AUSTIN, Tex. -- A federal prosecutor who warned Attorney General Janet Reno last year that Justice Department officials might have withheld evidence in the investigation of the 1993 standoff with the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Tex., was indicted today on charges of obstructing justice and making false statements to investigators.
The five-count federal indictment of the prosecutor, Bill Johnston, was initiated by John C. Danforth, the special counsel looking into the standoff.
The indictment was announced a few hours after Mr. Danforth released his final report on the Branch Davidian matter, which concluded that federal officials were not responsible for starting the fire on April 19, 1993, that killed some 80 members of the sect.
Mr. Danforth and his investigators have spent about $17 million in their investigation into possible government wrongdoing during and after the standoff.
"What is remarkable is the overwhelming evidence exonerating the government from the charges made against it and the lack of any real evidence to support the charges of bad acts," Mr. Danforth said of his final report.
A statement by Mr. Johnston's lawyer, Michael J. Kennedy of New York, said that by indicting his client Mr. Danforth "seeks to destroy the messenger and whitewash the government excesses in Waco."
In August 1999, Mr. Johnston helped reignite controversy over the standoff when he wrote to Ms. Reno that "I have formed the belief that facts may have been kept from you -- and quite possibly are being kept from you even now, by components of the department."
Although Mr. Johnston's letter helped persuade Ms. Reno to appoint Mr. Danforth to investigate the matter, it effectively ended Mr. Johnston's career.
He resigned in February.
The indictment focuses on what Mr. Johnston knew about the F.B.I.'s use of pyrotechnic tear gas rounds in the final assault on the Branch Davidians' compound. In 1993, during preparation for the criminal trial of several members of the sect, Mr. Johnston made handwritten notes that included the word "incind," apparently an abbreviation of "incendiary." The indictment charges that when he made that notation, Mr. Johnston knew that the F.B.I. had used pyrotechnic tear gas rounds but hid that knowledge from investigators. It also charges that he hid information from Mr. Danforth's grand jury and made false statements to the Office of the Special Counsel.
Mr. Danforth declined to comment on the indictment but said that although he believed that the report had "zero political content, I made a decision to wait until after the election" to release it.
A $675 million civil lawsuit by the Branch Davidians against the federal government ended in July, when a jury absolved the government of wrongdoing. The Davidians are planning to appeal the verdict.
Former Waco federal prosecutor Bill Johnston, who helped expose a six-year cover-up of government actions in the Branch Davidian siege, was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of obstructing the special counsel's investigation that he helped set in motion.
The indictment – including two counts of obstruction of justice and three counts of lying to investigators and a federal grand jury – was returned Wednesday in St. Louis just before Waco special counsel John C. Danforth released his final report absolving the government of wrongdoing in the 1993 siege.
Although it omitted any mention of Mr. Johnston because of the pending prosecution, Mr. Danforth's 197-page report includes harsh criticism of the husband-wife federal prosecution team that directed the criminal case against surviving Branch Davidians. It concludes that they and two FBI agents each concealed key information about the government's use of pyrotechnic tear gas at the end of the Waco standoff.
The report stated that Mr. Danforth will ask the Justice Department to fire the two assistant U.S. attorneys, Ray and LeRoy Jahn of San Antonio, because they went to such "great lengths" to conceal their knowledge of that information.
Mr. Johnston's lawyer, Michael Kennedy of New York, said the indictment is baseless and unfair. He said Mr. Johnston has freely acknowledged that he made mistakes in his dealings with the special counsel's office, adding that the decision to target only his client after a 14-month, $17 million investigation amounts to "discrimination and selective prosecution."
"Danforth seeks to destroy the messenger and whitewash the governmental excesses of Waco," he said. "While Bill's mistakes were harmless, the same cannot be said for so many other government employees, who today are merely chastised or ignored completely by Mr. Danforth."
Gerald Goldstein of San Antonio, the Jahns' lawyer, also condemned the accusations leveled against his clients. He said he will petition Attorney General Janet Reno to reject the recommendation that his clients be fired, noting that such a punishment is unwarranted and particularly offensive in light of the Jahns' high-profile careers.
In addition to the Branch Davidian case, the Jahns prosecuted a San Antonio federal judge's killer, served as FBI Director William Sessions' legal counsel and helped prosecute former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker for Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel.
"I consider [the special counsel's] treatment of my clients to be a cheap shot in which two fine lifelong prosecutors have been made scapegoats of ... [an] inquisitorial process," Mr. Goldstein wrote in a letter to Mr. Danforth.
Mr. Danforth defended his investigation's conclusions Wednesday.
The Jahns escaped prosecution because their actions did not rise to the level of wrongdoing that could be proved criminal beyond a reasonable doubt, he said.
"I do believe that they lied to us," he said. "The evidence is less tangible in the case of the Jahns than in the case of Bill Johnston. The allegation against Bill Johnston is that there were pieces of paper removed and there were lies about those pieces of paper."
'This is very serious'
Mr. Danforth said the alleged wrongdoing by Mr. Johnston outlined in Wednesday's indictment was too serious not to pursue. "If it is alleged that an assistant United States attorney, contrary to a court order and contrary to Congressional subpoenas, hides documents and then lies about that, including to a federal grand jury, then that is very serious.
"I don't perceive him as a whistle-blower. Because I think the meaning of whistle-blower is somebody who brings into the light things that were hidden. The allegations in this indictment are to the contrary: somebody who hides things," he said.
Mr. Johnston and the Jahns were among five federal prosecutors who helped prosecute some sect survivors on charges arising from the shootout that began the siege. Four federal agents and six Branch Davidians died in the gunfight on Feb. 28, 1993, as authorities tried to search the compound and arrest sect leader David Koresh.
The Branch Davidian case began drawing renewed national attention in the summer of 1999, after U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Waco ordered that all government records and evidence connected with the standoff be surrendered to his court.
Mr. Johnston then complained publicly that the Justice Department was covering up evidence that showed FBI agents had fired pyrotechnic tear gas rounds at the Branch Davidian compound.
Justice Department and FBI officials denied for years that the government had used anything capable of sparking fires when they used tanks and tear gas to try to force the Branch Davidians to end the 51-day standoff. The tear gas assault ended with a massive fire that consumed the sect's compound on April 19, 1993. Mr. Koresh and about 80 followers died.
A former FBI official's admission and the FBI's subsequent confirmation that some pyrotechnic tear gas was used drew so much controversy that Attorney General Janet Reno asked Mr. Danforth, the former Republican senator from Missouri, to lead an outside investigation of the Waco incident.
Mr. Johnston left the U.S. Attorney's office in February, and Mr. Danforth's investigators questioned him repeatedly. He admitted in July that he had withheld several pages of notes from 1993 dealing with the FBI's use of pyrotechnic gas.
A congressional report issued last week praised Mr. Johnston for helping bring to light the use of pyrotechnics but condemned his failure to surrender the notes, which indicated that he was told in the fall of 1993 that FBI agents fired several "incend" or incendiary military tear gas grenades in Waco.
His failure to turn over those notes – and his statements to Mr. Danforth's investigators and to a grand jury that he didn't know that pyrotechnics were used and had not withheld any information that might indicate they were – form the basis of the federal indictment issued Wednesday.
'Loathing and hostility'
Mr. Johnston said in a prepared statement Wednesday that he withheld the pages out of fear that hostile colleagues might try to use what he had written to discredit him. He added that he failed to reveal the notes to Mr. Danforth's office because his investigators "treated me with the same loathing and hostility that I had encountered from the Justice Department."
"I owe the American public an apology," he wrote. "Unfortunately, Mr. Danforth and his prosecutors want a lot more than a public apology. They have threatened me with 21 months of incarceration."
Interim findings released in July by the special counsel's office concluded that none of the three pyrotechnic tear gas rounds fired on April 19 played a role in the final fire because they were used four hours before the blaze and were not aimed at the sect's main building.
None of the three spent rounds were recovered, and while it noted that their fate "causes concern," Mr. Danforth's final report concluded that the projectiles could have been thrown away or overlooked.
James Cadigan, the lead FBI agent overseeing evidence gathering in Waco failed until September to turn over a notebook in which he detailed a subordinate's effort to disable one of the now-missing projectiles, the report states.
But the special counsel concluded that Mr. Cadigan's failure to turn over the notes kept for years in the attic of his home did not merit prosecution, in part because he had acknowledged that pyrotechnics were used.
A second FBI agent criticized for deception in the report is not being pursued because he recently retired. The special counsel is referring Mr. Cadigan to the FBI's office of professional responsibility, the report stated.
The report released Wednesday mirrors interim findings made public by the special counsel's office last July. In that report, Mr. Danforth cleared Attorney General Janet Reno and former FBI Director William Session of any wrongdoing or coverup and found that the government's agents did not fire guns at the sect at the end of the siege. The special counsel also concluded that the FBI did not contribute to the fire that burned the compound on April 19.
Bill Johnston, the former federal prosecutor from Waco who claims he is being retaliated against for blowing the whistle on a Justice Department cover-up, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he lied to a federal grand jury and obstructed Special Counsel John Danforth's Branch Davidian investigation.
A special grand jury in St. Louis indicted Johnston, 41, on five felony counts that could land Johnston in federal prison for up to 10 years.
Johnston is charged with lying to attorneys and investigators for Danforth's office and with lying to the grand jury during Johnston's appearances there in May and July.
Johnston has acknowledged that he failed to comply with orders to turn over his personal legal notes from a 1993 meeting in which the use of military-style tear gas on the final day of the government's siege at Mount Carmel was discussed. He also admitted that he "temporarily misled" the grand jury about the notes and his knowledge of pyrotechnic tear gas rounds fired at Mount Carmel.
However, he said that he withheld the notes despite a Congressional subpoena and a federal judge's order last year to turn over all matters relating to the Branch Davidian case because he felt that he was being falsely accused of wrongdoing by his Justice Department superiors at the time and, later, by attorneys for the Office of Special Counsel.
Johnston turned over the missing notes to the grand jury in July and submitted to a polygraph test.
"Along with the notes came an expression of regret to the grand jury for having temporarily misled them," Johnston said in a prepared statement Wednesday. "I owe the American public an apology as well. Unfortunately, Mr. Danforth and his prosecutors want a lot more than a public apology. They have threatened me with 21 months of incarceration."
Danforth issued a final report of his 14-month, $17 million investigation on Wednesday. He concluded that Johnston and other members of the 1994 Justice Department trial team that prosecuted 11 Branch Davidians on murder charges in 1994 "knew about the pyrotechnic tear gas rounds in 1993 and wrongly chose not to disclose this information to defense attorneys for the Davidians, to Congress and others within the Department of Justice."
Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Danforth as special counsel after revelations last year that the military rounds were used. Danforth's report concludes that the rounds, fired at a concrete bunker outside Mount Carmel four hours before the fire erupted, had nothing to do with sparking the blaze in which David Koresh and 75 followers died.
Danforth said that Johnston's whistle-blower claims are hollow.
"My definition of a whistle-blower is somebody who brings to light information that previously is hidden," Danforth said. "The allegations made in the indictment are opposite of that. They are that Bill Johnston hid information, obstructed an investigation, lied to the Office of Special Counsel and lied to a grand jury. That is the very opposite of what a whistle-blower does.
"A whistle-blower does not hide evidence. A whistle-blower is not obstructive of an investigation. A whistle-blower does not lie to investigators. A whistle-blower does not lie to a grand jury, and those are all the allegations made in the indictment," he said.
Johnston's attorney, Michael Kennedy of New York, charged that Johnston's indictment is a "blatant act of discrimination and selective prosecution," adding that his "mistakes" did not rise to the level of criminal violations.
"The Waco tragedy is lacking in heroes, and, God knows, there is enough blame of government operatives to fill volumes," Kennedy said. "Bill made some mistakes of his own. What distinguishes Bill Johnston's mistakes in fact and in judgment from all the other government employees' errors is that Bill embarrassed the government by forcing the disclosure of the use of pyrotechnic devices by the FBI against the Branch Davidians. For this act of public responsibility, Bill is condemned and his conduct is criminalized."
The indictment against Johnston alleges that Johnston was among a team of federal prosecutors who attended a meeting in November 1993 in Quantico, Va., at which members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team were interviewed.
HRT member David Corderman told the prosecutors that smoke seen on a videotape was tear gas from "military tear gas rounds," which he said were "incendiary," according to the indictment.
Notes from Johnston's legal pad from that meeting read, in part, "one green military (incind) smoke."
"During 1993, Johnston did not draw a distinction between the terms 'pyrotechnic' and 'incendiary,' but rather understood both of them to mean something that could start a fire," the indictment says. "Johnston and prosecution team members did not disclose this information to defense counsel in the criminal case, even though existing case law and criminal discovery rules may have required disclosure."
The indictment says that the public was misled for 61/2 years that the FBI did not use any pyrotechnic tear gas rounds on the final day of the 51-day siege at Mount Carmel.
It was only disclosed after Johnston allowed independent filmmaker Michael McNulty into the Davidian evidence room, and McNulty discovered what he thought were pyrotechnic devices. Johnston has said he allowed McNulty into the room to defray the growing public distrust of government actions at Mount Carmel.
Johnston alerted his bosses to the discovery and later broke Justice Department ranks and wrote directly to Reno when he said he was convinced that she was being misled about the use of pyrotechnics.
"Whistle-blowers are seldom popular," Johnston said Wednesday. "I became a pariah within the Justice Department and the target of reprisals -- most of them petty, though one quite ominous and suggestive of a smear campaign."
Johnston said his superiors leaked a memo that he had been in the 1993 meeting in Quantico in which "pyrotechnic devices" were discussed, a move that Johnston said at the time he considered a warning "shot across the bow."
"I'm not sure I heard that term seven years ago when I was preparing for the Davidian trial," Johnston said. "If I did, it could not have registered, because McNulty's discovery astonished me."
Johnston said he "panicked" when he discovered that he had jotted "incind" on his notepad "because I had been ordered to place all my trial materials in the hands of the people behind the smear campaign."
"I should have turned those notes over anyway and suffered the consequences," Johnston said. "But I didn't."
He said he didn't give the notes to Danforth's investigators or attorneys because they treated him with the same "loathing and hostility that I had encountered with the Justice Department."
Johnston, who resigned from the U.S. attorney's office in Waco in January, was asked in the grand jury in May and July about the meeting in Quantico and whether he had turned over all his notes as ordered. Johnston said he did not remember mention of the military or incendiary rounds at the meeting and told the grand jury that he had turned over all materials regarding the case.
After Johnston's last denial, Danforth's attorneys showed him "indented handwriting analysis" performed at a U.S. Postal Inspection Service forensic lab that "clearly showed the removed page of his notepad," according to the indictment.
When asked again if he could explain why the page was not disclosed, Johnston said, "No sir. I mean, you can look at everything I have and maybe find the notes elsewhere, but I don't have any explanation for it."
Johnston acknowledged after his indictment that his actions were "foolish, regrettable and wrong, but they were not criminal -- unless fear of character assassination is a crime."
Danforth disagrees. He said that while other government officials certainly were not blameless and did not escape criticism in his final report, Johnston's alleged lies to his office and to the grand jury could not be overlooked.
"The whole purpose of my investigation is to learn the truth," Danforth said. "I am not a special prosecutor. I am a special counsel. I would have been very pleased not to prosecute anybody. On the other hand, I have a duty to uphold the rule of law, and I do not believe I would have been true to that duty to uphold the rule of law if I would have dismissed what surely are significant allegations as we have alleged them in the indictment."
Jim Martin, an attorney on Danforth's staff, said that a trial of Johnston's case could come up before U.S. District Judge Charles Shaw of St. Louis by January.
Former Waco city manager David Smith, a friend of Johnston's who is among a group that is raising money for Johnston's legal defense, was called to testify before the grand jury last month along with six of Johnston's other friends or former colleagues.
"I think it is a sad day that they could single out Bill when they had so many others that they could have indicted," Smith said. "I think they are making an example out of him because he blew the whistle. Bill has always been a straight arrow, and I think you will find that the law enforcement community is incensed about this statewide."
A Justice Department spokesman and a spokesman for Johnston's former boss, U.S. Attorney Bill Blagg of San Antonio, both declined comment Wednesday.
ST. LOUIS (AP) - A former government prosecutor has been indicted on federal charges of obstructing the investigation into the 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, that he helped set in motion.
Former assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and three counts of lying to investigators and a federal grand jury.
The indictment was returned Wednesday as Waco special counsel John C. Danforth released his final report absolving the government of wrongdoing in the siege.
Attorney Michael Kennedy, while acknowledging that Johnston made mistakes in his dealings with the special counsel, called the charges baseless and unfair.
``Danforth seeks to destroy the messenger and whitewash the governmental excesses of Waco,'' he said. ``While Bill's mistakes were harmless, the same cannot be said for so many other government employees, who today are merely chastised or ignored completely by Mr. Danforth.''
Johnston helped draft the search warrant that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to execute on Feb. 28, 1993, at the Waco compound. The botched raid turned into a gunfight in which four federal agents and six Davidians were killed.
The shootout sparked the 51-day standoff that ended on April 19, 1993, with a fire that consumed the compound, killing sect leader David Koresh and some 80 followers inside.
Johnston in 1994 helped convict nine Davidians during their criminal trial.
In 1999, federal Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. ordered the government to give him all records and evidence connected with the standoff. Johnston then complained publicly that the Justice Department was covering up evidence showing FBI agents had fired pyrotechnic tear gas at the compound.
Justice Department and FBI officials denied for years that the government had used anything capable of sparking fires when they employed tanks and tear gas to try to end the standoff.
The FBI's subsequent confirmation that some pyrotechnic tear gas was used prompted Attorney General Janet Reno to ask Danforth to investigate.
In July, Danforth in a preliminary report absolved the government of blame in the blaze. A week earlier, an advisory jury hearing a $675 million wrongful-death lawsuit brought by surviving cult members and the victims' families reached the same conclusion.
Johnston left the U.S. attorney's office in February and Danforth's investigators questioned him repeatedly. He admitted in July that he had withheld several pages of notes from 1993 dealing with the FBI's use of pyrotechnic gas.
A congressional report issued last week praised Johnston for helping reveal the use of pyrotechnics but condemned his failure to surrender the notes, which indicated he was told in 1993 that FBI agents fired several incendiary military tear gas grenades.
``I don't perceive him as a whistle-blower,'' Danforth said. ``Because I think the meaning of whistle-blower is somebody who brings into the light things that were hidden. The allegations in this indictment are to the contrary: somebody who hides things.''
Johnston said in a statement Wednesday that he withheld the notes out of fear that hostile colleagues might try to use what he had written to discredit him. He added that he didn't reveal the notes to Danforth because his investigators ``treated me with the same loathing and hostility that I had encountered from the Justice Department.''
I have spent a lot of time in St. Louis this past year -- not as a tourist, but as the unhappy guest of the office of special counsel. The OSC was launched last year to investigate still-unanswered questions arising from the 1993 shoot-out and inferno at the Branch Davidian compound in my hometown of Waco, Texas, that left more than 80 dead. Former Sen. John C. Danforth was appointed to create and run the OSC, and he chose to do so in St. Louis, a few blocks from his downtown law firm, rather than in Texas.
The OSC was created largely because of me. I became Waco's federal prosecutor in 1987, and I held that post until early this year. It was my practice to get out in the field and work with law-enforcement officers. During the Davidian siege, I tried to give aid and comfort to wounded ATF agents and their families. After the siege, I was one of three people assigned to prosecute surviving Davidians who had fired upon those agents.
At the time, I didn't think there were any significant unanswered questions about the siege. Michael McNulty, a documentary filmmaker, thought otherwise. He believed that government agents had acted improperly, perhaps even started the fire. Basically because I thought it would only heighten mistrust of government if McNulty was stonewalled, I paved the way for him to examine the evidence. He found two shell casings from grenades fired by the FBI that were pyrotechnic (capable of causing fire), though not incendiary (designed to cause fire). I remain certain that the grenades did not start the blaze, but McNulty's discovery was shocking. In August of last year, I repeatedly passed the information up the chain of command. For a month, Attorney General Janet Reno continued to deny the use of pyrotechnics. Finally, I broke ranks with my superiors and wrote to her directly. A few days later, the news media learned about the grenades, and all hell broke loose. To answer criticism, Reno appointed Danforth.
WHISTLE-BLOWERS are seldom popular. I became a pariah within the Justice Department, and the target of reprisals -- most of them petty, though one quite ominous and suggestive of a smear campaign. Certain people leaked a memo to the news media making it appear -- falsely -- that I attended a 1993 meeting at which the term "pyrotechnic" was used. I'm not sure I heard that term seven years ago when I was preparing for the Davidian trial. If I did, it could not have registered, because McNulty's discovery astonished me.
I must have heard the term "incendiary," however, because it appeared among three pages of notes I scribbled in a legal pad in 1993. That term, I have since learned, is a red herring -- no incendiary device was fired at the compound. In any event, when I uncovered the notes, only days after the memo was leaked, I panicked, because I had just been ordered to place all my trial materials in the hands of the people behind the smear campaign. I should have turned those notes over anyway and suffered the consequences. But I didn't. And for several months, I didn't give the notes to the OSC either -- quite frankly, because OSC investigators treated me with the same loathing and hostility I had encountered with the Justice Department. This past July, I finally acknowledged the existence of the notes to the grand jury convened by the OSC and made them available. Along with the notes came an expression of regret to the grand jury for having temporarily misled them. I owe the American public an apology as well.
Unfortunately, Danforth and his prosecutors want a lot more than a public apology. They have threatened me with 21 months of incarceration.
Danforth is openly scornful of people who, in his view, make the public cynical about the federal government. Whistle-blowers must rank high on his list. He says I can avoid the prospect of prison if I will plead to a felony and sign a confession taking full blame for the fact that the FBI's use of pyrotechnics was so long concealed.
I can't do that. My actions were foolish, regrettable and wrong, but they were not criminal -- unless fear of character assassination is a crime. I can't confess to concealing the pyrotechnics when I was the government employee most responsible for disclosing them. And I can't take full blame when where is so much blame to be spread around. A recent report on Waco from the House of Representatives points an accusing finger at a large number of people, including the FBI hostage team leader, who authorized the use of those pyrotechnics "in deviation from his express orders." Danforth has given no indication that he will ask the grand jury to indict any of these other people -- and he has publicly given the hostage team leader a pass.
If the OSC grand jurors, who have shown me a lot more courtesy than the investigators, accept Danforth's recommendation to indict me, so be it. But perhaps Danforth should ask himself whether seeking to send a whistle-blower to the penitentiary -- to the exclusion of everybody else -- is really the cure for public cynicism.
A special grand jury in St. Louis investigating the Branch Davidian case has asked that Deputy U.S. Marshal Mike McNamara of Waco return for a second round of testimony this morning.
Supporters of former U.S. attorney Bill Johnston, who has been targeted by Special Counsel John Danforth's investigation, view the grand jury's request to hear from McNamara again as a positive sign for Johnston.
"As I understand it, it is not the lawyers, it is the grand jury members who want to talk to Mike, so we are viewing that as a good sign," said former Waco City Manager David Smith, who also testified last month before Danforth's grand jury.
McNamara's brother, Parnell, who also is a deputy U.S. marshal; Waco businessman Carey Hobbs; and Waco attorney Rob Goble, who all are friends and supporters of Johnston, also testified in St. Louis late last month. So did federal prosecutor John Phinizy and Sharon Barker, both of whom worked with Johnston in the Waco U.S. attorney's office.
While at least five of the seven tried to have the subpoenas against them thrown out and were eventually granted immunity to force them to testify, Smith, Hobbs and Goble said they came away from the grand jury feeling good about their experience.
"We think the grand jury never had heard the good things about Bill Johnston, and Mike and all of us got to expand on that and got to tell our story about Bill and what a great job he had done down here," Smith said. "So we felt that the grand jury hadn't heard all of that before and that is why we think Mike being called back up there is a good thing."
McNamara is not a target of the grand jury, Smith said.
U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Waco also testified before the grand jury on Oct. 20.
Jan Diltz, a spokeswoman for the Office of Special Counsel, declined comment on the grand jury proceedings.
Danforth was appointed last year to investigate new revelations in the Branch Davidian case and has targeted Johnston, 41, for possible indictment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to Johnston's testimony before the grand jury in July.
David Smith and Hobbs have raised more than $30,000 to help Johnston defray legal expenses. Both said they were asked by Danforth's staff about their fund-raising efforts.
Goble had been quoted as saying that he wondered what Danforth's staff had "been smoking" by targeting Johnston and he was grilled about that statement during his grand jury appearance, he said.
"I still wonder what they have been smoking," Goble said when he returned from St. Louis.
Johnston reportedly is being targeted because he withheld several pages from a legal pad on which he took notes during his preparations to help prosecute 11 Branch Davidians in 1994 for killing federal agents.
Judge Smith had ordered all matters pertaining to the Branch Davidian case be turned over to his office last year before the trial of the Branch Davidian wrongful-death lawsuit against the government.
Johnston, who resigned in January, produced the missing pages for Danforth and submitted to a polygraph test, sources have said.
Waco, FBI and the Branch Davidians: Updates
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