DEA COVER-UP?

A year ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced it was conducting
an internal investigation into how it had allowed its super-snitch, Andrew
Chambers, to get away with lying in court. The DEA promised to release the
report when it was done. Instead, the DEA appears to be covering it up.

Post-Dispatch reporters Michael D. Sorkin and Phyllis Brasch Librach
reported last year that Mr. Chambers had lied in 16 trials. He testified
that he had never been arrested and had paid taxes on his DEA earnings. In
fact, he had not paid taxes and had been arrested on allegations of
assault, forgery, writing a bad check, soliciting a prostitute and
impersonating a police officer.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno suspended Mr. Chambers. Richard Fiano,
then chief of operations for the DEA, said the agency would investigate
what two dozen agents had known about Chambers and whether they had covered
up his lies. The Post-Dispatch had reported that several agents helped Mr.
Chambers get out of jams and that the DEA's national office had known about
Mr. Chambers' perjury as early as 1998.

Mr. Fiano said he wouldn't tolerate wrongdoing and promised to make the
investigation public. But he has since been replaced and sent to Italy. The
DEA said in January that it would not release the findings of the
investigation, but would answer written questions about it. It hasn't.

Last month, the DEA agreed to reduce drug charges against a five-time loser
in Los Angeles who had been arrested because of Mr. Chambers' work. The
defendant, who had faced life in prison, got out of jail after a plea
bargain agreement in which he gave up his right to see the DEA
investigation report. That suggests that the DEA is going to great lengths
to protect what should be public information.

In an early draft, the report of the DEA investigation misstated important
facts. The draft said Mr. Chambers had lied only four times, not 16 times.
The draft said that the DEA's St. Louis field office was never "officially
notified" that the U.S. attorney's office here was rejecting investigations
relying on Mr. Chambers. Actually, then-U.S. Attorney Edward Dowd called
the special agent in charge of the DEA office in 1998 and told him not to
pursue any more cases involving Mr. Chambers.

The entire saga raises questions about the DEA's credibility and its
commitment to fair trials. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft should step in
to make sure that improper conduct is not swept under the rug.