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American Morning

Attorney General John Ashcroft Reacts to Latest FBI Embarrassment

Aired July 18, 2001 - 11:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Our Justice Department -- our correspondent Kelli Arena joins us more on this and reaction to what the Attorney General had to say -- Kelli.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, it's very interesting.

The attorney general, of course, is in an awkward spot. He is in between directors. As you know Louis Freeh stepped down in June. And Robert Mueller is awaiting Senate confirmation.

He did characterize this as a time for rebuilding, an opportunity to get things back on a straight path, not only at the FBI, but at INS, at the DNA, at all of agencies that fall what's under the Justice Department's jurisdiction.

He did try to downplay just a bit, the importance of the -- the number of weapons and laptop computers that are missing, saying that he was hopeful that many of that -- much of that equipment could be recovered. However, we do know that many of those, at least 13 laptop computers were stolen. Many of the weapons were been stolen. One has been used in a homicide.

So it's very hard for him to make -- to not position this as a serious issue, but to put it in context, this is just one percent of the total number of guns and the laptop computers that the FBI uses on the daily basis. He did say that he asked again for the Inspector General's office to conduct a thorough review not only of the FBI but all of the agencies within Justice to find out how they accounted for inventory.

This is something that we have heard before, Kyra, that the -- the computer systems, the information technology systems within these agencies are not up to par. We found that out during the situation with the late document turnover in the Timothy McVeigh case. That, of course, blamed in part on a -- a flawed computer system. That is the topic of discussion today on Capitol Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing right now on FBI management problems. The first part of that hearing will focus specifically on those information technology problems. And then later on in the afternoon, we'll move toward some other issues, in terms of how the FBI is dealing with those problems and how to fix it. Kyra PHILLIPS: Kelli, the attorney general did address more better performance vs. a systematic problem. Do you think he downplayed this at all? He didn't seem extremely concerned about the missing weapons or even the confidential information on the laptops. A reporter did ask him about that also.

ARENA: He was asked specifically about that confidential confirmation and dodged that question. He would not qualify at all the sensitivity or the nature of that information. And that is something of great concern on Capitol Hill. As I said, I think that he views this -- this time here as an opportunity for improvement and for change because he is within the middle of directorships at FBI. And of course, he himself has just taken the helm and there are a variety of problems that the FBI is facing.

But even in a pep talk that he delivered last week to agents, he did try to emphasize the good work that was being done, and try to put the problems that we have seen in some context and once again, this weapons and computer problem is only 1 percent of the total numbers of weapons and computers that the FBI uses and. So this isn't a great number, although, it is a problem.

PHILLIPS: Justice correspondent Kelli Arena, thank you so much.

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