“We cannot have a leadership vacuum at an agency as important to the United States as the FBI. It is time that this difficult chapter in the agency’s history is brought to a close.”
President Bill Clinton — White House press conference (July 19 1993)
July 19 2020 — On July 19 1993, President Clinton dismissed FBI Director William Sessions. Clinton’s decision was based on a report by outgoing Attorney General William P. Barr. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
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“Ernest Hemingway’s relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation would charitably be described as ‘strained’. Hemingway would tell anybody who’d listen that he thought the Bureau were a bunch of Nazi mediocrities … and the FBI in turn dismissed Hemingway as a drunken phony. As his file shows, however, all of that changed when Hemingway finally did something the Bureau agreed with: he died.”
Muckrock — ‘Ernest Hemingway’s death significantly improved his relationship with the FBI’
UPDATE (July 21 2021) — After the departure of FBI Director William Sessions, the Bureau was headed by Louis Freeh (September 1, 1993 – June 25, 2001), Robert Mueller (September 4, 2001 – September 4, 2013), James Comey (September 4, 2013 – May 9, 2017), and Christopher A. Wray (August 2, 2017 – Present).
Without a doubt, Hemingway was an accomplished boozer. As the old man wrote: “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
But a phony, this Nobel Prize (1954) was certainly not. Who will object that the Bureau are a bunch of Nazi mediocrities?
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This being said, the Bureau is not always wrong. New York FBI chief James Kallstrom called the Clintons a “crime family” akin to the Gambinos, Colombos and Luccheses (New York Mafia).
Kallstrom argued the handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails by FBI Director James Comey was sowing discord among rank-and-file FBI agents.
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Have you ever wondered why the FBI was unable to find the culprits of the worst biological attack in U.S. history? (Shortly after Sept. 11 2001, the anthrax-laced letters killed five Americans and sickened 17 others.)
Many concluded that the FBI was not really interested in solving the crime. Actually, it appears that the Bureau was investigating the CIA for its role in these attacks.
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Then American biologist Bruce Edwards Ivins [Senior bio-defense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Maryland] was ‘suicided’ and the FBI closed the case. There was no there there… End of the story.
END of UPDATE
“For what it’s worth, I think Bruce Ivins could not have been the sole culprit and it’s unlikely he was the culprit at all. I believe the possibility that a CIA-related entity, especially a contractor or an alumni, had a role in the anthrax attack to be possible.”
Marcy Wheeler — Independent journalist
Just before Bill Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20 1993, allegations of ethical improprieties were made against Sessions.
A report by outgoing Attorney General William P. Barr presented to the Justice Department that month by the Office of Professional Responsibility included criticisms that he had used an FBI plane to travel to visit his daughter on several occasions, and had a security system installed in his home at government expense.
President Clinton dismissed Sessions on July 19 1993. Sessions was five and a half years into a ten-year term as FBI director.
However, the holder of this post serves at the pleasure of the President.
Ronald Kessler’s book, The FBI: Inside the World’s Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, led to the dismissal of Sessions as FBI director over his abuses.
According to The Washington Post:
“A Justice Department official (…) noted that the original charges against Sessions came not from FBI agents but from a journalist, Ronald Kessler, who uncovered the abuses while writing a book about the FBI.”
The New York Times confirmed that Kessler’s FBI book did indeed trigger bureau and Justice Department investigations into alleged travel and expense abuses by FBI Director William Sessions.
“William S. Sessions had become the FBI Director in November 1987, following another former judge, William H. Webster, but Sessions had no experience in managing an organization or directing major cases, particularly overseas.”
Richard Marquise — FBI agent who led the Lockerbie investigation
President Bill Clinton Fires William Sessions FBI director July 19 1993
REFERENCES
William S. Sessions — Wikipedia
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On This Day — President Clinton Fires FBI Director (July 19 1993)
On This Day — President Clinton Fires FBI Director (July 19 1993) [2020]
On This Day — President Clinton Fires FBI Director (July 19 1993) [2021]
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