White-Collar Crime

The DEA's Delusion Of Post 9/11 Grandeur

When democracy changes its priorities, agencies have to make stuff up to justify their budgets.

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The New Yorker is doing perhaps the best reporting these days on our criminal justice system — though John Oliver is a close second.

In last week’s issue they have an excellent article on how the DEA responded to September 11. Here’s a slight spoiler — even though you’d think they’re different things, the DEA made drugs become about terrorism in order to justify its existence.

September 11 brought a huge change in our law enforcement priorities. FBI agents who used to do white-collar cases were, instead, reassigned to do terrorism.

The time after 9/11 was hard for the DEA as well as white-collar defense lawyers. As the New Yorker explains,

“What is going on after 9/11 is that a lot of resources move out of drug enforcement and into terrorism,” [a former DOJ investigator] said. “The D.E.A. doesn’t want to be the stepchild that is last in line.” Narco-terrorism, the former investigator said, became an “expedient way for the agency to justify its existence.”

How well did the DEA do at making this connection? It depends on whether you believe the DEA or what has actually happened during one of its signature cases described in the New Yorker piece.

The article tells the story of three men from Mali who, with little more than the clothes on their back, were duped into a poorly conceived plot to fund terrorism that had been imagined entirely by the DEA.

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The men were indicted in SDNY, arrested in Ghana, then flown to New York to face charges that they were involved in a conspiracy to do narco-terrorism. The DEA has touted this as a huge case that justifies its need to be at the table in combating terrorism.

Here’s how the New Yorker describes the plea colloquy:

Abdelrahman’s allocution [at the plea hearing] was unconvincing. “I still continue to believe that I am totally innocent,” Abdelrahman said. “But I have been scared by what I heard yesterday—yesterday people were talking a lot about Al Qaeda and the pictures.” Judge Jones advised Abdelrahman that she could not accept a plea if he did not think he was guilty, and suggested that perhaps the case should proceed to trial. Everdell, the prosecutor, proposed increasingly watered-down versions of what Abdelrahman was pleading guilty to. “I think what the defendant is protesting is that he didn’t think, or in his mind he didn’t think, that he was a terrorist, or this word ‘terrorism’ is causing a reaction, which I think is perfectly understandable,” he said.

“I’m really confused about this whole plea issue,” Abdelrahman said. “Accepting this plea means to accept things I did not do, which I find very difficult.” He added, “Is that what the plea is, or is there something else?”

Jones told Abdelrahman that he would have to admit that he knew he was involved in a conspiracy that would have provided support to the FARC. Abdelrahman shook his head. “I didn’t know about that,” he said. “I was just helping Harouna. I wasn’t helping anyone else.”

Finally, Everdell allowed Abdelrahman to avoid mentioning the FARC, or even the word “terrorist.”

The government asked for fifteen years in prison. The judge gave them less than four — including three years they’d already served. In the end, after a federal judge looked at what happened, the men got little more than a time-served sentence.

It’s a damning commentary on the DEA’s entrapment-in-Africa project.

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And these DEA tactics are broader than this case.

Russell Hanks, a former senior American diplomat, who got a firsthand look at some of the D.E.A.’s narco-terrorism targets during the time he served in West Africa, told me, “The D.E.A. provided everything these men needed to commit a crime, then said, ‘Wow, look what they did.’ ” He added, “This wasn’t terrorism—this was the manipulation of weak-minded people, in weak countries, in order to pad arrest records.”

This law enforcement strategy is familiar — ATF has been doing it with fake stash house robberies.

The DEA imagines there’s a big connection between drugs and terrorism, as it needs to in a post 9/11 world where more and more people acknowledge the drug war has been lost.

And they’ve been able to sell Congress on their imaginings, as well as a collection of desperately poor men in Africa. Aside from being morally bankrupt, and funneling money away from real work the government should be doing, it’s a great project.

Matt Kaiser is a white-collar defense attorney at Kaiser, LeGrand & Dillon PLLC. He’s represented stockbrokers, tax preparers, doctors, drug dealers, and political appointees in federal investigations and indicted cases. Most of his clients come to the government’s attention because of some kind of misunderstanding. Matt writes the Federal Criminal Appeals Blog and has put together a webpage that’s meant to be the WebMD of federal criminal defense. His twitter handle is @mattkaiser. His email is mkaiser@kaiserlegrand.com He’d love to hear from you if you’re inclined to say something nice.

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