Confirmation Hearing for New FBI Director

[George W. Maschke]

The U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a confirmation hearing for Robert S. Mueller III, whom President Bush has appointed to be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, beginning on Monday, 30 July 2001 at 1:00 P.M. Eastern time. It is not clear whether the issue of polygraph screening will be raised during this hearing, but it seems possible. The hearing will be broadcast via the Internet at:

http://www.c-span.org/watch

[George W. Maschke]

On Saturday, 28 July, Lenny Savino of the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau reported that senior FBI officials, speaking on the condition that they not be named, said that "less than 25" of the FBI personnel polygraphed in the Bureau's recent round of approximately 500 counterintelligence-scope polygraph interrogations had not passed. Savino reports that "a senior official characterized the preliminary failure rate as 'surprisingly low.'"

This leak seems timed to coincide with Monday's confirmation hearing for Mr. Mueller, where the issue of FBI polygraph screening may well be raised. In this regard, Savino reports:

"Mueller is expected to endorse more reliance on polygraphs, required only in recent years of new recruits only."

I encourage all who can to watch the hearing, and to post your comments here.

With regard to the FBI failure rate, it is much higher than that of the Department of Energy (DOE) reported last year by Ed Curran, DOE's former Chief of Counterintelligence (who had been seconded from the FBI and is now retired). Curran boasted that all 800 DOE personnel polygraphed had passed!

[George W. Maschke]

The confirmation hearing continues today (Tuesday, 31 July) at 10:00 A.M. EDT in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building. C-SPAN will again be covering it.

At Monday's session, Mr. Mueller voiced support for continued polygraph screening of FBI managers. See the message thread Robert S. Mueller III on FBI Polygraph Policy for a quote and commentary.