Sting The President

By RICHARD BEHAR

Given Ross Perot's penchant for bodyguards and conspiracy theories, it's no surprise that the FBI office in Dallas returns his calls. But the G-men may be a lot less receptive to the billionaire in the wake of last week's revelation that federal agents had conducted a fruitless sting operation against the President's re-election team in Texas. Not since the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s has the FBI found itself so publicly embroiled in national partisan politics.

Details of the scandal remain murky. But this much seems clear: Perot insists that he received a tip-off that high-level Republicans were plotting to wiretap his office telephone last August -- even though he had pulled out of the presidential race in July. Acting largely on information provided by both Perot and Scott Barnes -- a shady storyteller with a prior conviction for tape-recording his telephone conversations with other people -- Oliver ("Buck") Revell, the head of the FBI office in Dallas, sent an undercover agent disguised as a cowboy to meet with James Oberwetter, state chairman of the Bush campaign. The cowboy claimed to be hawking a wiretap tape of some of Perot's phone conversations and other documents for $2,500. In reality, the recordings were made by Perot himself as bait for the FBI's trap.

Oberwetter didn't bite, and his anger over the scheme is igniting old questions about whether -- and how often -- the FBI conducts stings on citizens without probable cause. Congress has repeatedly declined to enact laws against entrapment by government officials, but that could soon change. "We've had a long history of stings but never one with such astonishing political implications," says Don Edwards, the tough chairman of the House Civil and Constitutional Rights Subcommittee, who plans to hold new hearings. The attention couldn't have come at a worse time for the FBI, whose director, William Sessions, is himself the target of a Justice Department ethics probe. Sessions' wife, meanwhile, has reportedly complained that top FBI officials opposed to her husband had illegally wiretapped the director's home.

Politically sensitive sting operations are normally approved in advance by an undercover review committee composed of senior FBI and Justice Department officials. Revell says the Oberwetter operation -- which he claims Sessions approved -- was not subject to committee review because it was a one-shot deal as opposed to a "longtime undercover operation." (Sessions defended the operation last week in a letter to the New York Times.)

Revell thought he had to move quickly. On Aug. 6, four days before the cowboy-agent appeared, Oberwetter was visited by Barnes, who identified himself as "Howard Parsons" and insisted that the two of them discuss the matter on a bench outdoors. Oberwetter says he refused to accept the illegal materials. What Oberwetter did not know was that the encounter was being videotaped, allegedly by a BBC correspondent named David Taylor. The video was turned over to the FBI, but without any audio, it proved nothing. Nevertheless, agents heard rumors that Taylor was preparing to air or distribute the video. That sparked the FBI sting. "It created a real dilemma for us," says one law-enforcement official. Why? Because the feds thought the ensuing media bonfire would destroy all hope of testing Oberwetter's honesty and taint the bureau, which would be accused of foot dragging in the face of a second potential Watergate.

"There never was a wiretap case here," says Oberwetter bitterly. "This was an entrapment case, pure and simple. They approached me without probable cause. If Perot has videotapes of any meeting that involves me, release the damn things and let the public judge." Revell defends the operation and says the Barnes video was "only one portion of a whole string of situations" that led the bureau to act. Specifically, Barnes also provided the FBI with a schematic drawing of Perot's office, the billionaire's private phone numbers and telephone records indicating that he had called a number of high-level G.O.P. opposition-research officials.

Revell is no stranger to controversy. In 1981, after reportedly failing a polygraph test, he was censured for leaking confidential FBI data to an Oklahoma journalist. Yet he still managed to rise to the post of FBI associate deputy director for investigation. In the 1980s, Revell came under scrutiny after he received calls from Oliver North, who was seeking to sidetrack federal probes that threatened to reveal the Iran-contra mess. But no proof surfaced that Revell meddled in the cases. Then, in 1988, Revell acknowledged in a Senate hearing that the FBI had been misled by an undercover informer whose "concocted" data led to a two-year surveillance program against Americans opposed to U.S. policies in Central America. After being passed over for a promotion, Revell transferred to Dallas last year.

Ironically, Revell went public last June on behalf of Richard Armitage, a former Pentagon official whom Perot had accused of complicity in drug smuggling and covering up the existence of Vietnam MIAs. Revell felt strongly that Armitage was a victim of "wild charges" that the FBI had been unable to substantiate. Unfortunately, Revell didn't treat Perot's latest charges with equal skepticism.

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington