FBI Admits It Dismissed 1997 Tip About Hanssen

WASHINGTON —  A former FBI agent who pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow suggested nearly four years ago that Robert Philip Hanssen might be a spy, but officials dismissed the tip after a brief inquiry, the bureau confirmed Monday.

It was another three years before the FBI began the investigation that led to Hanssen’s arrest.

Former agent Earl Pitts, who pleaded guilty to espionage charges and is serving a 27-year federal prison term in Ashland, Ky., told the FBI during questioning in June 1997 that he suspected Hanssen might be “trying to collect information covertly,” bureau spokeswoman Michelle Palmer said.

Hanssen, a counterintelligence agent, was arrested in February and charged with spying for Russia for the last 15 years. The FBI has been criticized for failing to act diligently to prevent such security breaches.

Pitts said he first became suspicious in the early 1990s when he learned that Hanssen had tried to gain access, without authorization, to information in the computer of another counterintelligence agent. Although Pitts was not sure that Hanssen was spying for Russia, he recounted the computer hacking to an interrogator when asked if he believed anyone else in the bureau might be working for Moscow, the bureau said.

FBI officials confirmed Pitts’ account, which first came to light during a prison interview published in the New York Times. They said the information had been immediately relayed to headquarters, where investigators realized they already knew about the computer incident to which Pitts had referred. No further action was taken, the FBI said.

Investigators were “completely satisfied that Pitts had not raised any issues beyond what was already known” about Hanssen’s alleged 1992 break-in to the computer of a senior FBI counterintelligence official, FBI spokesman John Collingwood said. He stressed that Pitts had never directly implicated Hanssen as a spy or raised any evidence of which the bureau was not already aware.

Pitts’ account is the first indication that the bureau had been warned about Hanssen’s trustworthiness. A 25-year FBI veteran and counterintelligence expert, Hanssen was arrested Feb. 18 on 21 counts of espionage and is set to be arraigned Friday in Alexandria, Va.

In recent months, the FBI has been forced to explain a series of high-profile mishaps, from a Russian spy in its midst to misplaced evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing case, which resulted in delaying the execution of Timothy J. McVeigh.

Pitts raised Hanssen’s name after he himself pleaded guilty to selling secrets to Moscow. He was debriefed over several months in 1997, mentioning Hanssen’s name toward the end of the questioning, officials said.

The alleged computer hacking occurred in 1992 when Hanssen broke into the files of senior FBI counterintelligence official Ray Mislock, leading several colleagues to believe Hanssen had penetrated their computers as well, bureau spokeswoman Palmer said.

At the time, Hanssen said he was trying to prove that the bureau’s computer system was not secure, an explanation FBI officials accepted.