the Washington field office, raised suspicions about a co-worker's
connections to a group under surveillance. Under pressure, FBI
officials
have investigated and verified the veracity of parts of Edmonds' story,
according to documents and people familiar with an FBI briefing of
congressional staff. . . . The FBI confirmed that Edmonds' co-worker
had
been part of an organization that was a target of top-secret
surveillance and that the same co-worker had 'unreported contacts' with
a foreign government official subject to the surveillance . . . .
"The FBI said it was unable to corroborate an allegation by Edmonds
that
she was approached to join the targeted group. Edmonds said she told
Dennis Saccher, a special agent in the Washington field office who was
conducting t! he surveillance, about the co-worker's actions and Saccher
replied, 'It looks like espionage to me.' Saccher declined to comment
when contacted by a reporter.
"Edmonds was fired in March after she reported her concerns. Government
officials said the FBI fired her because her 'disruptiveness' hurt her
on-the-job 'performance.' Edmonds says she believes she was fired in
retaliation for reporting on her co-worker.
"Edmonds began working at the FBI in late September [of last year]. In
an interview she said she became particularly alarmed when she
discovered that a recently hired FBI translator was saying that she
belonged to the Middle Eastern organization whose taped conversations
she had been translating for FBI counterintelligence agents. Officials
asked that the name of the target group not be revealed for national
security reasons. . . .
"Edmonds said that on several occasions the translator tried to recruit
her to jo! in the targeted foreign group. 'This person told us she worked
for our target organization,' Edmonds said in an interview. 'These are
the people we are targeting, monitoring.'
"Edmonds would not identify the other translator, but the Post has
learned from other sources that she is a 33-year-old U.S. citizen whose
native country is home to the target group. Both Edmonds and the other
translator are U.S. citizens who trace their ethnicity to the same
Middle Eastern country. Reached by telephone last week, the woman, who
works under contract for the FBI's Washington field office, declined to
comment.
"In December, Edmonds said the woman and her husband, a U.S. military
officer, suggested during a hastily arranged visit to Edmonds' Northern
Virginia home on a Sunday morning that Edmonds join the group. 'He
said,
"Are you a member of the particular organization?"' Edmonds recalled
the
woman's husband saying. '"It's a very ! good place to be a member. There
are a lot of advantages of being with this organization and doing
things
together" -- this is our targeted organization -- "and one of the
greatest things about it is you can have an early, an unexpected, early
retirement. And you will be totally set if you go to that specific
country."'
"Edmonds also said the woman's husband told her she would be admitted
to
the group, especially if she said she worked for the FBI. Later,
Edmonds
said, the woman approached her with a list dividing up individuals
whose
phone lines were being secretly tapped: Under the plan the woman would
translate conversations of her former co-workers in the target
organization, and Edmonds would handle other phone calls. Edmonds said
she refused and that the woman told her that her lack of cooperation
could put her family in danger.
"Edmonds said she also brought her concerns to her supervisor and other
F! BI officials in the Washington field office. When no action was taken,
she said, she reported her concerns to the FBI's Office of Professional
Responsibility, then to Justice's inspector general.
