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Pete Yost

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 3:30 PM UTC

FBI confirms leak probe on al-Qaida plot

By , Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Robert Mueller says the bureau has launched an investigation into who leaked information about an al-Qaida plot to place an explosive device aboard a U.S.-bound airline flight.

Mueller says such leaks during ongoing law enforcement operations damage U.S. relationships with allies.

The Associated Press and other news organizations revealed details of the plot this month. A double agent working with the CIA, Saudi intelligence agencies and the British intelligence agency MI6 turned the bomb over to the U.S. government. Mueller’s comment to the Senate Judiciary Committee was the first on-the-record confirmation that a Justice Department leak probe is under way.

Friday, May 11, 2012 11:45 AM UTC

Judge rejects effort to open CIA volume on Cuba

By , Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that a final volume of the CIA’s three-decade-old history on the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba can remain shrouded in secrecy because it is a draft, not a finished product.

The CIA characterized the volume in court papers as “a polemic of recriminations against CIA officers who later criticized the operation.”

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler accepted the CIA’s arguments that the fifth volume entitled the “CIA’s Internal Investigations of the Bay of Pigs Operations” did not even pass through the first stage of a multilayer review process. The volume represented a proposal by a subordinate member of the history staff that was rejected by the chief historian as containing significant deficiencies, the CIA argued.

The CIA said the volume is protected from disclosure under the deliberative process privilege, an exemption in the Freedom of Information Act.

The National Security Archive, a private group seeking transparency in government, sued the CIA to declassify the volume.

The CIA had no problem declassifying an earlier volume of the history in which the author attacked President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, said Peter Kornbluh, who directs the National Security Archive’s Cuba documentation project.

“Apparently, the CIA sees no problem in the American public reading a ‘polemic of recriminations’ against the White House,” Kornbluh said.

In her decision Thursday, the judge said a draft history would risk public release of inaccurate historical information.

Kessler also cited the arguments of the CIA chief historian that disclosure would have a chilling effect on the CIA’s current historians. They would henceforth be inhibited from trying out innovative, unorthodox or unpopular interpretations in a draft manuscript, the agency said.

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Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:40 PM UTC

FBI impersonation scams popular

By , Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An organization created to address online fraud says scams in which criminals impersonate FBI agents were one of the most common types of Internet crime complaints last year — a total of 14,350 nationwide.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center says it has handled over 300,000 complaints in each of the past three years. The 314,246 complaints in 2011 marked a 3.4 percent increase over 2010, when complaints totaled 303,809. The amount of money lost by the victims last year: $485.3 million.

Thursday, May 10, 2012 12:15 AM UTC

AP source: Leaks probed in terrorism case

By , Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A law enforcement official said Wednesday investigators are conducting a probe into who leaked information about an al-Qaida plot in which an explosive device was to have been detonated on a U.S.-bound airline flight.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing leak investigation, which is just getting under way.

The probe follows stories by The Associated Press and other news organizations disclosing the terrorist operation by the group known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

The reports said that al-Qaida had completed a sophisticated new, nonmetallic underwear bomb last month and that the would-be suicide bomber actually was a double agent working with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies.

The would-be suicide bomber secretly turned over the group’s most up-to-date underwear bomb to Saudi Arabia, which gave it to the CIA. Before he was whisked to safety, the spy provided intelligence that helped the CIA kill al-Qaida’s senior operations leader, Fahd al-Quso, who died in a drone strike last weekend.

In an appearance Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the FBI is examining the explosive device. He said the scheme hatched in Yemen demonstrates that it’s essential for Congress to reauthorize counterterrorism tools enacted in 2008. Some of these programs expire at year’s end.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2012 3:45 PM UTC

Mueller: Plot shows need for surveillance power

By , Associated Press FBI Director Robert Mueller arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)(Credit: AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Robert Mueller (MUHL’-ur) has urged Congress to renew wide-ranging surveillance authority to thwart terrorism plots like the latest one in which an al-Qaida-engineered explosive device was to have been detonated on a U.S.-bound airline flight.

Mueller tells a House panel the FBI is examining the device and says the scheme hatched in Yemen demonstrates that it’s essential for Congress to reauthorize counter-terrorism tools enacted in 2008. These programs expire at year-end.

The provisions allow the government to target electronic surveillance on foreign persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States.

The FBI director’s comments follow revelations that al-Qaida completed a sophisticated new, non-metallic underwear bomb last month and that the would-be suicide bomber actually was a double agent working with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies.

Monday, May 7, 2012 8:15 PM UTC

Abbott Labs agrees to pay $1.5B over Depakote

By , Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Abbott Laboratories has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5 billion over allegations that it promoted the anti-seizure drug Depakote for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The case includes a criminal fine and forfeiture of $700 million and civil settlements with the federal government and states totaling $800 million. Deputy Attorney General James Cole said Monday the settlement reflects the determination by government “to hold accountable those who commit fraud.”

At a news conference at the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Timothy Heaphy said that the top levels of Abbott carried out a strategy of systematically marketing the drug for purposes other than what federal regulators had allowed.

The illegal conduct was not the product of “some rogue sales representatives,” said Heaphy, the U.S. attorney for the western district of Virginia. He said the company engaged in the strategy from 1998 to at least 2006.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced the state portion of the settlement between the company and 45 states and the District of Columbia.

Depakote is an anti-seizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for bipolar disorder.

However, the company admitted that it marketed the drug for unapproved uses, including treatment of schizophrenia, agitated dementia and autism.

The company admitted that it trained a specialized sales force to promote Depakote in treating dementia because the drug was not subject to federal regulations designed to prevent the use of unnecessary medications in nursing homes.

The company also marketed Depakote to treat schizophrenia. Clinical trials failed to demonstrate that adding Depakote was any more effective than antipsychotic drugs in treating schizophrenia, according to court papers in the case.

Under the care of a physician, patients are sometimes prescribed drugs for purposes not approved by the FDA. However, pharmaceutical companies cannot market drugs for unapproved purposes.

Illinois-based Abbott said the company was pleased to resolve the matter. It said that it takes its responsibility to patients and health care providers seriously. Under the settlement, the company has agreed to enter a five-year probationary period designed to ensure that there is no repeat of the company’s misconduct.

Reuben Guttman, an attorney whose whistleblower clients brought Abbott’s activities to the attention of government investigators, said that the case shows how a company elevated aggressive sales and marketing of Depakote over medical decision-making. Abbott, said Guttman, “violated basic norms of health care and ethics.”

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