A former FBI informant who once spied inside Southern California mosques threw a long-running surveillance case into fresh chaos.
According to reporting by Politico, Craig Monteilh balked after U.S. District Judge David Carter demanded he affirm a series of allegations against the FBI and attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, who once relied on him for information.
Monteilh's disclosures about "Operation Flex," an undercover effort that ran in 2006 and 2007, sparked a 2011 ACLU lawsuit accusing the bureau of illegally recording inside houses of worship and infringing on Muslims' religious practice. According to Politico, Monteilh has walked back much of what he told the ACLU, and a Justice Department lawyer said the government believes he "admitted that he committed perjury" in his original declarations.
"This has been dragging on two decades. This is ridiculous," Carter said during hearings on Monday. "I hope the message is clear: We're going to put some wheels on this case and get it moving."
On Tuesday, Monteilh took the witness stand in Orange County after Carter asked him to come in person and confirm under oath that he made his allegations via a string of emails to the court. However, Monteilh cited a nondisclosure agreement he signed with the FBI, even though he no longer had a copy of it, and then pressed Carter to sort out his legal exposure before he would confirm anything under oath.
"What I'd like your honor to do is resolve an issue that you brought up earlier," Monteilh said, referring to the NDA, Politico reported. "This is a strange predicament."
Carter, a Clinton appointee, told Monteilh he could invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but insisted that any discussion of the NDA would have to wait until Monteilh confirmed he authored the emails, Politico reported.
According to Politico, Carter signaled that he wanted to dig into Monteilh's claims and noted that the Supreme Court has directed his court to reconsider the case.
"The Supreme Court has directed this court to investigate different statements that you are making," Carter said. "I'm not going to let you cherry-pick just what you want to tell me."