The FBI on Thursday moved to fire an outspoken Chicago agent who has frequently criticized the bureau’s ability to investigate terrorism and safeguard against future attacks.
Agent Robert G. Wright Jr. was on temporary assignment at the FBI’s counterterrorism command center in Washington when he was notified at the end of his shift that the bureau planned to fire him within 30 days, according to a spokesman for Wright.
Wright declined to comment and referred questions to John Vincent, a former FBI agent and now the Midwest representative for the government watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has taken up Wright’s cause.
“They really are going after him,” Vincent said. “This is a continued vendetta against Bob Wright for exercising his 1st Amendment rights. It appears the FBI is taking this action because they think they can get about with it.”
Wright has two pending federal lawsuits against the bureau. One suit charges violations of his 1st Amendment rights for blocking publication of his book. The other alleges the bureau invaded Wright’s privacy by releasing confidential personnel information to reporters in an attempt to discredit him.
Wright has been under a disciplinary investigation for nearly two years. The bureau opened its investigation in June 2003, days after his appearance at a news conference and on a national news program in which he criticized the bureau’s handling of terrorism investigations.
Ed Cogswell, a spokesman for the FBI, declined to respond to specific questions about Wright. He instead read from a prepared statement, noting that federal law prohibited the FBI from discussing personnel matters.
“As a general matter, employee personnel actions are governed by a process which provides the employee significant procedural protections,” according to the statement. “The employee is provided a detailed, written notification which explains the proposed action, and the basis for the proposed action.”
Vincent said bureau officials suspended Wright without pay, taking possession of his gun, badge and bureau-issued car.
“They left him stranded in Washington,” Vincent said. He said Wright was on temporary assignment in the nation’s capital and is planning to return to Chicago.
Wright was served with three disciplinary charges–insubordination, conduct unbecoming and talking to the media without bureau approval, Vincent said.
Wright, an agent since 1990, has been the subject of at least six disciplinary investigations in his career. His supporters have long suspected that the FBI retaliated against him for his harsh public criticism of the bureau.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Wright has held two national news conferences and has granted a handful of television interviews in which he accused the FBI of botching investigations into fundraising by militant Islamic groups such as Hamas.
The disciplinary charges apparently stem from June 2, 2003, when Wright held a news conference in Washington. He called the FBI’s attempts to investigate terrorism “pathetic” and referred to the bureau’s International Terrorism Unit as a “complete joke.” He also had appeared on an ABC News program.
Soon after Wright’s appearances, supervisors vowed to “take him out,” according to a memo written by a former high-ranking official in the FBI’s disciplinary office.
The memo, written by John Roberts when he was third in command of the Office of Professional Responsibility, questioned how often supervisors misused the disciplinary process to silence employees critical of the FBI.
That memo was turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking members, Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).
Grassley and Leahy have warned the bureau about retaliating against agents, having singled out Wright in a June 2003 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller.
“The FBI should worry more about catching terrorists than gagging its own agents,” Grassley wrote to Mueller. “Suppressing free speech is not the way to reform the FBI.”
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tlighty@tribune.om
