Law • Bill Johnston
When he told the truth about the Branch Davidian standoff, he sacrificed his career to his conscience.
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But nothing would disturb his sleep more than the Branch Davidian siege—"an American tragedy of epic proportion," as he wrote to Reno, quoting the presiding judge in the case. Johnston was deeply involved from its earliest days, having helped draft the affidavit alleging that Branch Davidians were stockpiling weapons—the document that became the basis for the search warrant the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms tried to serve on February 28, 1993. Johnston vividly recalls listening to the frantic voices on the police radio that morning as he stood at the ATF command post four miles from the compound, realizing that the raid had gone terribly awry. That day's pitched battle between Davidians and ATF agents was the worst police shoot-out in U.S. history, leaving four agents dead and twenty wounded. Johnston remembers seeing a pickup truck at the command post afterward, piled high with the equipment of fallen ATF agents; rainwater had collected in the truck's bed liner, and when it dripped onto the ground, it ran out red. "Knowing people had died, and that I had sponsored the affidavit . . ." he said, searching for the right words. "It was the beginning of a weight that has never lifted."
In the chaos that followed, Johnston noticed that key evidence, which he would later need in prosecuting the Davidians for murder, was getting lost in the shuffle. There was also the curious fact that ATF agents had been put in charge of investigating their own agency's conduct during the raid. At Johnston's insistence, Texas Rangers were brought in to collect evidence and conduct an independent investigation. It was perhaps the single most important decision he made; if not for the Rangers, many questionable aspects of the government's conduct during the 51-day siege might never have come to light. The Rangers soon unraveled the first of several mysteries: The fatal shoot-out had occurred, in part, because Davidians had learned of the raid beforehand. Worse yet, Rangers discovered that two ATF raid commanders, Chuck Sarabyn and Phil Chojnacki, knew that the Davidians had been tipped off but had proceeded with the raid anyway. (They also lied to the Rangers investigating the case.) Though Sarabyn and Chojnacki were briefly fired, they were soon rehired—a glaring example of what critics refer to as the lack of accountability surrounding the Branch Davidian case.
As the standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians wore on for days and then weeks, Johnston learned that FBI commanders were hampering the Rangers' ability to collect evidence. When his pleas to superiors for help fell on deaf ears, he wrote what would be his first letter to Janet Reno asking for her assistance. "The letter was a desperate move and one that I did not want to make," he later wrote. "I simply did not know any other way to bring the situation under control . . . As soon as the letter left my hands, I knew that I would never be seen as a 'team player' within our office or within the Department of Justice."
Reno responded swiftly, however, and the FBI was instructed to work more closely with investigators. By alerting Reno to the problem, Johnston had helped save the government's murder case against the Davidians—a case he prosecuted in 1994. In the end, however, the siege took a terrible toll: On April 19, 1993, Johnston watched as the FBI inserted tear gas into the compound in an effort to force its occupants out. Hours later he stood by helplessly as the compound—which contained roughly eighty Davidians, eighteen of whom were children—was ravaged by fire.
After he testified in 1995 at congressional hearings about the Branch Davidian siege, Johnston hoped to put the ordeal behind him. But three years later he was contacted by filmmaker Michael McNulty, whose documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement was nominated for an Academy award. McNulty had tried in vain to gain access to evidence in the case and asked for Johnston's assistance. Though Johnston was wary of McNulty, whose film suggested that the government had deliberately murdered the Davidians on April 19, 1993, he sought—and got—permission from the Justice Department to show McNulty evidence in the case. "I didn't care for his film, but my feeling was that if you stone- wall someone who mistrusts government, then you cause them to feel that all the more," Johnston said. "I didn't think there was anything to fear about the truth."
In the spring of 1999 McNulty began reviewing the evidence, which was in the custody of the Texas Rangers. Johnston received an angry call soon afterward from an attorney in the Justice Department's torts division. "She was sort of growling at me," he remembered. "She chewed me out for showing McNulty the evidence, saying, 'What do you think you're doing? What are you doing?!'"
Indeed, the results of McNulty's search were devastating, yielding what appeared to be shell casings from pyrotechnic rounds. The Texas Rangers, in turn, began cataloging the evidence under their control, and in late July, they informed Johnston that pyrotechnics had indeed been used. Johnston alerted his superiors in a series of increasingly urgent e-mails and phone calls, first in late July and then throughout the month of August. But the Justice Department—responding to renewed questions from the media about Waco prompted by the Davidians' impending wrongful death suit—continued to deny the use of pyrotechnics. Johnston grew alarmed and then indignant, insisting that the department be forthcoming. When he pressed his point, he received a fax of a 1993 memo that he believes was designed to intimidate him into silence. The memo (which bore the notes "do not disclose" and "privileged") implied that Johnston had attended a meeting during trial preparations where "military rounds"—pyrotechnics—were discussed. Johnston insists he has no memory of the meeting; if he had been present, he adds, he would not have understood the significance of the term "military rounds." "I thought, 'Why are you sending this to me, and not Reno?'" Johnston said. To him, the fax's message was clear: "There's a problem here all right, and if you raise a stink, it will be your problem."
That week, on August 24, the Dallas Morning News published a front-page article in which a former FBI official conceded that pyrotechnics were indeed fired on April 19, 1993. The following day, the FBI formally acknowledged their use. An angry Janet Reno, who had forbidden the use of pyrotechnics during the siege, pledged a thorough investigation. But Johnston felt an even greater issue was at stake: His superiors had known about the use of pyrotechnics since at least late July, when he first notified them of the Rangers' findings, yet they had clearly not notified the attorney general. As he had done six years before, he wrote directly to Reno. "I knew this was an extremely serious step that would have consequences," he said. "But sometimes you have to say, 'If they fire me for this, it's worth it.'" U.S. district judge Walter S. Smith, Jr., who presided over the Branch Davidian case, was sufficiently concerned about the security of Johnston's job that he called Reno himself. "I told her the high regard I have for Bill and what his reputation was and that it would be a tragedy if he was in any way mistreated, because he had taken steps to advise her she was being lied to," said Judge Smith.
But on September 14, Johnston was removed from the Branch Davidian case and told to send all relevant documents to the U.S. Attorney's office in San Antonio. He soon found himself ostracized by department superiors and cut out of district-wide staff meetings. "I was becoming embittered," he said, "and I knew it was time to go." After he finished his commitments to two pending murder trials, he resigned in February, telling reporters: "I have a hard time working for people that I don't respect."
Half a year later, it is clear in talking to Johnston that his decision to leave is no less painful. He explained that, soon after his resignation, he stumbled upon a Justice Department employee sent from the Austin office to covertly download files off his computer. When she saw Johnston enter the office, she bolted for the door. Johnston was stunned and also saddened. "My feeling was, 'Has the system lowered itself to this?'" he said. Others believe the system has fundamentally failed. "To lose a man of this stature is a tragedy—not just for Bill, but for this country," said Mike McNamara. "Bill is the sort of person who should be promoted and who should lead because of his honesty and integrity." As Johnston sat in his Waco office, the walls of which are decorated with nearly a dozen awards from federal and state law enforcement agencies, he spoke candidly of his regrets. "I made hundreds of decisions on the Davidian case over the past seven years, and I've tried to do the right thing—but in doing so, I made mistakes, even recently," he said. "Everyone who has dealt with this case to any extent has had bad things happen to their personal lives and their careers. Every accuser has become an accused. I hope that the personal destruction will soon come to an end."
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