An interesting race should she decide to run.

Pioneer Press
Posted on Tue, May. 24, 2005

Rowley may run for Congress

Former FBI agent blew whistle on Moussaoui case

CHARLES HOMANS

Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON — FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley may run for Congress in 2006, the former agent said Monday.

Rowley, an Apple Valley resident who retired last year from the Minneapolis division of the FBI, said she's weighing a challenge to Rep. John Kline, R-Lakeville, for Minnesota's 2nd District House of Representatives seat.

"I haven't made the decision, but I'm talking with people and getting their advice and input," said Rowley, who plans to run as a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate. "I'm seriously considering it."

Rowley was thrust into the national spotlight in May 2002, when she wrote a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee and FBI Director Robert Mueller contending that foot-dragging in Washington had restricted Minneapolis agents in their investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui. The so-called "20th hijacker," Moussaoui was believed to have been involved in planning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The letter, which forced Mueller to admit that intelligence agencies were aware of the threat of terrorist attacks on American soil before Sept. 11, earned Rowley a place as one of Time magazine's three Persons of the Year for 2002.

Although DFL spokesman Bill Amberg said party officials hadn't officially discussed a 2006 candidacy with Rowley, DFLers had approached her in 2003 about challenging Kline.

Since then, Rowley has retired from the FBI and sought a position on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The panel, which was intended to safeguard individual freedoms in the pursuit of terrorists, was created by the intelligence bill passed in Congress last year.

But Rowley said it appears she will not be appointed to the board, despite the support of Minnesota's two senators and five of the state's congressmen, not including Kline. That setback opened the door for her run for Congress, she said.

"I'd kind of given up (on the appointment), and I decided a couple weeks ago that I'd go to Plan B," she said.

A Rowley challenge would likely push security issues to the fore in next year's election, pitting the woman who tried to stop an alleged Sept. 11 collaborator against the man who carried the "football" — the package of launch codes for the United States' nuclear arsenal — for President Ronald Reagan.

Kline spokeswoman Angelyn Shapiro declined comment on Rowley, noting that the potential DFL contender had yet to officially declare her candidacy.

Rowley has lived in Apple Valley for 15 years and spent almost 24 years working for the FBI in France, Canada and several U.S. states. Although she would run for Congress as a DFLer, she downplayed her party affiliation and described her interest in politics as a natural progression from her nonpartisan intelligence work.

"Up until the last three years or so, I had no background of political leanings or anything like that," she said. "But I'm really concerned about the direction the country has taken in the last few years."