Stinging Rebuke

The FBI is scolded for its scams

The Federal Bureau of Investigation code-named it Operation Corkscrew: a four-year, $750,000 Government scam designed to ensnare what were believed to be corrupt judges in the Cleveland Municipal Court. An undercover agent, posing as a car thief, hired Court Bailiff Marvin Bray to offer bribes to judges in exchange for fixing cases. It seemed an effective "sting" when in 1981 six judges were about to be indicted. But it was the FBI that was getting stung. Some of the judges brought to meetings with the undercover agent were impostors, and Bray himself was pocketing the bribe money, totaling more than $100,000. Bray was later convicted, but the FBI was left with egg on its face.

Operation Corkscrew was the centerpiece of a highly critical 100-page report on FBI undercover activities released last week by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. After 21 hearings over four years, the five Democrats in the eight-member group took the agency to task. Its covert operations, they said, often deviate "from avowed standards, with substantial harm to individuals and public institutions." The three Republicans on the committee all dissented, however, calling the report "a slanted and biased document that is aimed at closing down an effective and almost indispensable tool" in the fight against organized crime and political corruption.

During the reign of the late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the agency solved crimes the old-fashioned way, by simply investigating them. Today's FBI agent is more likely to resort to undercover tactics, gaining evidence by posing as a criminal. For fiscal year 1977, the FBI budgeted $1 million for undercover operations, excluding salaries and overheads; by fiscal year 1984, that figure had grown to $12.5 million. In the twelve months ending Sept. 30, 1983, FBI scams resulted in 1,328 indictments and 816 felony convictions. The notable FBI operation that triggered the committee study was Abscam, the bribery investigation begun in 1978 that led to the convictions of a U.S. Senator and six Congressmen.

Despite this success, the committee found that agents often violate the bureau's own guidelines by offering exorbitant bribes and by starting investigations without "reasonable suspicion." Among the committee's recommendations: requiring judicial warrants before scams can be initiated, and a strict code of Behavior for undercover operations. Said the report: "There are some forms of conduct which should never be permitted in a democratic society. There is a point at which the end, no matter how important, will not support such conduct."