FBI's Mueller Faces Sharp Questioning

FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, May 2, 2006 before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI oversight. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) (Dennis Cook - AP)

WASHINGTON -- FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the bureau Tuesday under sharp, wide-ranging questioning from lawmakers that included the bureau's effort to access columnist Jack Anderson's files and problems with informants.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who often spars with Mueller at congressional hearings, said FBI agents tried to get permission to look at Anderson's voluminous files by "tricking" his widow, Olivia, into signing a consent form that she didn't understand.

"They did this by returning to speak with Mrs. Anderson alone after her son, who is also her attorney, made it clear that any permission to take documents would have to be discussed with the entire family," Grassley said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Mueller said the agents were doing their job in pursuing access to Anderson's papers, but did not specifically answer Grassley's claim. "I would have to go back and find out more facts," Mueller said.

Olivia Anderson told The Associated Press that she thought she was allowing the FBI to examine a limited number of files from the 1970s, not broad access to the nearly 200 boxes of her husband's papers.

Anderson, 79, said she met with FBI agent Leslie Martell twice and, indulging her passion for genealogy, determined that they could be distant cousins because they trace their families to the same vicinity of West Virginia.

"She didn't ask me to sign anything the first time. Maybe that's because I claimed her as a cousin," Anderson said.

Martell called a few days later to set up a second meeting at Anderson's home in Bethesda, Md., and said she had a form she wanted Anderson to sign.

"I don't feel like she was up front because she didn't say what they wanted to do," Anderson said. "They wanted to take all the papers, look at all the files."

FBI spokeswoman Debra Weierman said Martell never misrepresented herself and treated Anderson respectfully during both meetings.

But Kevin Anderson, a Salt Lake City lawyer, said Martell never should have asked his mother to sign the form because he had made clear to the agent that he was representing his mother.

"It's an issue of inappropriate behavior by the FBI," Anderson said, adding that the bureau has given several reasons for why it wants access to his father's papers.