[In the News]:New FBI Director


This is Steve Emberwith the VOA Special English program, In The News.

America's Federal Bureau of Investigation has a new director. Heis a former Marine who served with honors in the Vietnam War. OnThursday the Senate confirmed President Bush's choice of RobertMueller to lead the F-B-I.

Mister Mueller is a lawyer in the Justice Department, whichincludes the F-B-I. He also held a high-level Justice Department jobunder President Bush's father.

Now Mister Mueller will begin a ten-year term as director of thenation's top law enforcement agency. Almost thirty-thousand men andwomen work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More thaneleven-thousand of them are special agents. They investigatehundreds of kinds of federal cases. These include organized crime,spying and international terrorism.

A Senate committee held hearings this week on Mister Mueller'snomination. He answered questions about how he would lead theagency. Mostly the senators expressed concern about a series ofproblems at the F-B-I.

These include the discovery of an agent who, for most of histwenty-five years at the F-B-I, spied for the Soviet Union andRussia. Robert Hanssen sold information at the same time hesupervised other agents in the hunt for spies in the United States.He faces a life term at his sentencing in January.

The F-B-I was also sharply criticized this year in the case ofTimothy McVeigh, the admitted bomber of a federal building inOklahoma City. The F-B-I had thousands of documents that his lawyersshould have received for his trial. That discovery led to amonth-long postponement of McVeigh's execution.

And, just recently, the F-B-I announced that hundreds of itsweapons and computers had been lost or stolen. At least one computercontained secret information.

The new F-B-I director replaces Louis Freeh who resigned. RobertMueller promised during his confirmation hearings that he would movequickly to improve the F-B-I. He said his main goal would be for theagency to re-earn the trust of the American people. He said theF-B-I must not try to hide mistakes or blame others. "Nobody isperfect," Mister Mueller told the Senate committee. He said theF-B-I "must tell the truth and let the facts speak for themselves."

He noted the successful investigations of terrorist bombings atthe World Trade Center in New York and two American embassies inAfrica.

Robert Mueller is leaving his job as head of the United StatesAttorney's Office in San Francisco, California. That office hadserious problems before he took over. He carried out a majorre-organization. He put more women and minorities into leadershippositions. More cases came to trial. Judges, federal agents anddefense lawyers all praised his work.

This VOA Special English program, IN THE NEWS, was written byCaty Weaver. This is Steve Ember.

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