David Frasca, Maltbie’s direct superior, says that he was startled that he had never seen the Freeh memo, since it suggested just the sorts of links Maltbie was denying existed to the Minneapolis field office.
“[Maltbie] and I didn’t know anything about this memo,” says Frasca, now retired, in his first on-the-record interview with any news organization about the Moussaoui case. He also says the memo was never mentioned to him in the internal investigations that followed 9/11. “I find that very curious.” He defends Maltbie, who has been singled out for criticism in the investigations: “Mike is a very hardworking, conscientious guy.”
Copies of the Freeh memo were directed to eight senior officials at the FBI, including Michael Rolince, who oversaw the work of Frasca and Maltbie, among many others at HQ. Rolince said he had no recollection of ever seeing the document. (He also tells Newsweek he never saw another memo, directed to his staff by the FBI’s Phoenix office, calling attention to the unusual number of young Arab men tied to Muslim extremist groups who—like Moussaoui—were seeking pilot training. The Phoenix memo recommended a nationwide investigation of flight schools.) “In the Moussaoui case, everything dies at Rolince’s desk,” said Edward MacMahon, the D.C. lawyer who represented Moussaoui at trial.
There is no clear reference to the Freeh memo in the 9/11 commission’s report, nor in several other government reports about pre-9/11 intelligence blunders. An FBI spokeswoman said she had “no reason to believe” it had been withheld from investigators.
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