Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice

ByABC News
June 8, 2001, 4:41 PM

W A S H I N G T O N, June 15 -- FBI Director Louis Freeh is still keeping everyone guessing as to when precisely he will leave.

When a top aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft was asked how it was possible that Freeh had not yet let Justice know when his last day would be, the answer was a wry, "anything to get more attention."

I wrote last week that some expected his last day to be today, June 15. That was based on the fact he had said he would leave in June at the end of the school year, and it was believed Fairfax County schools would get out on June 15. Then they remembered a couple of snow days so it got stretched to June 19.

But now he's planning a gathering with Khobar Towers victims' families on the fifth anniversary of the blast that killed 19 U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia. That date is June 25, and one Freeh aide said he believed Freeh planned to meet with the Khobar victims as director. So that gives us at least another 10 days.

He is not, however, planning on responding to all invitations while he remains; next week the Senate Judiciary Committee, now under Democratic leadership, plans to begin a series of hearings on FBI oversight, but Freeh has turned down an invitation to attend on the grounds that both his parents are ill.

One former Justice official thought it outrageous that Freeh had not shown the White House and Justice the courtesy of naming a date. But Justice officials are shrugging it off; they make it clear there are no plans to ask Freeh to stay longer, and it appears the White House is moving closer to a decision on his successor.

And although the norm is for the deputy director to be named acting director for any interim period, it's not clear that will happen in this case. Whether Deputy Director Tom Pickard is thought to be too much a creature of the old FBI culture, or whether he's viewed (as one former official said) as a lightweight, or whether he's just not sufficiently known at the White House, he may not pass muster.

The successor sweepstakes seem pretty clearly now to be down to Washington attorney George Terwilliger and San Francisco U.S. Attorney Robert S. Mueller, III, with the latter a heavy favorite among Justice types.

On paper the qualifications of the two might seem to line up; they've both served as U.S. attorneys and as deputy attorney general. But Mueller also served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division during Bush I and oversaw the early investigation and prosecution of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland; the investigation and prosecution of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega; and various other scandals and hot-ticket cases, including BCCI and BNL.

Mueller is also the guy who gave up a cushy job in a big law firm and begged the D.C. U.S. attorney (then Eric Holder) to allow him to come back and prosecute homicide cases. So the guy went from the top of the Criminal Division to being just one of hundreds of Assistant U.S. attorneys for no other reason than that he wants to wear the white hat. I told you last week how he has shaken up the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's office since his arrival out there.