David Hardy
LEAK THIS...cont.
Fri Oct 10 07:32:45 2003
67.31.229.14

On April 19 of this year, from the hotel room in Waco, I called Carlos to report a minor discovery. I got his answering machine, but when it came time to leave a message, the tape just said "tape finished. Thank you for calling." I thought he'd run out of tape--never happened before, but who knows? I tried again from time to time -- same result. I sent email asking him to call. No reply. Well, maybe he was out of town.

Early today (April 29) I tried again, and this time nothing picked up, the phone just rang off the hook. Then this afternoon I received a call. Carlos was found dead in his apartment. (Actually, the address given in the press reports is that of his office... it had only two rooms, and no living quarters. I've been there.). Perhaps the guy with Infraspection was right. Or perhaps his time was up. He was only 42, and looked in excellent shape (I bet he worked out), but he did have a Type-A personality. Heart attacks or strokes at 42 are rare, but not unknown.

On the other hand, he had the prospects for being very dangerous to some rather powerful people. The evidence he uncovered in March (linking the regular video of the agent shouldering a weapon to the FLIR image of a gunshot in the same time and place) was going to put the case for gunshots on the FLIR on ice. That would mean (a) a lot of agents facing perjury raps or worse, since they had all sworn that neither they nor anyone else had show; (b) virtually destruction of the FBI's vaunted Hostage Rescue Team -- every single member would be implicated in perjury or concealment of evidence -- and (c) an unprecedented blow to the prestige of the entire agency. Hoover's fondness for "dressing up" and COINTELPRO operations would seem minor. Carlos was still working on a final report, and he had just become dangerous -- with his breakup with the Committee, there was no handle left on him, and he had talked to the media and to the Davidians' attorneys, one of whom was briefed by him only a few weeks before his death. You can have handles on the Committee (their innate sympathy for law enforcement, or simple blackmail ala J. Edgar's files) but none on an honest man who has all the key evidence and knows exactly what it means.

Too damn bad. He was a good man, and I'd come rather to like him. He was rigorously honest -- his own man, and no one elses'.

A brief followup:

Carlos' body was only found yesterday, but already the House Government Reform Committee is distancing itself from its own expert, a man who had been briefing it for months, and whom it had been pestering for a quicker report.

Police Probe Death of Waco Expert

.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Police said Saturday they are investigating the death of
an expert hired by a congressional committee who alleged last October that
shots were fired in the Waco siege.
.......

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the congressional committee chaired by Rep. Dan
Burton, R-Ind., said Saturday that police found the business card of a
committee investigator in Ghigliotti's office. Corallo said Ghigliotti's work
for the committee ended some time ago.

"Ended some time ago?" Here are the facts:

(1) Carlos was working hand-in-hand with the committee well into March-- that is, up to a month before his death. He had a falling out with them and quit (was not fired, as they say -- of course, I have to admit I was only hearing his side of it) sometime in mid-March The conflict wasn't over the quality of his work -- rather, they wanted a fast report, and he was unwilling to stake his reputation on it until he'd thoroughly studied every event. Some of the younger staffers got mad and threatened to sue him for return of his past payments, then got Burton to call him personally and chew him out. Carlos wasn't the guy to be pushed. He told them to get lost, he would complete his report on the events he'd already analyzed, and that was going to be it. I know this in detail, because Carlos sought my advice *before* he made that decision. I suggested he ought to keep working with them and shrug it off. He called later and said he'd thought it over, and wasn't going to put up with it. He had plenty of other work, and would be happy to get on with that.

On March 18, he faxed me his preliminary report to the Committee -- that's the time stamp on his fax of it to me. I believe that was within a short time of its actual submission. I seem to remember they had just had the falling out, but were still working together. He asked me, in a later call, to keep quiet the fact that he'd faxed it on that date, and to cut off the header that showed the date if ever I used it. Something about the Committee might be angry if they knew he had faxed it to me that early--I seem to recall that he hadn't submitted it to them until a little later. There would have been no reason for such concern if he wasn't still working with the Committee when he called me, sometime after the fax of 3/18/2000.

In my phone log I have two calls from him, sometime between 3/18 and 3/23 (I often overlook writing in the new day).

Notes on first call: Kevin Binger [ph.], chief of staff to Burton, wanted report rewritten his way. Carlos needed stuff from locker (presumably Rangers' evidence locker or locker in custody of court) and committee refused to send him (Carlos) down there. [Again, the indication is that he's still compiling evidence for them, in late March.].

Notes on second call:

Shots from side of tank. He had been showing the FLIR of a tank hatch opening and a guy coming out of the CEV to the Demo staff members; they agreed that the hatch opened but some didn't agree they could see the person. They knew by name the person under that hatch. Guy dismounts and shoots at a Davidian. Something about audio track at another point says tank is in pursuit of an unidentified subject. [Word unclear, likely "Congress"] only wanted his anomaly list [i.e., his list of thermal anomalies, rather than a study of each]. Over a hundred of those. He suggested Demos might pay for analysis of the rest. Demos unaware. [As I recall, he said the minority staff had been kept apprised only of the major developments, and were surprised to learn of all the details.]

I am getting a little bent at these claims. Carlos is still submitting preliminary reports around March 18, still briefing their staffers around March 23, and is still working on the project and preparing a polished report the last I heard from him, probably in early April. He dies, sometime in mid-April, and the Committee staffers claim claim his work for them "ended sometime ago." I've also heard rumors that the Committee is claiming they fired him, which sure wasn't the way I heard it -- he quit, and it was over time pressure and his wanting to do a thorough job rather than a fast one, not over any question of quality.

I'd placed high hopes on the Congressional inquiry, but my trust level is rapidly declining. Carlos had said that the Committee would let it all out eventually, that they were just keeping a distance from him in the press reports until that time. He also said that he'd spoken to members of the press, off the record, and that they would eventually break it even if the Committee did not. I knew that there are ways to deal with Congressional oversight. J. Edgar Hoover was a master of that; every public person has some dirty laundry in the right files. But Carlos thought the House Government Reform Committee inquiry was the real thing. They'd uncovered some evidence that would shock us to the core, and were going to use it.

I'm beginning to wonder if Carlos wasn't a bit too trusting of his employers. Nobody ever said that politics is conducive to honor. But Carlos deserved better -- he was a geninely honorable man.