So what kind of message is being sent to officials like him at the FBI?
“Where are your loyalties? If they’re to the person that can advance your career then you will be loyal if you want to move on. If you want to take a stand and say, ‘Hey, enough’s enough, this is wrong. We can’t continue to operate this way’ then they’re doomed,” Roberts says.
As for the senior FBI officials whom Roberts found had committed misconduct at Ruby Ridge, all of them were promoted and - in some cases - given bonuses. One of them is Van Harp. Even though Roberts said Harp altered a report to cover up serious wrongdoing, Harp was promoted and awarded a bonus of $22,000. Harp now runs the FBI’s Washington field office and is heading the anthrax investigation.
The FBI itself says Harp did nothing wrong at Ruby Ridge, but last week, the Inspector General of the Justice Department released a report that endorsed John Roberts’ findings about the FBI’s handling of Ruby Ridge and his criticism of Harp. The report said the FBI’s handling of the incident was rife with misconduct, obstruction, and was, at best, grossly deficient and, at worst, intentionally slanted to protect the FBI and senior FBI officials. The report concludes that the "FBI suffered and still suffers from a strong perception that a double standard exists within the FBI.”
“John Roberts has been vindicated, but then you have to ask, of course, the obvious question: If he was vindicated, why all this retaliation against him, against his wife, why this effort to hold him up to ridicule?” asks Leahy.
“This is what it comes down to, this effort to send a signal, not just here in Washington, but in California and Texas, Illinois, everywhere else where the FBI are, that send a signal, don't blow the whistle. Don't be a whistleblower.”
