THE POST-DISPATCH

November 9, 2000 09:06 AM (ET)

Terry Ganey

A former federal prosecutor who played a major role in the government’s siege of the Branch Davidians was indicted by a federal grand jury in St. Louis on Wednesday on charges that he obstructed the investigation of special Waco counsel John Danforth.

William W. Johnston, a former U.S. attorney in Waco, Texas, was accused in a five-count indictment of concealing information about the government’s use of pyrotechnic tear gas rounds during the siege.

The indictment was issued as Danforth released his final report on Waco. He said he would have preferred releasing the report without prosecuting anyone, but that the charges were too serious to be ignored.

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CIVIL LIBERTIES

November 15, 2000 (ET)

Waco payback
The feds want revenge on a Waco whistleblower

by J.D. Truccille

Original Article Link

The rumors are true! The world has continued to rotate even as the United States’ presidential election remains unresolved. But don’t expect former federal prosecutor Bill Johnston to be too pleased about the onward course of events; one of the things rotating is his butt, on a spit over a fire set by one-time colleagues pissed-off by his whistleblowing ways.

Former assistant U.S. Attorney William Johnston was, by all accounts once upon a time a happy Justice Department camper, enforcing the laws of the land, good, bad and indifferent, from his base in Waco, Texas. Unlike some of his colleagues, though, Mr. Johnston apparently believed that the word “Justice” extended beyond some print on his paycheck, and demanded more than lip service from employees of the United States government.

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