was there, I recognized that we 

could do a better job consolidating intelligence, and out of that visit 

comes the consolidated mechanism that we are putting in El Paso. 

Senator SCHUMER. Great. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Senator Schumer. 

Normally Senator Klobuchar would be next, but I understand she 

would yield to Senator Kaufman. Senator Kaufman, please. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. I really appreciate that. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these 

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31 

portant because they allow us to talk on a regular basis so we do 

not get too far off track. So I think that is great. 

And, Director Mueller, it is great to see you again. It is great 

that you are here. It seems like you were just appointed. 

One of the things clearly we are concerned about is the financial 

fraud, and we have a bill, a group of us have a bill, S. 386, to do 

that. And I know you have talked about it before. One of the 

things, could you comment on—you talked about what you are 

doing now. Can you comment on the urgency of getting these FBI 

agents to help you deal with the financial fraud problems? 

Mr. MUELLER. Financial fraud, you know, your basic mortgage 

fraud case, maybe three or four individuals are in a conspiracy— 

the appraiser, the lender, and two or three others. It is a lot more 

complicated than your usual narcotics case or bank robbery and the 

like, and it takes not only the expertise of the agent, but forensic 

accountants to put the matter together and to develop the evidence. 

And you cannot get bogged down in the paperwork. 

There is a mentality in the past of putting persons in a room full 

of thousands of pieces of paper and going through and adding up 

all of the counts so that you get the maximum sentence. We cannot 

afford to do that. And they are complicated, and it takes not just 

the agents, but it takes the forensic accountants, it takes the intelligence analysts to do the job. And we talk about more than 40 institutional cases that we have in which there are allegations that 

have been raised, large financial institutions, the extent of the information that needs to be reviewed, most of it now digitally maintained, not only by ourselves but the SEC and the coordination 

with the SEC and ourselves and the prosecutors. It becomes a substantial issue. And so it is not just the agents, but it is also the 

team that you need to put into place to address these, understanding that we have to identify the most egregious actors, move 

quickly to indict them, and then move on to the next one. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Also, this is unusual in that it is not just the 

mortgage brokers that are doing this. You go all the way up the 

chain to the people who securitized the mortgages, the rating services maybe that have conflict of interest in dealing with the rating 

at the same time they were doing business. Then you get to the 

bankers, then you get to the brokers. So, I mean, I assume we are 

going to be looking at all these different players in terms of possible financial fraud. 

Mr. MUELLER. We are. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Good. 

Mr. MUELLER. Some of our initial indictments over the last year 

have been exactly in that arena. 

Senator KAUFMAN. There has been an explosion of this. That is 

why I am concerned about the urgency of this thing that as time 

passes, obviously you are talking about complex litigation to start 

with, now you are talking about complex litigation that is 2 

months, 4 months, 6 months later. And that is why I think that 

it is urgent that we get you the FBI agents. 

Mr. MUELLER. I agree. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Over the past decades, you have done an 

amazing job with organized crime—in fact, really bringing it under 

32 

control. Is there any thought about using some of those resources 

to go after the drug gangs and the drug organizations? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, we have, but we cannot keep our—not take 

our eye off of organized crime. It has expanded dramatically since 

the days in which we were focused principally on La Cosa Nostra. 

Now you have Bulgarian organized crime, Armenian organized 

crime, Asian organized crime, Russian organized crime—and Armenian, if I have not mentioned Armenian organized crime—in pockets around the country that need to be addressed. 

But we also recognized that what has contributed substantially 

to the violence on the streets are gangs—MS13, 18th Street Gangs, 

Latin Kings. And what you have seen in terms of our organized 

crime program is a recognition that these violence-prone gangs are 

as important if not more important than the traditional families 

that we have seen. So there has been some shifting of resources to 

address this organized criminal—or these new organized criminal 

structures, and we continue to look at it. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Great. Perfect. Turning to violent crime, you 

know, community policing, community prosecution, intelligencebased policing—I mean, how is the FBI working to help local law 

enforcement, local prosecutors to deal with the violent crime problem. I know you are doing a job. I just would like to know what 

you are doing. 

Mr. MUELLER. We have approximately 200 task forces around 

the country. My own view is that we learn a tremendous amount 

by sitting shoulder to shoulder with State and local law enforcement. When I handled homicides here in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 

I worked with the Metropolitan Police Department, the homicide 

detectives, who were some of the best law enforcement agents I 

have ever had the opportunity to work with. I think we make a 

much greater impact when we work on task forces together with 

State and local law enforcement. That is the way we choose to address it. 

I also am not unaware that when we are not doing a number of 

drug cases, we lose contact with the street. And we need to maintain as an organization not only the contact and the liaison—or the 

contact with the street so we know what is going on with the 

street, but liaison with those who are the street day in and day out. 

And so that is the way we are seeking to address it. 

We have Safe Trails Task Forces that combine State and local 

law enforcement for addressing violent crime in Indian country as 

well. So through these various task forces, whether it be in these 

areas such as Indian country or in the communities around the 

country, we try to address it through the task force mechanism. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Great, and I think that really, as you say, is 

the key—community policing, community prosecution, getting back 

into the community, and the FBI obviously can play an incredible 

role in that, and that is what you are doing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Senator Kaufman. 

Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Director, for being here, and I enjoyed our meeting 

this week. I know that Senator Kyl asked you about the investigaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
33 

tion going on in Minnesota, so I appreciate you talking with me 

this week about this. 

I was just listening to all of this and thinking about the increase 

in the mortgage investigations that you are engaging in and the increase in some of the white-collar crime because of the state of the 

economy, seeing very strongly why we are doing this bill. But the 

other area that you and I talked about but I think it is worth mentioning is just the large portion of the economic recovery package— 

and I know you mentioned this to me—that is going to State and 

local governments, and just the potential for corruption, embezzlement. 

Obviously, we want to have that not happen, and so could you 

talk a little bit about how you think we could best prevent that 

from happening in the first place, and then how the FBI is going 

to prepare to investigate it when there are all these other things 

going on. 

Mr. MUELLER. We have had lengthy discussions with the Inspectors General that have been put into place to address the flow of 

funding that will be coming through the Federal Government. In 

order to try to put into place the recordkeeping systems that will 

enable us to quickly identify with algorithms areas where monies 

are not going where they should go, and identifying the various 

players in a complicated commercial transaction who may be the 

persons that we need to look to down the road. 

We find with the mortgage fraud crisis, every county is a little 

bit different in terms of maintenance of the records, and often it 

is difficult for us to quickly identify the participants in a particular 

transaction and identify other transactions that that perhaps guilty 

individual has been involved in. 

And so putting in place the information early on as these funds 

are going to be parceled out to various states and counties and municipalities is part of it. Working closely with the IG to identify 

mechanisms or telltale signs or trip wires that will enable us to 

quickly focus on where monies are going astray is what we are trying to do now as we embark on this era of substantial monies being 

put out by the Federal Government. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And another challenge you mentioned was 

just that a lot of people that were convicted in the 1990s, some of 

them very violent offenders, their scheduled release dates are coming up now or in the next few years. And what steps are you taking 

to prepare for that? How can we help with that? 

Mr. MUELLER. I have concern that a number of people were 

locked up by efforts of prosecutors and law enforcement in the 

1990’s, and many violent offenders, which contributed substantially 

to the reduction in violent crime over the years. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. I remember that time. I was a prosecutor 

then. 

Mr. MUELLER. You were a prosecutor. And my concern is that 

their sentences will be up, and they will be coming out to an economy that does not have jobs and coming out without a skill set that 

would give them the ability to be competitive in a very tight economy, and that that would contribute to an uptick in violent crime. 

And we along with a number of the entities—PERF, Major City 

Chiefs, Major City Sheriffs, organizations—are talking about ways 

34 

we can work together in anticipation of what may be an uptick in 

violent crime down the road. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. One of the things that you talked about 

with Senator Kaufman and that you and I talked about is the effectiveness of the joint task force and how important that is when you 

are dealing with either drug crime, violent crime, or some of these 

financial crimes. And I have certainly seen that in our State, particularly with the suburban police departments that can all work 

together. 

Can you talk about how we can create more incentives for financing those so that we make sure that our money is used most effectively when we send it to the local level? 

Mr. MUELLER. I have been supportive over the years in terms of 

financing, providing, augmenting financing for State and local law 

enforcement. I do believe, though, it would be helpful, as monies 

are allocated by Congress to State and local law enforcement, that 

it be tied into an incentive for a task force structure so that the 

monies would be utilized to incentivize, to encourage State and 

local law enforcement to work with the Federal Government. 

It is my experience as a U.S. Attorney that I was not knowledgeable as to the grants that were going to particular police departments, and the grants going to particular police departments may 

well have been as a result of exceptionally capable grant writers 

as opposed to being part of a larger scheme of what are the issues, 

what are the threats within a particular district or division, and 

how do we work together to address those particular threats where 

the monies will be coming through the grant process. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And you mentioned the local law enforcement, and in our State, as you know, we have had good relationships between Federal law enforcement and local law enforcement. 

That has not always been true everywhere in the country. With a 

new administration coming in now, a new Attorney General, and 

potential there with the new U.S. Attorneys, do you have ideas 

about how we can improve relationships between local—not just 

local law enforcement, also local prosecutors and those on the Federal level? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, as a result of September 11th, one of the 

beneficial—of the very few, I guess, beneficial results of that attack 

was the understanding that we all have to address terrorism within our districts together. And a number of vehicles were established. For us, it was the Joint Terrorism Task Forces. We went 

from, I think, 35 to we have 106 now. U.S. Attorneys’ Offices have 

since then and continuously pulled together the various prosecutors 

and sat down with the various law enforcement agencies to address 

terrorism. And those relationships I believe have expanded to other 

areas that traditionally we perhaps have stayed apart. 

I do think that in a transition from one administration to another, the smoothest often is with law enforcement because we all 

speak the same language and we all have the same goals. And, 

consequently, across the country, I do not see much of a change in 

terms of relationships. In fact, a number of persons who have been 

U.S. Attorneys before may well be back being U.S. Attorneys again, 

so they are familiar with the ground and the operating relationships. 

35 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Very good. I think I told you this story. Mr. 

Chairman, when we had a new U.S. Attorney come in and we decided—I was the local prosecutor—that we would get the groups together, the prosecutors on both sides together, and he hosted a little party for us in their office. And, Mr. Chairman, I never told our 

office that before we got there—I was there early—he got on the 

loudspeaker and said, ‘‘Nail down the furniture. The cousins are 

coming over.’’ But we were able to actually build a much better relationship because of making that a focus, and we were able to 

share casework better, especially so that when 9/11 came, we were 

able to take on a number of the white-collar cases that they would 

have had before. 

So thank you very much for your work. 

Chairman LEAHY. Before I yield to one of those Federal cousins— 

Senator Whitehouse—we are trying to get all the prosecutors here. 

Director, I am going to put into the record on behalf of Senator 

Grassley a number of letters and documents regarding oversight 

that he wanted in the record, and also a description of the LeahyGrassley-Kaufman-Klobuchar, et cetera, Fraud Enforcement Recovery Act, which speaks of adding 190 special agents and more than 

200 forensic analysts and other staff to address mortgage and financial fraud. That will be made part of the record. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome, 

Director Mueller. I have served both as U.S. Attorney but also been 

the cousins and served as Attorney General. And when I was Attorney General, we went over to visit the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The 

only things that were at risk were the pads and pencils that we 

tried to supplant our meager resources with. We were nowhere 

near energetic enough to put the furniture at risk. So I applaud my 

colleague from Minnesota. 

The cyber issue is one that you address at some length in your 

testimony, and I appreciate that very much. It is less a type of 

crime than an arena of crime and other misconduct. It ranges from 

simply people who are expert hackers showing off their stuff to traditional criminal activity to what we would consider to be advanced 

industrial espionage to what we would consider to be national security espionage, and it creates the risk of outright acts of destruction 

and war being taken against our country through the cyber medium. 

In all of that, my fear is that our resources are presently inadequate to the task, and that the way in which we address the cyber 

threats creates very considerable civil liberties and privacy risks. 

Having just been through the unfortunate episode of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping of Americans and the remarkable role, frankly, played by the Department of Justice in 

standing up to that—and yourself, I might add—what would your 

advice be for us as Members of Congress as to the authorities, the 

resources, or the resolutions of difficult issues, like civil liberties 

issues, that you need us to do in order for our country to be more 

effective? You were not the spear point, but you work off of authorities that we give you. You work off resources that we give you, and 

you work constrained by unresolved questions that we leave unresolved. If you were going to give us the top three or four things 

36 

that we should be focusing on to address the cyber threat, what 

would those be? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, I think the civil liberties issues are less extant when you are looking at the ability of state actors to penetrate 

whether it be defense or the stock market or what have you, and 

that how you protect those networks is one issue, where one would 

have more leeway because they are networks that are controlled by 

the Federal Government. 

The issue about other networks, dot-coms, edu, and the like, that 

are not controlled by the Federal Government raises a number of 

privacy issues that need a broader discussion and, quite obviously, 

in the Judiciary Committees and others. At some point—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. How far along in that discussion do you 

feel we are from the point of view of providing you with policy support for the decisions you need to make? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, I do not think the discussion is far along at 

all. I do think it is in part attributable to the change of administrations, because the view taken by the previous administration is 

being reviewed by this administration. And at the time that that 

review is completed—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. This is the 60-day review you are referring 

to? 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. OK. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. But part of it is education in terms of educating on the issues, the extent of the issues, and then the second 

part of it is the solution. And my expectation is those discussions 

will increase substantially in the next several months as this administration has an understanding and a view as to how we solve 

particularly the issue of a tax on the Internet and the like, the dotgov, and outside of the more classified issues that relate to state 

actors and terrorists and the like. But in my mind, in some sense, 

too, there are baskets of issues that require different solutions. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. So if we focus briefly on the civil liberties 

side, your sense is that the discussion as to where the policy line 

should be drawn is at a fairly preliminary stage and does demand 

further work by Congress, correct? 

Mr. MUELLER. Absolutely, yes. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And with respect to the resources and authorities side, what recommendations have you with respect to 

those areas? Do you feel that you have the cyber resources that you 

need? Do you feel that you have the authorities that you need? 

Mr. MUELLER. I do not think anybody feels they have the cyber 

resources they need to do the job. In the 2009 budget, we received 

31 agents, 52 personnel, $19 million. But with the growth of the 

cyber arena, as you call it, which is appropriately so because it infects or affects—either infects or affects—everything we do now, it 

is growing by leaps and bounds. And all of us struggle to keep up 

with it, and there are new and innovative ways of undertaking intrusions into systems and extracting information that the defense 

is one step behind the attackers. And all of us, I think we could 

use more resources, although we are very adept and we have got— 

whether it be the military and NSA and ourselves, we have got 

some very, very talented people to address—— 

37 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I have got just a few seconds, so if you do 

not mind, let me cut you off and ask one last question. You are 

going to be looking, obviously, at financial fraud in a very big way. 

A great number of questions from the Senators here have focused 

on this concern. What I would ask is your assurance that your instruction to your organization will be to pursue those investigations 

as high up as they can be driven. We both know from our experience that it is actually a good deal easier to stop at the bottom 

layer where you have got one or two people bagged with, you know, 

a bad e-mail or a falsely signed document or something, and that 

to push it up to higher levels requiring conspiracies to be proven 

and much more investigative effort to be dedicated is a management choice that has to be made. And I would ask your assurance 

to all of us that in that balance you will be pressing your organization to push upward as far as the facts and the law will drive; and 

if you need additional resources to make that work, that you will 

ask us for those. I don’t want to have this be civil Abu Ghraib in 

which a couple of home mortgage dealers in, you know, Cranston, 

Rhode Island, get prosecuted and the guys at the top get away with 

it. 

Mr. MUELLER. You have my assurance. You also should know 

that my approach in these cases is not the traditional white-collar 

crime but the narcotics case approach. The fastest way to get these 

cases done is to obtain the intelligence indicating who was in what 

place at what time and then have persons cooperate, and cooperate 

as far to the top as you can go as fast as you can go, as opposed 

to putting agents in a big room with a lot of paper and trying to 

sort through the paper. And in my experience, when it comes to 

white-collar crime, I put narcotics prosecutors in charge of that because I thought they were as effective as any. And so you have our 

assurance that we will utilize that approach to go as far as we can 

in the organizations. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator Durbin. 

Senator DURBIN. Mr. Director, thank you for being here today. It 

is good to see you again, and I know that there have been questions asked earlier about the Mexican drug cartels, and I would 

like to focus on one particular aspect. 

Arizona Attorney General Goddard testified before my Subcommittee last week in reference to the battles being fought in Arizona over these drug cartels and their activities. He described in 

shorthand term that the cartels are shipping drugs and humans 

into the United States and we are shipping cash and guns into 

Mexico. It seems to be the equation, the sad and tragic equation 

that takes place. 

Now, I want to ask you about two aspects of that, and I know 

one has been touched on already. But let me give you an illustration of why I am asking this question. Last week, a State judge in 

Arizona dismissed charges against a gun dealer who was accused 

of knowingly selling about 700 weapons through intermediaries to 

two smugglers who shipped the weapons to a Mexican drug cartel. 

Several of the weapons were recovered in Mexico after shootouts 

with the police, including a gunfight last year in which eight MexiVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
38 

can police officers died. The case shows how difficult it is to convict 

gun dealers in the United States who were knowingly supplying 

weapons to Mexican drug cartels. 

As I understand it, it is not a Federal criminal offense to traffick 

firearms in the United States, and in order to prosecute gun dealers and purchasers who knowingly sell and purchase guns for 

Mexican drug cartels, Federal law enforcement has to charge these 

individuals with paperwork violations, such as making false statements on purchase forms. These paperwork offenses have low penalties and can be hard to establish and obviously are not a priority 

when it comes to prosecution. 

Now, the estimate on the volume of firearms from the United 

States to Mexico is wide ranging. The highest estimate I have read 

comes from the Brookings Institution, which suggests 2,000 firearms a day from the United States shipped into Mexico to engender these drug wars where they are killing off one another, the police, and innocent people. 

I think we bear some moral responsibility to slow this flow of 

guns into Mexico, particularly in examples such as I have given 

you. No one buys 700 weapons for self-defense or for sporting or 

hunting purposes. It clearly is a purchase for the sole reason of resale, and in this case, we had a gun dealer who was found to have 

done this and could not find a law to prosecute him under. 

What is your impression? 

Mr. MUELLER. I am not familiar with that case. I know that we— 

by ‘‘we,’’ I mean the Federal Government—prosecute any number 

of cases each year of straw purchasers and that that is a substantial focal point for ATF. That sounds outrageous that under those 

circumstances, as you describe it, the person would not be jailed, 

and I will go back and look at the legal framework, as you obviously are, to make certain that this does not happen. And it is not 

just guns to Mexico, but it is guns within the United States gangs 

and straw purchasers. 

Senator DURBIN. Absolutely. 

Mr. MUELLER. And so it is a substantial problem, both domestically as well as, as was highlighted in the last week or so, with regard to what is happening in Mexico. 

Senator DURBIN. Your background is in the law and law enforcement. My world is political. And in the world of politics, many people are shying away from even discussing this question. But I think 

I am going to ask you in your official capacity to take a look at the 

existing laws as they relate to straw purchasers. I do not believe 

that we can turn our back and say that this Mexican drug cartel 

is just a bunch of angry Mexican gang members killing one another 

off. I mean, we are, in fact, providing firearms that arms these 

drug cartels and, unfortunately, creates mayhem. 

I had a meeting, a private meeting, with a Mexican mayor in a 

border city who has shipped his family to America because they are 

not safe to be there. And many like him are threatened every single day—threatened with American weapons, bought illegally in 

the United States and shipped in volume into Mexico. So I will ask 

you to look at that. 

The other thing that Attorney General Goddard brought up was 

the transfer of funds from the United States to Mexico, and he 

39 

talked about several things that we are looking into. One is the 

stored value card, which I was not aware of, but it is the equivalent of a credit card that has some dollar value associated with it 

that can be used. And he raised the question as to whether or not 

we are looking at that as a means of transferring money across the 

border, a simple little plastic card. 

I do not know if you are familiar with that or have looked into 

it. He suggested law enforcement should be able to read the 

cards—how much money is on this card?—since there are limitations to how much cash you can take over the border. 

Have you run across this issue? 

Mr. MUELLER. I had not until, I think, your staff in preparation 

for the hearing raised it to me as being an issue. Periodically, there 

are new mechanisms that come up for shipping funds across the 

country. Some of them are by the Internet now, some that are remitter organizations. When we are looking at these cards, one of 

the things—I do not know whether you suggested it, or others—as 

you look at the registration and the tracking of those cards to give 

us a mechanism for tying the monies into particular individuals 

who may be involved in illegal activity, and that is something we 

will look at as a result of your inquiry. 

Senator DURBIN. Thank you. We estimate $10 billion is being 

transferred in drug proceeds from the United States into Mexico 

each year—thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of firearms, 

and $10 billion. And I have spoken to representatives of the Mexican Government who are doing their best in the face of 6,000 or 

more being killed last year in their country, put the military on the 

border, but they expect us to do our part, too, to reduce where we 

can this flow of firearms and flow of cash and, I guess the bottom 

line, address the drug laws in America. 

I only have a few seconds left, and I will not have time to get 

into a long list of questions on one of our favorite topics, and that 

is technology at the FBI. And I do know—and we have talked 

about it at length—that you inherited one of the most backward 

systems in the Federal Government that at the time of 9/11, the 

computer capacity as the FBI was not as proficient as you might 

find off the shelf at a Radio Shack in a shopping center. 

But things have changed. There have been some false starts, and 

I believe now that the Sentinel program is underway. There is a 

GAO report that came back with some observations. I would like 

to give you an opportunity to comment on those in an orderly way 

so that we can be brought up to date. 

Mr. MUELLER. There are a number of areas that we have made 

substantial progress. Sentinel is on target, on budget. We now have 

24,000 BlackBerrys, the basic accoutrements of the technology age. 

One of the issues was we work on a Secret platform. Everybody has 

Secret. We have upgraded where necessary to the Top Secret, 

which requires SCIFs and secure areas, but also the second set of 

computers and the networks, and we also now are up to 30,000 out 

of 36,000 computers that can handle the Internet for our employees. 

And so we have to operate it, have three networks: you have to 

have the unclassified, you have to have the Secret, you have to 

have the Classified. We have made substantial strides. We still 

40 

have work to do. This year, I will tell you, on Sentinel is sort of 

the year we get over the mountain. And so we have been meeting 

every other week or so, and we are pushing it forward. We have 

made substantial strides, but I am not going to declare victory 

until Sentinel is in and everybody has it. And we are not just up 

with everybody else but ahead of everybody else. 

Senator DURBIN. Well, the best law enforcement agency in the 

world should have the best technology, and I know this has been 

a mountain that you have climbed, and I have joined you in a few 

of those hikes in the past. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MUELLER. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much. 

I guess our last questioner is going to Senator Wyden, and then 

I know we have a roll call vote at noon. Don’t we, Mr. Leader? 

Senator DURBIN. I don’t think so. 

Chairman LEAHY. Senator Wyden. 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, Director 

Mueller, welcome, and I want to pick up exactly where Senator 

Durbin left off, and that is this question of the information technology issue. 

Do all FBI analysts and agents now have access to the Internet 

at their desktops? 

Mr. MUELLER. Thirty thousand out of 36,000. The reason that we 

do not have the last 6,000 at this juncture is because several offices, it would be financially—it would be—to put in the networks 

and, that is, do the wiring and the like, would be—does not make 

any economic sense, particularly when these offices are going to 

move very shortly. And so to the extent that we have been able to 

put in the second network we have, with just about everybody in 

the organization, even if they do not have it at their desks, those 

other 6,000 computers we want, they will have access to the Internet nearby. 

Senator WYDEN. That obviously has been something that has 

been troubling to people, and as you know, I have asked about this 

in the past in my other capacity as a member of the Intelligence 

Committee. 

With respect to the move, when will it be possible to say that all 

FBI analysts and agents have access to the Internet at their desk? 

In other words, you have said there are going to be 6,000 people 

still because of expensive facilities and the like. On what date will 

it be possible to say that the agency is really getting close to the 

point of 21st century technology? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, I would say we are at 21st century technology. There are these pockets in particular offices, and by the 

end of the year, we would expect to be 99 percent done. But I 

would say we are in the 21st century. I mean, there is nobody, I 

do not believe, who does not have ready access to the Internet at 

this juncture. 

Senator WYDEN. I know it has been frustrating for you. I think 

people were incredulous when I asked these questions earlier, and 

I know progress has been made, and that is why I am asking it 

again. 

Mr. MUELLER. Thank you. 

41 

Senator WYDEN. With respect to secure case management computer systems—and this is another area where you all have spent 

a lot of time—it is my understanding that there is currently no way 

to share audio or video files on this system now. Is that correct? 

Mr. MUELLER. I do not think that is correct. I know we have 

mechanisms to do that. I would have to get back to you with the 

specifics of it. 

Senator WYDEN. Would you? 

Mr. MUELLER. I will. 

Senator WYDEN. Because that was my understanding, that it was 

not currently possible to share that information. If you will get 

back to me, that would be great. 

Mr. MUELLER. I will. I do not think that is accurate. 

Senator WYDEN. With respect to the role of intelligence analysts, 

I think it is well understood that they are going to be critical in 

terms of the Bureau’s function. In 2004, the Congress gave the 

agency special authority to hire 24 senior intelligence analysts. But 

in 2007, when I asked about this, I was told that only two of these 

senior positions had been filled. 

So, again, I am just reporting to you what I have been told, but 

I have been told now that only five of these senior intelligence 

spots have been filled. This is five out of the 24 that the Congress 

felt strongly about. 

Do you know if that is correct? 

Mr. MUELLER. I will have to go and check on that. I do believe 

it is more than five, but I would have to check on that. I know we 

took some of those spots and utilized them in a way that made 

more sense to the organization, but I will have to get back specifically on that to you. 

Senator WYDEN. Do you know if the agency plans to fill all 24 

of the spots? 

Mr. MUELLER. That is where I am—I would have to get back to 

you, because I believe that we were utilizing those spots in a way 

that was consistent with the intent of the statute but may not be 

the exact spots as put into the statute. 

Senator WYDEN. So you will get back to me on that one. 

Mr. MUELLER. We will do that. 

Senator WYDEN. OK. Let me ask you about one other one, and 

that is the question of the FBI briefing congressional committees 

on terrorism and counterintelligence inquiries. The concern here is 

that frequently it has not been possible to get those briefings and 

the Linder letter is cited as the justification. So when the FBI withholds information on national security matters, obviously it is hard 

then for the Congress to assess security threats to the country or 

how well the FBI is adapting to meet the threats. 

So I understand the need to be able to protect U.S. person information, and I think it is obvious that this Committee and Members 

of the U.S. Senate do not want to do anything to jeopardize ongoing 

inquiries. But at the same time, this status quo makes it hard to 

do sensible and thoughtful congressional oversight. So I think it is 

time to make a change here. I think it is time to reverse policy 

here, and my question is: In your view, can briefings from the FBI 

and the DOJ be structured so that the Congress gets the intelligence information it needs for effective oversight without comproVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:45 Oct 21, 2009 Jkt 052800 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\52800.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
42 

mising what you need to be able to do your investigations and your 

prosecutions? It seems to me you have this Linder letter, and certainly the Congress is frustrated because we do not feel that we are 

getting the information we need about terrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Your people, I am sure, chafe at the idea of 

doing these briefings because they are concerned about compromising ongoing prosecutions and investigations. 

How do we get to a sweet spot where you can do your work, 

which is, in my view, vitally important to the country and the Congress can do some oversight? 

Mr. MUELLER. A short answer is yes, we can work on this issue, 

and I will tell you, we have frustration because now that we disseminate a lot of the information, particularly in the counterterrorism arena, what we are finding is the information we disseminate is coming up and being briefed to the Intelligence Committee 

by others, where we are precluded by the Justice Department in 

briefing that which we have provided to the other agencies. 

And so we will be working with the Department of Justice to 

work out a mechanism whereby we can brief on intelligence matters without adversely impacting ongoing investigations. 

Senator WYDEN. In your view—and I appreciate that because 

your answer certainly suggests that you are open to it—what would 

be a plan, what would be an alternative to a Linder letter in your 

view, just conceptually? 

Mr. MUELLER. I would think that certainly in intelligence we 

could brief on matters that we have distributed to the intelligence 

community, unless there is a particular concern relating to a particular ongoing investigation. There also are mechanisms to—one of 

the problems we have is that by reason of either statutes or other 

Presidential directives, we are unable to—or should not utilize in 

briefings names of, for instance, United States citizens that could 

be part of it, where you can talk generally without doing the specifics. So that there are mechanisms that could be adopted that 

would protect not only U.S. citizens but also ongoing prosecutions. 

One of the concerns one has is the fact that most of our intelligence is developed on U.S. citizens that have a higher degree of 

privacy interest and rights than perhaps others that the agency is 

looking at overseas. 

Senator WYDEN. My time—— 

Chairman LEAHY. A roll call vote has begun. We are going to end 

this at noon. I realize you were not here for much of it and you 

did not know that, but go ahead. You had another question. 

Senator WYDEN. Mr. Chairman, I would just wrap up very quickly. 

I think this is a constructive approach that you are outlining, 

Mr. Director. I would hope that we could narrow the times when 

there was not a brief, narrow the number of instances where the 

Linder letter was invoked. I am interested in working with you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Senator Wyden. 

Senator Sessions, you wanted 3 more minutes. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you. You are very kind, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Director, we are all concerned about the violence in Mexico. 

You have been asked about it previously. We had a hearing about 

43 

that recently with ATF and Homeland Security and some other 

agencies, not FBI. But it strikes me that the new President there 

is standing up not because we have told him what to do, but because he understands the threat to Mexico, and he has challenged 

these organizations, and a lot of the violence we are seeing is because the government is challenging them. But they are a powerful 

force. They have the ability to assassinate, kidnap, murder leaders 

and mayors and police chiefs that stand up against them, and it 

is a very dicey time. And I think we should do what we can to help. 

It strikes me that the best way we could help would be to vigorously prosecute the parts of those organizations that are operating 

in the United States, that are selling drugs and cocaine and methamphetamine and other drugs in this country, collecting the 

money, sending it back to buildup the wealth and power of these 

cartels. 

So I guess my question to you is: Do you fundamentally think 

that is perhaps the best thing we can do to help? Are we doing 

enough? And will the FBI participate? 

Mr. MUELLER. We participate, as I indicated before, in OCDETF, 

as you are familiar with. We are a strong participant in that. That 

is an area where we have maintained our participation. 

Second, we work with DEA and ATF and the other agencies 

through the OCDETF mechanism to address the cartels throughout 

the United States. 

Senator SESSIONS. OCDETF is the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force that has multiple agencies participating to 

target the biggest kind of drug organization. 

Mr. MUELLER. And as a result of that, there have been a number 

of prosecutions over the years, and to the credit of President 

Calderon, he has increased substantially the extradition to the 

United States of those cartel leaders. There were 95 last year. 

There are 23 this year. The 95 last trebled the extraditions from 

3 years previous. 

Senator SESSIONS. So you are finding more cooperation than we 

have had before with Mexico. 

Mr. MUELLER. Absolutely. 

Senator SESSIONS. I think that is the partnership that we should 

push forward with. Many of these guys that flee back and forth 

across the border move back and forth. We will prosecute them if 

they will extradite them. We will put them in a firm Federal prison 

where they cannot buy their way out of jail or break out of jail. I 

think it can help, Mr. Chairman, to reduce the power of these cartels and strengthen the ability of the strong Mexican President to 

be successful. 

Mr. MUELLER. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman LEAHY. I thank the Senator from Alabama. 

I agree with him that we have got to help Mexico get this under 

control. They are, as I said in my opening statement, the second 

largest trading partner that the United States has. They are our 

southern border. They are a significant democratic nation, and to 

have their democracy basically torn apart by public corruption and 

drug money is something they do not want, certainly President 

Calderon does not want. You have been down there, Director 

44 

Mueller. You know that both sides of the border are damaged if it 

continues. 

So I will put my full closing in the record, but I do thank the 

Director not only for his service but for working with us. We have 

raised a number of issues. We will continue to work together, and 

I appreciate him doing that, and I thank you for being here. 

Mr. MUELLER. Thank you, sir. 

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions follow.] 

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