Some people, past and present, in the Boston office of the FBI are nervous, now that Beantown gangster James “Whitey” Bulger has been captured after 16 years in hiding. That’s the clear message emerging from Boston media accounts of the Bulger case, Allan Lengel writes on his Tickle the Wire blog.
It’s long been known that Bulger was an informant for the FBI, and that the bureau protected him accordingly. Did the protection go so far as sabotaging the investigations of other agencies into the activities of Bulger, who has been implicated in as many as 19 murders? Was the FBI half-hearted in its pursuit of Whitey?
The FBI has already been embarrassed by the long-running case. In one of those “only in Boston” episodes, former Boston FBI agent John “Zip” Connolly is alleged to have tipped off Bulger, a fellow “Southie,” that he was about to be arrested. Connolly is in prison, having been convicted of racketeering and murder, and it’s safe to say that people who care deeply about the FBI’s image wish he’d never donned the black suit and starched white shirt that make up the unofficial “uniform” of the bureau.
“It may be true that the new crop of agents and federal prosecutors are clean and wanted Whitey,” Michelle McPhee wrote in The Boston Herald. “But there are too many unanswered questions about how he got away in the first place that should make U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz want to hand this case to an independent body, so the taint of the dirty Boston FBI office of the past does not leave a stench all over the work the feds are doing in this city now.”
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) agrees. He told The Herald he wants the Justice Department to investigate how the FBI handled Bulger.
For the record, Lengel notes that the questioning of the FBI’s resolve in the case prompted Boston FBI Richard DesLauriers to issue a statement on Friday: “Any claim that the FBI knew Mr. Bulger’s whereabouts prior to the FBI’s publicity efforts this week are completely unfounded. When we learned his location, he was arrested promptly.”
