Allan Lengel, editor of ticklethewire.com, is a veteran journalist who has covered law enforcement at major publications including the Washington Post and the Detroit News. He also served as an intern under the late investigative columnist Jack Anderson and was an adjunct journalism professor at the University of Maryland.
Is Chicago Fed Judge Going too Far to Protect Jurors?
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Imagine taxpayers spending millions of dollars collectively trying an Illinois governor, and in the end, the case all but collapses. The jurors only convict on one of 24 counts . They end up deadlocked on the rest. Imagine that. Yes,it’s not too hard, considering it happened in the first trial of…
Public Hearing on Anthrax May Be Inevitible
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON – Though the FBI and Justice Department are thoroughly convinced that scientist Bruce Ivins mailed the deadly anthrax letters in 2001, it seems almost inevitable now that some very costly and protracted public hearing will be conducted to review the whole case. Unfortunately, Ivins killed himself in July 2008 before…
White House Needs to Stop Being Wimpy About Gun Rules Tied to Mexico
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON – What’s it going to take for the White House to figure out that the situation in Mexico — endless bloodshed over money, drugs and power — is an “emergency”? The ambush of two ICE agents on Tuesday in which one died? The deadly ambush last March of a woman…
Justice Dept. May Not Have Served Up Justice After Mob Hit
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com I have mixed feelings about a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston. The court rescinded an $8.5 million judgment handed down two years ago against the government in the 1982 murders of two people by James “Whitey” Bulger, a notorious Boston mobster who was an FBI…
FBI Dir. Robert Mueller’s Presence in Arizona Sends a Strong Message
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — It’s a good thing that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III hopped a plane to Arizona to deal with the aftermath of a mass shooting that killed a federal judge and seriously wounded a member of Congress. Sure, Mueller could have stayed back in Washington and gotten briefed regularly…