John V. Gillies/fbi photo

Gillies, a Chicago native,  started his FBI career in 1983 as a financial analyst. Two years later, he became a special agent and worked in the  Albany Division investigating white collar and public corruption cases, the FBI said.

In 1989, he went off to New York and in 1993 was transferred to the San Diego Division where he where he investigated bank failures and also  judicial corruption, which resulted in the conviction of three California Superior Court judges.

He eventually went to the Honolulu Division in 1996 and six years later was promoted to unit chief of the Financial Institution Fraud (FIF) unit of the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI headquarters, the FBI said.

In 2004,  he became assistant special agent in charge in Detroit and in 2006 he returned to headquarters as the section chief of the violent crimes section of the Criminal Investigative Division. the FBI said. Three years later he was named special agent in charge of the St. Louis Division.

Read Press Release

Ex-Gov Blagojevich

The media just assumes its letters to politicians won’t be made public. Wrong. It happens. In this case, the media shamefully sucked up to ex-Ill Gov. Blago to get interviews.

By John Cook
Gawker
On the morning he was arrested on corruption charges last December, Rod Blagojevich was the nation’s biggest greaseball. So obviously, the national press was willing to say anything to land an interview. And we’ve got their emails to prove it.

We reported a little over a month ago that the Today show had booked Blagojevich to appear on the morning he happened to be arrested by the FBI, but bumped the interview so they could flack for Jay Leno’s new show.

We found that out through a Freedom of Information Act request to the state of Illinois asking for e-mails from representatives of the media to Lucio Guerrero, Blagojevich’s press secretary (we got the idea from South Carolina’s The State, which did the same thing-to comic effect-after Mark Sanford’s Argentinian Rhapsody).

For Full Story

It’s good to see someone with authority speak up about the connection, but it’s not particularly surprising. Everyone assumed that Gaddhafi gave the ok.

By David Horovitz
Jerusalem Post
JERUSALEM-– Adding more heat to the boiling controversy in the US and UK over Britain’s recent release to Libya of the only man ever convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, the senior FBI agent in the case has told The Jerusalem Post he believes Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi must have personally sanctioned the atrocity.

In a telephone interview from the United States, Richard Marquise, a 31-year FBI veteran who led the US task force probing the December 1988 blast which destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, with the loss of 270 lives, said it was unthinkable in a regime such as Libya for that kind of major terrorist attack to have been authorized without Gaddafi’s approval.

Former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge has said politics played a role in the color-coded terror alerts. It sure seemed that way. Then again, it’s always easy to play it safe and raise the color code. The color code was immediately raised whenever the administration learned of a terrorist threat, even if it was several years old.

Michael Chertoff

By Chris Strohm
Congress Daily
WASHINGTON — Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Thursday said politics was never a factor in determining whether the nation’s color-coded terror-alert level should be raised.

“Politics never entered into raising the alert during my tenure in any way, shape or form,” said Chertoff, who led DHS from 2005 until last January.

For Full Story

This is obviously an unusual case that smacks of racism.

By CLARKE CANFIELD
Associated Press Writer
PORTLAND, Maine — The FBI is trying to find the person who posted online advertisements saying he had two-century-old “Maine Indian scalps” that he wanted to sell to white people.

The FBI executed a search warrant last month at Yahoo Inc. for information related to two e-mail addresses linked to the Craigslist postings, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.

It is illegal to traffic in Native American remains.

For Full Story

Here’s what Alberto Gonzales originally said: “We obviously worked very hard during the Bush administration to establish ground rules to establish parameters about how to deal with terrorists, because we’re a nation of laws, and if people go beyond that, I think it is legitimate to question and examine that conduct to ensure people are held accountable for their actions, even if it’s action in prosecuting the war on terror and trying to protect America.”

Now he’s backpedaling. Not surprising. It seems everyone  in the Bush administration who criticizes the  administration or goes against its policies ends up recanting or clarifying or correcting what they said.

Alberto Gonzales

By Ben Conery
Washington Times
WASHINGTON — Former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said Thursday that his previous assertion that it was “legitimate to question and examine” charges of CIA abuses of suspected terrorists did not mean he endorsed such an investigation.

“Contrary to press reporting and based on the information that’s available to me,” Mr. Gonzales said during an interview Thursday with The Washington Times, “I don’t support the investigation by the department because this is a matter that has already been reviewed thoroughly and because I believe that another investigation is going to harm our intelligence gathering capabilities and that’s a concern that’s shared by career intelligence officials and so for those reasons I respectfully disagree with the decision.”