Authors: Sibel Edmonds
Classified Woman (12 page)
T
hat morning, Friday, March 8, the day of my scheduled polygraph, Matthew prepared a big breakfast. I was having none of it. “The worst thing you can do is to load yourself up with coffee and take the test on an empty stomach,” he gently scolded. “Lack of sleep, no food, and caffeine! I thought you were determined to fight this with all you’ve got?”
I was in no mood. I drained my coffee cup and headed for the shower. After going through the mechanics of dressing, I looked at myself in the mirror: haggard, gaunt, with sallow skin. I didn’t look or feel like a fighter. Maybe I could fake it—start by putting on some makeup. Next, straighten my shoulders and raise my chin. Already I felt better, stronger. By the time I finished and came downstairs, I was ready to fight. I even took a croissant.
On the way, neither of us spoke. Traffic downtown was congested, and the building was difficult to find. I looked again at the address: there we were, but no signs indicating FBI anywhere in sight.
“Let’s see if there’s a sign inside.” We went into the building. Next to an art gallery on the entrance floor was a spiral staircase on the right. I started up, with Matthew a few steps behind. On the second floor, through tinted double glass, was a reception area, scarcely visible. I could just make out a small FBI sign posted at the unmanned desk. I pushed on the door: locked. Then I noticed the buzzer, pushed it twice and waited.
Moments later, a stocky man in his early forties with a thin mustache opened the door and asked us in.
“I am the FBI agent in charge. You must be Sibel Edmonds,” he said, pronouncing my name
Cybil
.
Let it go
.
The man didn’t look happy that I was accompanied. He asked us to have a seat, explaining quickly that he needed to go set up the room.
“I have a question: to this date I have not been given a request for this polygraph in writing, and despite my repeated requests, verbally and in writing, I have not been provided with any reasons for it.”
The agent in charge frowned. “No one can force you to take this polygraph. You still have the right to refuse.”
I told him I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to keep my job.
The agent replied that it wasn’t his problem, that if I didn’t want the test I should tell him now. “I have an examiner here from the FBI-Baltimore field office; he has come all the way to DC to administer this polygraph.”
Why would the FBI bring an examiner from Baltimore when they have so many of them here in DC?
“I can do one thing, though,” he continued. “After you take the polygraph, we’ll provide you with the results; so you’ll know before you leave this building. Now, are you going to take this or not?”
I looked to Matthew; he nodded. He too had heard the agent’s promise. I agreed.
Five minutes later, the agent returned and led me through a maze of corridors to the polygraph room, a small office with a desk, a test giver, some machines, and a large two-way mirror. Let the circus begin!
The young, clean-faced agent stood and introduced himself. We shook hands and he asked me to take a seat next to his desk. The agent in charge left us.
“First you need to fill out and sign a few forms,” the agent began, “then I have some test questions to go over, and afterwards you’ll take the polygraph test itself.”
He handed me a stack of papers and pen; then he too left the room. I started to review and fill out the standard forms, one of which listed my legal rights with regard to the polygraph test. The final paragraph stated,
I have been provided with and fully briefed on the reasons for this polygraph
… I stopped and read it again. I was not about to sign any such statement without indicating someplace on the form that this was certainly
not
the case—that I had
not
been given any reasons for this polygraph. I drew a circle around that paragraph with an arrow pointing to the margin, where I noted, in pen,
Despite my verbal and written requests, the agency has not provided me with reasons for this polygraph, and I have been told that I would be fired if I were to refuse to take this polygraph
.
The young agent returned and started going through the forms when he stopped at once and shrieked, “You cannot make any notes or changes on these forms! What is this?”
Calmly, I explained.
“But you cannot do that! You either sign it or don’t sign it!” Then he stormed out with the forms.
This went back and forth until I finally called my attorney, to see where we stood with regard to the law.
“You did the right thing,” he assured me. “They cannot object to the note. What did I tell you about these bastards, huh?” I thanked him and hung up. Matthew too agreed.
I walked back in. “Are you going to administer this polygraph or not?” I asked them. “The forms will stay the way they are; you can call my attorney regarding my rights if you wish.” The agent in charge left in a fury. The other began his pretest questions.
The polygraph session took approximately an hour and a half. I was asked the same questions over and over. Despite all the stress and chaos, I felt calm and unusually confident.
The young agent walked me back to reception, where Matthew was waiting. He looked up. “So?” I shrugged. Soon we would find out.
The agent in charge reappeared and motioned us to the exit. “The session is over, have a good day.”
“And the results?”
“The results are complicated and inconclusive,” he said. “You won’t be getting any results.”
Now it was Matthew’s turn to get mad. “This is not what you told us. You were very specific—you would give us the results of the polygraph before we left.”
“I know what I told you,” the agent responded. “I changed my mind; I don’t have to give you any information.”
Matthew’s color deepened to purple red. “Shame on you people …I’m ashamed of this government,” was all he could utter.
I grabbed his arm and steered toward the exit.
That day, I came to the conclusion that pursuing this case internally within the FBI was futile. The polygraph clinched it. I decided it was time to take this to the appropriate committees in Congress. That day too, I prepared my request to submit to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-IG) for an independent investigation.
The FBI knew beyond a reasonable doubt and with documented evidence that it had been penetrated by criminal foreign elements.
Armed with this knowledge, they had decided on a single course of action: shoot the messenger and cover it all up.
I couldn’t waste time. That evening I called Beryl Howell, the lead person in Senator Leahy’s office on the Judiciary Committee, and got contact information for both the DOJ-IG and the Senate Intelligence Committee. She advised me to start with the DOJ-IG’s office, to request an investigation, the sooner the better. She also planned to set up appointments for me to brief the appropriate staff in the Judiciary Committee: primarily Senator Grassley’s staff, accustomed to dealing with FBI whistleblowers. That was the first I’d heard of others like me. I was glad.
By ten o’clock the following morning I had faxed letters and reports to DOJ-IG and the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. I had officially stepped outside the FBI.
My first appointment for an interview by the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility was set for Friday, March 15, one week after the polygraph session. I met the investigators, two female agents in their mid-thirties, in a conference room in the OPR unit in FBI Headquarters.
Both women sat across from me around the conference table. First they asked me to go through the entire case history. I retold the story, everything in chronological order. I stayed away from issues involving the targets of FBI investigations and actual cases under both Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism. The focus was mainly on Dickerson, Feghali, and the sorry state of the FBI-WFO Language unit. Both agents took notes.
The entire session lasted nearly three hours. I was told to expect either follow-up phone calls or another, similar session. They requested that I document everything and notify them of any new developments, threats or further retaliation. Once they finished transcribing, they would have me back to review the transcript and vouch for its accuracy under oath. This would take approximately two weeks.
Five days later they called. I went there to review the transcript of our interview, my reports. They appeared accurate, to which I testified under oath.
I was unsure whether news of my reports to OPR and IG had gotten to management in the Washington field office, though the unit felt unusually calm. Both Feghali and Bryan stayed clear of me; yet, I still could not access many pending investigative files. I continued to be blocked. Instinct told me this was the quiet before the storm—but what kind, and how was I going to deal with it?
On Friday, March 22, I started my work at ten in the morning. I spent the day working mainly on Chicago files. Of the counterintelligence cases I’d worked on, this was by far the most intriguing and contained the most explosive elements: well-known Chicago political figures—including certain Illinois representatives in Congress—who were directly involved with targeted Turkish operatives, some of whom were among Interpol’s most wanted fugitives. I had placed most of my focus on files dating from mid-1996 to January 2002, as well as ongoing DC counterintelligence—part of which I was still going through, auditing those that had been reviewed by Dickerson. Since no one specifically asked me to stop going over those documents, I chose to press on—assuming I was still under the same order.
I went through and documented each thoroughly. On this day too I spent a couple of hours going over Dickerson’s cover-up, in the middle of which I hit a new mother lode. Five or six pieces of additional audio communications—all stamped as not pertinent by Dickerson—contained information so volatile that I had to bite the bullet and report it to Saccher’s unit. The information included specific U.S. persons, facilities and payments, all involving U.S. nuclear secrets being passed to foreign entities who then offered them to the highest bidder. In one case, the highest bidder who purchased one of these illegally obtained, highly classified information sets happened to be a non-state group with highly likely ties to a Middle Eastern terrorist organization. The players involved high-profile Pentagon and State Department figures, congressional staff, academic and think-tank-based individuals. The penetration went as deep as top nuclear labs, U.S. Air Force nuclear weapons labs and research facilities, and the RAND Corporation.
I translated those specific five communications verbatim and made four sets of copies, placing each in a large yellow envelope. I took one to Saccher’s unit. He was still away, so I placed it on his desk and marked it Extremely Urgent in big black letters. I took the second set upstairs, to security officer SA Tilton’s office and dropped it into her slot. I came back to the Language unit and filed the third set in the unit’s shared file cabinet. I didn’t want to take any chances: I didn’t want these documents to disappear, be destroyed or who knows what else, under the circumstances.
Even today, all these years later, I still don’t know what made me do what I did so urgently on that day; it was as though a voice inside were telling me,
this is your last chance
.
At four o’clock that same Friday, March 22, 2002, I turned off my computer, locked my file drawers and went to grab my coat. As I was putting it on, I heard Stephanie right behind me.
“Sibel, Tom Frields wants to see you before you leave. It’s urgent.”
I turned around. “Now what? What’s this about?”
“You’ll find out soon. Please come and sit in my office. I’ll go to Frields’ office and let him know that you’re ready.”
I followed her to her office and took a seat. She left, leaving the door half open.
I looked at my watch: it was already 4:05. I knew Matthew’s car was out in front. Well aware of security rules with respect to parked vehicles near FBI buildings, I decided to call Matthew and let him know of the delay. I reached over to the desk phone and dialed Matthew’s cell. I told him I had been summoned and it would be another five or ten minutes before I could leave.
As soon as I hung up, I noticed Feghali standing outside Stephanie’s office, staring at me. He tapped on his watch with great show. “In less than ten minutes,” he crowed, “you are going to be fired, you
whore
. You are finished here.” Then he turned and walked away.
I sat stunned, digesting the insult. Then I redialed Matthew. “This is going to take more than five minutes. I believe I’m about to be fired.” Then I quickly hung up.
Stephanie returned and asked me to follow her to Frields’ office. Waiting there were Frields and a stubby, shabby-looking agent named George Stuckenbroker, from personnel security.
Stuckenbroker pointed to a seat on the leather sofa, where I had been threatened with arrest only a month earlier.
“Sibel,” he began, “I would like you to hand over your ID badge, entrance key and any other FBI properties you have.”
I swallowed hard. So Feghali was right. I told myself to stay calm, though my heart was racing. I reached for my bag, hoping they wouldn’t see me trembling. I pulled out my ID badge, keys, and a pen and notepad, placing the latter two before me. Then I handed him my keys and ID.
“I assume I’m fired. May I ask why and based on what?”
Frields broke in. “No, you may not ask why. You don’t have the right to know why. We are under no obligation to provide you with any reasons. We are the FBI.”
His face was ruby red; he sounded angry and out of breath. Now I felt cool in comparison.
Stuckenbroker put his hand up. “Come on Frields, you can do better than that … Give her some reasons; any reason.”
Frields nodded. “Okay, do you want to know why we’re firing you? Here is why: because of the way you walk—like a snob; because of the way you dress—like a stuffy snob; because of the way you talk and because of the way … just the way you
are
,” he chuffed. “That’s why.”
“Okay,” I responded, doing my best imitation of calm. “If I’m hearing you right, you’re firing me because …” I then listed such despicable attributes as respectful work attire, proper etiquette, professionalism, good posture … “Correct? In fact, I would like to note this, write this down now, since to date I have not been provided with anything in writing from you.”
I took up the pen and started writing. Frields screamed to the other man, “You see what I’m talking about?” He yelled back at me, “No! You have no right to take notes! You have no right to ask questions! In fact, you have zero rights; this is the FBI, who the f—do you think you are here?”
“No sir,” I responded, “you are wrong. I do have rights. I have my rights under the Constitution as a citizen of this country. I have my rights under this country’s labor laws. I have my rights under the FBI’s own rules and regulations, at least the written ones—”
Stuckenbroker stood up, interrupting me. “This conversation is over. We’ll escort you out, Sibel. By the way, the FBI is not firing you;
we
are firing you. You are not fired from the FBI, you are fired by the FBI Washington Field Office.”
Waiting outside the door was a uniformed security guard. Here I was, a petite five-foot-three female being escorted out by three burly FBI guys, one of them security, as though I were a criminal. I prayed my knees wouldn’t buckle. I did my best to walk out of there straight, to keep my chin up high.
Once in the elevator, Frields laid it out straight. “I want to make sure you understand,” he snarled, “that everything about today, your case, your employment with the bureau—I mean
everything
—is considered highly classified; top secret. You are not allowed to talk to anyone about any of these. Do you understand? You may think you have a right to an attorney. I have to tell you that you
don’t
. You cannot even speak to an attorney, unless that attorney is cleared and approved by
us
. Do you understand?” By this point we had reached the exit.
Frields pulled open the heavy double door. “I’m warning you, Sibel. We’ll be watching you. We’ll be listening to your calls. If you even attempt to discuss this case, these issues, with anyone—this includes attorneys and Congress—the next time I’ll see you will be in jail.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “Frields,” I told him, inches from his face, “it may be in jail, but I won’t be the one behind the bars. Now do
you
understand this?”
I turned and walked out, taking quick long strides. The cold and bitter wind hit me like a knife. I was shaking. I couldn’t see Matthew’s car anywhere so I kept on down the block, my face half frozen, numb—and damp. It was wet. I was crying.
“So it’s over,” Matthew told me in the car. “You did all the right things and took all the appropriate steps to resolve this internally…. It’s time to take this elsewhere: Inspector General’s Office, Ashcroft and the Congress. By the way, while I was waiting for you I called Don Stone from the Senate Intelligence Committee. I told him about you getting fired. They’re going to set up a time and place to interview y—”
“Drive to headquarters,” I cut him off. “I’m going to OPR, to see John Roberts, right now.”
There was no reasoning with me. He shook his head, made a U-turn and headed toward HQ. We got there exactly at five. I ran out of the car and went straight to the security desk.
I no longer had my ID badge so I couldn’t just sign in. I would need an appointment and an escort. I don’t know how, but I managed to smile at the guard, whom I’d seen on previous visits. “Oh God,” I told him, “SA Roberts has been waiting for me since four thirty. I’m late and I’m sure he’s utterly pissed since it’s Friday, past five. I have to run up and see him for an urgent case.”
The guard smiled. “You bet; almost everybody is gone already.”
I handed him my driver’s license. “I’ll run up quickly, I don’t want to hold him up any longer.” He buzzed me in.
When I reached the OPR unit’s office, the door was locked. They’d all gone home. I pressed the buzzer twice. Nothing. I felt defeated; I slid to the floor outside the door. What would I do now? I couldn’t wait until Monday.
I spotted two men walking toward me. I scrambled to my feet; the last thing I needed was to be reported to security. One of them looked to be in his late forties, almost albino, with eyelashes the color of snow. The other was a little younger, with a salt-and-pepper mustache. They stopped and looked at me curiously.
The one with the mustache spoke first. “Miss, can I help you?”
“Oh … I’m late for an appointment with OPR. I came to see Special Agent Roberts. They seem to be gone for the day.”
The albino-looking agent smiled and extended his hand. “You must be Ms. Edmonds. I’m John Roberts. Please, come with me.” He took his key out and unlocked the unit door.
I was momentarily taken aback; I felt stupid, but lucky stupid. I followed him through another door into a smaller office, where I collapsed in a chair in front of his desk. I didn’t know how to begin or what to say.
He spoke first. “I assume they fired you today. From your look, I can tell they did it in their usual vicious way. Why don’t you tell me? I’m very familiar with your file; your case.”
I tried to respond, but instead of words an uncontrollable sob came out. I hardly ever cried. What was happening to me?
“Here …” he handed me a box of tissues. “Take a few minutes and breathe deeply. They know how to make people miserable. They know how to rattle them. Welcome to the world of FBI whistleblowers, Ms. Edmonds.”
I did as he suggested, then began. He listened patiently, without interruption, taking occasional notes.
“Just the usual,” he said once I’d finished. “I know it’s no consolation, but you are not alone. This fits the pattern of how the bureau reacts to messengers bearing bad or embarrassing news …
truth
.”
I asked him what being fired “only from the FBI Washington Field Office” meant.
“That’s pure bullshit. You are not officially fired by the FBI until they send you a formal termination letter. Usually it takes a couple of weeks; but you can be certain that you are fired. I understand you’ve also contacted Congress,” he continued, “a very good move.” He then explained that the DOJ Inspector General’s Office was reviewing the case. If they decide to take it on, he said, OPR then turns everything over to the IG office. “We’ll know in a few weeks.”
“What do I do now? What should I do?”
“My recommendation: go and hire a good attorney; follow up with the Congress, especially the Judiciary Committee. You are up against an ugly beast who’s decided to come after you, Ms. Edmonds.”
I told him what Frields had said about my not having any rights to an attorney.
“That’s a belligerent lie.” Roberts shook his head in disgust. “You are an American citizen; no one can take your rights away, including the right to an attorney.”
I liked this man. I knew he was trustworthy and had integrity. In less than a year, he too would be harassed, threatened and fired; SA Roberts would join the infamous FBI whistleblower club.
“By the way,” he said, walking me out, “you may consider this good news. This morning I took it upon myself to go directly to the polygraph office and ask for your polygraph file and results: you passed with zero glitches. It was as conclusive and clean as polygraph test results ever get. I’m sure they were very pissed; they wanted to use the polygraph result to fire you. You took that reason away. With your computer one hundred percent clean, with all the commendation letters and positive job evaluations you had gathered, with all your allegations and reports documented and witnessed, and with passing the polygraph test with no glitches, they ran out of legitimate reasons to fire you. Your future lawyer will have a great case, a slam dunk case.”
Walking out of there, I started thinking: How
are
they going to justify firing me? Roberts was right; I had done nothing wrong. What could they use as a legitimate reason?
Two weeks later, my questions were answered. According to the termination letter, the FBI had decided to terminate my contract “solely for the convenience of the government.” So that was it. The government didn’t need any reasons. I was an inconvenience.