The FBI’s refusal to share any more files on slain Southie mobster James “Whitey” Bulger is an injustice.
The agency informed the Herald this past week that the heavily redacted 15 installments of Whitey’s dirty dealings already dropped in their public records “Vault” will be the last we see. Forever!
That can’t be tolerated. The Herald has 90 days to file an “administrative appeal,” and we fully intend to do so.
As we reported, the files posted in dribs and drabs are mostly run-of-the-mill mobster fare, with talk of loan sharking, horse race fixing, and ruthless gang rule. What about the rest? The agency’s contract with this devil must be made public. If the past is truly prologue, members of law enforcement must learn from the agency’s mistakes in dealing with depraved career killers.
Today’s Department of Justice has a spotty record regarding transparency. On one hand, it exceeded expectations when it exposed Rachael Rollins’s politicization of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.
Former U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling bravely launched a campaign against the ruthless MS-13 gang in New England, saving lives. But he didn’t prosecute former Gov. Charlie Baker’s son for allegedly groping a woman on a Boston-bound flight.
Now U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has a rare opportunity to overturn the FBI’s penchant for incestuous secrecy, overrule the G-men, and order the release of every memo on Bulger’s sordid life.
This is not a journalistic paper chase using the Freedom of Information Act for an academic exercise in the First Amendment. This won’t be made into a Hollywood flick with A-list actors pretending to be from Boston. This is all about the victims.
When the news broke this week that the FBI was dumping Bulger’s file in the trash, one of those loved ones left to grow old alone without her husband called the Herald to lament the end of this painful road.
“This makes me feel that anything new that might still come out won’t be shared with the victims,” said Mary Callahan, now in her 80s. “Maybe this means they don’t want to share that. It could be money we are owed. There’s 33 of us, when I last counted. I’m seeing this as the FBI telling all of us to ‘Go Away!'”
Mary’s accountant husband, John Callahan, was executed in South Florida on Bulger’s orders in 1982 — and the FBI played a central part.
John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai, was shot dead by John Martorano, one of Bulger’s hitmen. Martorano testified he was working for Bulger when he killed Callahan, who was also a friend of his. Bulger wanted Callahan dead because the Boston businessman could implicate them in a 1981 slaying of another World Jai Alai executive.
Disgraced ex-FBI agent John “Zip” Connolly was convicted of second-degree murder in 2008 for wearing his FBI-issued sidearm when he met with Bulger in Boston to warn him of what John Callahan knew. Zip is now home in Massachusetts on a “compassionate release” from his Florida prison cell as he battles cancer.
The corrupt rabbit hole goes deeper.
We filed a public records request for Bulger’s FBI file soon after he was murdered in a West Virginia prison in 2018. The first installment was posted on July 8, 2021. The last one dropped on Oct. 3, 2022.
If that’s all we see, shame on the FBI.
