This morning’s newspapers are ablaze with the outrageous news that the FBI was trying to get its hands on over 200 boxes of files once belonging to legendary investigative journalist Jack Anderson.
What the papers didn’t report was the truly ugly extent to which the bureau has gone to achieve their goal — such as manipulating Anderson’s elderly widow to sign a document she apparently didn’t understand.
I spoke with Jack Anderson’s son Kevin yesterday. He’s an attorney, and acts as the family’s representative with the FBI. He told me that the lead agent in this case, Leslie Martell, went behind his and his siblings’ backs to get his elderly mother, Olivia, to sign a form that would allow FBI agents to review and remove documents from her husband’s files.
Agent Martell and her partner came twice to meet with Olivia Anderson; on both occasions, Olivia’s daughter was present, although she was in and out of the meeting, caring for her children.
Through Kevin, his sister says that at no time was she present when any consent form was discussed or signed, which leads the family to conclude the agents waited until they were alone with Olivia before presenting the document.
Soon after, Martell went to Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at GWU who has been reviewing Anderson’s files, and told him of the signed consent form.
I called Feldstein, who told me about his exchange with the FBI agent. “She said, ‘Mrs. Anderson signed a consent form'” to allow the FBI to review the documents and take what they wanted, Feldstein said. Alarmed, he called the family to ask if this was the case. They were shocked, he said.
When Kevin told his mother the document would allow government agents to review and remove her deceased husband’s documents, she was furious, Kevin told me. “She was more outraged than any of us,” Kevin said. “She’s volunteered to go to jail on this one. She feels pretty strongly about this.” Olivia, who was raised among the West Virginia coal fields, turned 79 in February.
The FBI was never a fan of Anderson’s. The longtime Washington Post scribe frequently exposed hypocrisies and corruption hiding behind government classification. Former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover once called Jack “lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures.”
Calls to the FBI about the consent form were not immediately returned.
(ed. note: new information was added to this post at 12:56 PM.)
