Naked City

The latest episode in the tale of the Killer-D Manhunt assumed a comic opera character Monday, as the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security‘s Office of the Inspector General released the report of its internal investigation into the potential misuse of the agency’s resources by the security agency’s Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center to assist the Texas Dept. of Public Safety in its search for missing House Democrats. The seven-page OIG report, posted on the Homeland Security Web site (although you might need AMICC assistance to locate the damn thing), concludes that AMICC’s involvement was confined to assisting a law-enforcement agency in a “typical” manner and involved only a “nominal” use of Homeland Security assets.

The OIG’s conclusion? Case closed.

However, as the report itself acknowledges, the investigation was very narrowly limited “to the specific issue involving alleged misuse of DHS assets in assisting state law enforcement in locating a reported ‘missing aircraft.'” From the transcribed phone calls attached as Exhibit 8 (the only one of 18 exhibits released, and then preposterously redacted to omit virtually all names and additional information, supposedly for “personal privacy concerns”), it’s clear that at first (Monday, May 12) the AMICC personnel believed they were being asked to find a missing (and possibly crashed) aircraft containing state representatives and that the officer, eventually named as “Wil Crais” (DPS Lt. William Crais), initially did nothing to disabuse them of that false impression. But the calls (apparently eight in all, although it’s frankly hard to tell from the heavily redacted transcripts) continued into the following day, and at one point the unidentified AMICC voice calls attention to that morning’s newspaper accounts of the missing Democrats. The unnamed DPS officer sheepishly responds, “OK. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m just trying to find the people that’s all.”

Although the self-investigating Homeland Security report was prepared as a response to requests for all relevant information from members of Congress, it’s apparent from the report itself that instead of responding in full, the agency’s OIG made certain to define its task very narrowly in order to discover as little as possible. When the OIG asked the DPS who had instructed its officers to contact AMICC in the first place, the report notes, “DPS officials … declined to provide any information identifying the person or persons.” That was good enough for these hard-charging OIG investigators — who no doubt did not want to follow a trail that might well lead through Speaker Tom Craddick and Gov. Rick Perry to none other than U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, who had publicly announced his intention to get the feds involved in the manhunt and acknowledged having passed Federal Aviation Administration info to Craddick’s office.

White House officials have dismissed the congressional requests as a partisan Democratic headline-hunt, but as Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett noted in a Tuesday press conference, the more important issue is whether there will be any “firewall” between Homeland Security and ordinary law enforcement. The answer suggested by the agency’s report appears to be, “We don’t know, and we don’t care to find out.”

Commented Doggett, “This attempt to filter the truth raises as many unanswered questions as it offers gaps and omissions. It’s really more of a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy than a comprehensive investigation. It does not, for example, tell us whether Tom DeLay or any other politician attempted to misuse federal police power. It does not offer any reassurance that resources dedicated to the war on terrorism cannot be exploited for personal or political purposes. Certainly, it does not fully answer repeated requests to let uncensored tapes and documents speak for themselves instead of providing self-serving conclusions.”

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In Other Killer D News…

When Capitol security videotapes showed Assistant Attorney General Jay Kimbrough aiding the May 12 manhunt for the Killer D’s, Kimbrough — the state homeland security director — said he was only acting as a legal advisor to the Dept. of Public Safety. But last week, state Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, chair of the House General Investigating Committee, said Kimbrough’s state-owned cell-phone records show calls to and from the FBI office in Ardmore, Okla., home away from home for Bailey and 50 other then-missing House Democrats. “Everybody’s been saying there was no contact made to the FBI,” said Bailey. “Certainly there was.”

Meanwhile, Judge Charles Campbell announced Friday that he’d rule in 30 days on an AG’s motion to dismiss a suit brought against DPS by state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. The suit aims to prevent further destruction of DPS records of the Killer-D Manhunt; the AG and DPS say they’ve disclosed everything that’s left. But Burnam’s lawyer also asked Campbell to rule on whether DPS’s involvement in the manhunt was itself legal, leading to speculation that the Killer D’s may once again flee if Gov. Rick Perry brings congressional redistricting back to life via special session — which he did on Wednesday morning.

This article appears in June 20 • 2003.