FBI FOCUS YIELDS SPIKE IN CORRUPTION CASES

Because of New Vigilance, It Is Debatable Whether More Public
Officials Are Corrupt

Congress isn't the only place where public corruption is on the rise.

More than 1,000 federal, state and local government employees across
the country have been convicted in government corruption cases over
the past two years, including hundreds of crooked police officers and
others who have dipped into the taxpayers' till, FBI Director Robert
S. Mueller III said yesterday.

The numbers underscore the extent to which public corruption has
become a primary, if little-noticed, focus of FBI criminal
investigators, taking its place alongside preventing terrorism as one
the bureau's fundamental missions.

All told, public-corruption investigations have surged by 30 percent
in the past four years, to more than 2,000, officials said. The FBI
now dedicates more than 600 agents and 15 percent of its criminal
investigative resources to government graft.

"Public corruption is the top criminal priority for the FBI," Mueller
told the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding later: "If we do not
investigate these cases, they perhaps will not be investigated."

The highest-profile cases have been in Congress, including the probe
into the web of corruption surrounding former lobbyist Jack Abramoff
that led to guilty pleas from former congressman Robert W. Ney
(R-Ohio) and some Capitol Hill aides, and a separate investigation
that led to a guilty plea from former congressman Randy "Duke"
Cunningham (R-Calif.). The FBI also prompted a showdown with House
leaders earlier this year after it searched the Capitol Hill office
of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) in connection with a probe of
financial deals he was involved in.

But most of the FBI's corruption inquiries focus on state
legislatures, city halls and police stations, Mueller said. The list
of convictions over the past two years includes 158 state officials,
360 local officials and 365 police officers, Mueller said. One
hundred seventy-seven of the convictions involved federal officials.

Among the biggest local cases were Operation Tennessee Waltz, in
which 10 state officials and legislators were accused of taking
payoffs in a sting operation; Operation Wrinkled Robe, a bribery
investigation that led to arrests of two state judges in Louisiana;
and an ongoing inquiry in Alaska that is focusing on whether state
legislators accepted payments from an oil-field-services company.

Perhaps the biggest case is Operation Lively Green in Arizona, which
Mueller said has targeted 99 suspects so far as part of a
drug-related probe along the U.S.-Mexican border. Prison guards,
service members and law-enforcement officers have been convicted of
taking bribes to help move cocaine across the border.

Law-enforcement experts said it is impossible to say whether the
increase in corruption cases reflects a rise in criminality among
public officials or the greater emphasis at the FBI on such prosecutions.

The number of FBI agents assigned to corruption cases has ballooned
from 451 in 2001 to 618 in 2006, officials said, and Mueller has made
corruption the top priority for the bureau's criminal investigative division.

James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University in
Boston, said that "nobody really knows if the extent of corruption is
higher than previous decades. All we know is that the FBI is finding
more because it's focusing on these cases."

Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California
at Berkeley who has studied prosecution of public-corruption cases,
said such cases are extremely difficult to pursue because they are
time-consuming and well-hidden.

"Unless you have ex-wives or frustrated business partners, nobody's
going to phone you and say, 'My gosh, this is happening.' You have to
go out and look for it," Zimring said. "It's a lot like narcotics and
prostitution in two respects: It's very labor-intensive for law
enforcement, and the amount of it you find is very closely related to
the amount of it that you look for."

Mueller also disclosed that the bureau is investigating leaks to the
media surrounding one corruption probe, an FBI investigation of Rep.
Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who lost his seat Nov. 7. Mueller indicated that
the FBI and the Justice Department have opened "a series" of leak
investigations into the Weldon case and others.

The FBI's probe of alleged influence peddling was reported Oct. 13 by
McClatchy Newspapers, which cited an unidentified law-enforcement source.

The FBI's shift toward public-corruption cases has come at the same
time that it has dramatically decreased its role in investigating
violent gangs and crime. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told
Mueller that the FBI needs to focus more resources on violent crime
amid evidence that national crime rates are on the rise.

"I think you've got a real need for a mission reevaluation," she said.

Mueller said that, although he hopes to add resources to
investigating violent crime, "I think our priorities are
appropriately aligned."