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by CBS News
Attorney General Ashcroft, with
President Bush (AP): "There was a threat assessment and
there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines."-- FBI
spokesman
July 26, 2001
CBS) Fishing rod in hand, Attorney
General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday
afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News
Correspondent Jim Stewart.
In response to inquiries from CBS News
over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft
instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it
called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been
advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.
"There was a threat assessment and there
are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman
said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would
identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.
A senior official at the CIA said he was
unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft
himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the
threat.
"I don't do threat assessments myself and
I rely on those whose responsibility it is in the law enforcement
community, particularly the FBI. And I try to stay within the guidelines
that they've suggested I should stay within for those purposes,"
Ashcroft said.
Asked if he knew anything about the
threat or who might have made it, the attorney general replied,
"Frankly, I don't. That's the answer."
Earlier this week, the Justice Department
leased a NASA-owned G-3 Gulfstream for a 6-day trip to Western states.
Such aircraft cost the government more than $1,600 an hour to fly. When
asked whether Ashcroft was paying for any portion of the trips devoted
to personal business, a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to
respond.
All other Bush Cabinet appointees, with
the exception of Interior and Energy with remote sites to oversee, fly
commercial airliners. Janet Reno, Ashcroft's predecessor as attorney
general, also routinely flew commercial. The secretaries of State and
Defense traditionally travel with extra security on military planes.
The Justice Department insists that it
wasn't Ashcroft who wanted to fly leased aircraft. That idea, they said,
came strictly from Ashcroft's FBI security detail. The FBI had no
further comment.
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