�I Was a Fascist for the FBI� � A Note on the "Louis Farrakhan Death Plot" By Alex Constantine July 23, 2001 PRELUDE: INFORMANT PROFILING It was another glittering media moment for the FBI, the arrest of an Alabama Klansman for the shooting death of Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights activist. The glory, however, went to fearless FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe. He was iconized in print ... but then it leaked that Rowe was something of a predator, really, a model KKKlansman addicted to violence. He had rallied the KKK in the beating of Freedom Riders, stockpiled explosives, urged his brothers on to further carnage in the name of white dominance. He was a passenger in the car that bore the killer that ended the life of Liuzzo ... and soon became a suspect in the shooting himself. The New York Times (January 22, 1995) reported: �the Justice Department had to shield him against charges that he might have carried out bombings in Birmingham or, indeed, the fatal shooting itself. �He couldn�t be an angel and be a good informant,� one of his handlers explained...� SUPERNAZIS ON THE FEDERAL PAYROLL The average FBI informant is a hellbound ne'er-do-well, often of the virulent-racist variety. Examining one case after another, you may come away with the impression that the FBI�s �informers� direct the violence. Often, major cases have been droppedax or the perpetrators acquitted because they were led by an FBI surrogate. � In Seattle, WA, the Bureau paid for the paint to deface a federal courthouse during a Vietnam War protest. The NY Times notes, �In the trial of the Indians who took over Wounded Knee, S.D., informers were put in the defense camp. Even before he knew this, Federal District Court Jundge Frederick J. Nichol threw out the charges for other FBI misconduct, declaring �It�s hard for me to believe that the FBI, which I have revered for so long, has stooped so low�� (January 22, 1995 NYT). The use of informants escalated in the COINTELPRO age and beyond. By 1978, FBI Director William Webster admitted in a speech delivered at a publishers� conference to 42 informers on the domestic front, 1,789 supplying information on all sorts of criminals and 1,060 infiltrating organized crime. However, later in the day an FBI spokesman in Washington declined to answer when asked if Webster�s numbers included all informers or only those officially on the books (New York Times, May 4, 1978). The scurrilous behavior of terrorists on the federal payroll has become so commonplace that it was hard to argue with the Maoist International Movement (MIM) when the organization, in a March 1995 release, bemoaned the �FBI frame-up of Qubilah Shabazz� in the "plot" to murder Louis Farrakhan. The FBI accused Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, of �hiring Michael Kevin Fitzpatrick, aka Michael Summers, to assassinate Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The imperialist media seized upon this story to promote the idea that Louis Farrakhan was behind Malcolm X's murder.� The Maoists had at one time criticized Louis Farrakhan �for supporting the assassination of Malcolm X. Farrakhan has admitted to being among those who �created an atmosphere that allowed Malcolm to be assassinated.�� But �he has not made self-criticism for this, but instead said, �Was Malcolm your traitor or was he ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours?�' But for the FBI and the press �to point their bloody fingers at Farrakhan for anything, let alone the assassination they committed - is the height of hypocrisy.� Michael Fitzpatrick, the son of a union organizer, was another of the FBI's mad dogs. He had been arrested at the age of 18 and charged in the bombing of a pro-Soviet, Russian-language bookstore in Manhattan. The FBI scooped him up, put him on the street and his information led to the arrrest of two crypto-fascist Jewish Defense Leaguers accused of planning to blow up an Egyptian tourist bureau. Fitzpatrick met Ms. Shabazz in the 1970s at the United Nations International School in New York. She recalls that he brought guns and bombs to school with him. In Minneapolis, he was expelled from an anarchist group because he brought weapons and bombs to their meetings urged them to take part in public bombings. In 1993, he was arrested on cocaine charges. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported in a series on the case that on a videotape submitted as evidence against Shabazz, Fitzpatrick takes the lead, encouraging Shabazz to cooperate in the conspiracy to kill Farrakhan. On the tape, she clearly resists, fearing that innocents might be killed. Yet Bureau Director Louis Freeh held firm that that his agents took pains to ensure that Fitzpatrick did not push her into contracting the murder. "I'm satisfied that we were well within the law," said Freeh. Before the trial of Shabazz, former FBI agent Dan Scott announced at a press conference in Minneapolis that he had handled Fitzpatrick in the late 1970's. Scott opined that Fitzpatrick was a highly credible witness. William Kunstler, Shabazz�s attorney, however, responded that former agent Scott had been ousted from the FBI for drunkeness and killing someone in a traffic collision. Kunstler quipped, �there's a puppeteer pulling the strings and there are lots of puppets out there". (Paul DeRienzo, Shadow, February 1995). Even Time Magazine, an establishment fixture, was moved to ask: �Whose idea was it to kill Louis Farrakhan? The daughter of Malcolm X or the man she trusted?� (January 30, 1995 ) � �That the world of FBI informers is full of squirrelly characters is no surprise.... Even so, there may not be many government informants more rough-edged than Michael Fitzpatrick. Convicted bomber, alleged coke user, he is also the man whose accusations led to the arrest of Qubilah Shabazz, a daughter of Malcolm X, two weeks ago. In an increasingly controversial case, Fitzpatrick's credibility has become central to the government's charge that she tried to hire a hit man to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.� The case didn't make headlines for long. Prosecutors in Minnesota dropped the murder-for-hire accusation on May 1, 1995 ... in exchange for agreeing to two years of psychiatric treatment and signing on to a drug dependency program. Shabazz�s agreement with the government also came with a GAG RULE proviso, requiring her to cease insisting publicly that the government had entrapped her (Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1995). The Sons of Hoover. Don�t mention the white sheets and the whip and you walk, Ms. Shabazz, a free woman ...
