Coleen Rowley
Encyclopedia
Coleen Rowley is a former FBI agent and whistleblower
, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress
in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district
, one of eight congressional districts in Minnesota
in 2006. She lost the general election to Republican incumbent
John Kline
.
and graduated valedictorian of her high school class in 1973. Her father was a letter carrier for 31 years. She attended Wartburg College
in Waverly, Iowa
, graduating in 1977 with a degree in French
. In 1980, she received her Juris Doctor
from the University of Iowa College of Law
and passed the Iowa
Bar Exam. She is married and has four children.
and Jackson, Mississippi
Divisions. Beginning in 1984, she spent six years working in the New York
Office on investigations involving organized crime
. She also served in the U.S. embassy in Paris
, and the consulate in Montreal
. In 1990, she was assigned to the FBI's Minneapolis office where she became the chief legal adviser to the office.
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Rowley wrote a paper for FBI Director Robert Mueller
documenting how FBI HQ personnel in Washington, D.C.
, had mishandled and failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis, Minnesota
Field Office regarding its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui
. This individual had been suspected of being involved in preparations for a suicide-hijacking similar to the December 1994 "Eiffel Tower
" hijacking of Air France 8969. Failures identified by Rowley may have left the U.S. vulnerable to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Rowley was one of many agents frustrated by the events that led up to the attacks, writing:
Rowley testified in front of the Senate
and for the 9/11 Commission
about the FBI's internal organization and mishandling of information related to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mueller and Senator Chuck Grassley
(R-IA
) pushed for and got a major reorganization, focused on creation of the new Office of Intelligence at the FBI. This reorganization was supported with a significant expansion of FBI personnel with counterterrorism and language skills.
Rowley retired from the FBI in 2004 after 24 years with the agency. She jointly held the TIME "Person of the Year
" award in 2002 with two other women credited as whistleblowers: Sherron Watkins
from Enron
and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom. She also received the Sam Adams Award
for 2002.
for Minnesota
's 2nd District seat in the United States House of Representatives
in 2006. At the time of her announcement, she had been living in Apple Valley, Minnesota
for 15 years. Previously she had voted and identified as a Republican, but on June 27, 2005, Rowley announced that she was entering the race as a DFLer, and officially kicked off her campaign at her home on July 6.
On August 18, 2005 she attended a vigil in Crawford, Texas
outside President George W. Bush's
ranch requesting that the president meet with Cindy Sheehan
to answer Sheehan's questions regarding the War in Iraq and the death of Sheehan's son, Casey.
On January 3, 2006, an unauthorized professionally retouched image appeared on the Rowley campaign website. This image depicted Kline, a retired Colonel of the Marine Corps
, as Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes
. Kline objected to the photo. The campaign removed the image the same day and initiated an investigation. Rowley apologized quickly. The Kline campaign also accused a Rowley supporter, David Bailey, of attempting to make a cash contribution to Kline’s campaign. A cash contribution is not legal and Kline subsequently asserted that this constituted an effort to undermine his campaign apparatus.
Representative John Murtha
(D-PA
) endorsed Rowley. He visited the district during the campaign and held a rally for Rowley at the local VFW
in Rosemount, while veterans protested against them outside. The Rowley campaign subsequently focused efforts on veterans' groups and others with experience that relates directly to the war in Iraq. Obtaining financing for her campaign proved difficult. Opposing an incumbent conservative such as Kline in a conservative district did not attract money from the most robust of Democratic resources such as the DNC
.
Kline's campaign achieved a 2-1 advantage in raising funds, and he retained his seat.
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district
Minnesota's 2nd congressional district
Minnesota’s 2nd congressional district covers the south Twin Cities metro area and contains all of Carver, Scott, Le Sueur, Goodhue and Rice Counties. It also contains most of Dakota County and south Washington County including the cities of Cottage Grove and the southern part of Woodbury...
, one of eight congressional districts in Minnesota
Minnesota Congressional Districts
Minnesota currently has eight congressional districts. There were 9th and 10th districts but they were eliminated in 1963 and 1933 respectively...
in 2006. She lost the general election to Republican incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...
John Kline
John Kline (politician)
John Paul Kline is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. The district includes most of the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities, including Apple Valley, Inver Grove Heights, Burnsville and Eagan. He is a member of the Republican Party.-Early life, education and career:Kline was born...
.
Early life
Rowley grew up in New Hampton, IowaNew Hampton, Iowa
New Hampton is a city in Chickasaw County, Iowa, United States. The population was 3,692 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Chickasaw County.-Geography:New Hampton is located at ....
and graduated valedictorian of her high school class in 1973. Her father was a letter carrier for 31 years. She attended Wartburg College
Wartburg College
Wartburg College is a selective four-year liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in Waverly, Iowa. Wartburg West is in Denver, Colorado....
in Waverly, Iowa
Waverly, Iowa
Waverly is a city in Bremer County, Iowa, United States. The population was 9,874 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Bremer County and is part of the Waterloo–Cedar Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, graduating in 1977 with a degree in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. In 1980, she received her Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
from the University of Iowa College of Law
University of Iowa College of Law
The University of Iowa College of Law is one of the eleven professional graduate schools at the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest law school in continuous operation west of the Mississippi River. The law school was ranked as the 27th best law school...
and passed the Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
Bar Exam. She is married and has four children.
FBI career
Shortly after she became a Special Agent with the FBI, Rowley was assigned to the Omaha, NebraskaOmaha, Nebraska
Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
and Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
Divisions. Beginning in 1984, she spent six years working in the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
Office on investigations involving organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
. She also served in the U.S. embassy in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and the consulate in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. In 1990, she was assigned to the FBI's Minneapolis office where she became the chief legal adviser to the office.
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Rowley wrote a paper for FBI Director Robert Mueller
Robert Mueller
Robert Swan Mueller III is the 6th and current Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation .-Early life:...
documenting how FBI HQ personnel in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, had mishandled and failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
Field Office regarding its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui is a French citizen who was convicted of conspiring to kill citizens of the US as part of the September 11 attacks...
. This individual had been suspected of being involved in preparations for a suicide-hijacking similar to the December 1994 "Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
" hijacking of Air France 8969. Failures identified by Rowley may have left the U.S. vulnerable to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Rowley was one of many agents frustrated by the events that led up to the attacks, writing:
During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the pre–September 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why?--Why would an FBI agent(s) deliberately sabotage a case? (I know I shouldn't be flippant about this, but jokes were actually made that the key FBI HQ personnel had to be spies or moles, like (Robert HanssenRobert HanssenRobert Philip Hanssen is a former American FBI agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States for 22 years from 1979 to 2001...
), who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis' effort.)
Rowley testified in front of the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
and for the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
about the FBI's internal organization and mishandling of information related to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mueller and Senator Chuck Grassley
Chuck Grassley
Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley is the senior United States Senator from Iowa . A member of Republican Party, he previously served in the served in the United States House of Representatives and the Iowa state legislature...
(R-IA
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
) pushed for and got a major reorganization, focused on creation of the new Office of Intelligence at the FBI. This reorganization was supported with a significant expansion of FBI personnel with counterterrorism and language skills.
Rowley retired from the FBI in 2004 after 24 years with the agency. She jointly held the TIME "Person of the Year
Person of the Year
Person of the Year is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."- History :The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year...
" award in 2002 with two other women credited as whistleblowers: Sherron Watkins
Sherron Watkins
Sherron Watkins was Vice President of Corporate Development at the Enron Corporation. She is considered by many to be the whistleblower who helped to uncover the Enron scandal in 2001....
from Enron
Enron
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 staff and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with...
and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom. She also received the Sam Adams Award
Sam Adams Award
The Sam Adams Award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers, to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes...
for 2002.
Political career
In May 2005, Rowley announced that she was considering running against incumbent Representative John KlineJohn Kline (politician)
John Paul Kline is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. The district includes most of the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities, including Apple Valley, Inver Grove Heights, Burnsville and Eagan. He is a member of the Republican Party.-Early life, education and career:Kline was born...
for Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
's 2nd District seat in the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
in 2006. At the time of her announcement, she had been living in Apple Valley, Minnesota
Apple Valley, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 45,527 people, 16,344 households, and 12,405 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,625.5 people per square mile . There were 16,536 housing units at an average density of 953.6 per square mile...
for 15 years. Previously she had voted and identified as a Republican, but on June 27, 2005, Rowley announced that she was entering the race as a DFLer, and officially kicked off her campaign at her home on July 6.
On August 18, 2005 she attended a vigil in Crawford, Texas
Crawford, Texas
Crawford is a town located in western McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is best known as the home of former President of the United States George W. Bush. He currently resides at the Prairie Chapel Ranch, which is located just outside Crawford, Texas....
outside President George W. Bush's
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
ranch requesting that the president meet with Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President...
to answer Sheehan's questions regarding the War in Iraq and the death of Sheehan's son, Casey.
On January 3, 2006, an unauthorized professionally retouched image appeared on the Rowley campaign website. This image depicted Kline, a retired Colonel of the Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
, as Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to March 28, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Bob Crane had the starring role as Colonel Robert E...
. Kline objected to the photo. The campaign removed the image the same day and initiated an investigation. Rowley apologized quickly. The Kline campaign also accused a Rowley supporter, David Bailey, of attempting to make a cash contribution to Kline’s campaign. A cash contribution is not legal and Kline subsequently asserted that this constituted an effort to undermine his campaign apparatus.
Representative John Murtha
John Murtha
John Patrick "Jack" Murtha, Jr. was an American politician from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Murtha, a Democrat, represented Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1974 until his death in 2010....
(D-PA
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
) endorsed Rowley. He visited the district during the campaign and held a rally for Rowley at the local VFW
Veterans of Foreign Wars
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a congressionally chartered war veterans organization in the United States. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, VFW currently has 1.5 million members belonging to 7,644 posts, and is the largest American organization of combat...
in Rosemount, while veterans protested against them outside. The Rowley campaign subsequently focused efforts on veterans' groups and others with experience that relates directly to the war in Iraq. Obtaining financing for her campaign proved difficult. Opposing an incumbent conservative such as Kline in a conservative district did not attract money from the most robust of Democratic resources such as the DNC
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
.
Kline's campaign achieved a 2-1 advantage in raising funds, and he retained his seat.
External links
- Coleen Rowley's website
- PBS NOW biography
- Pioneer Press article on Rowley campaigns apology
- The Purity of Coleen Rowley, Mother JonesMother Jones (magazine)Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
, March/April 2006 issue - Coleen Rowley's Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, May 21, 2002