The Change Agent

One September day in 1992, FBI Special Agent Jon Lipsky stood in the office of Ken Fimberg, assistant U.S. attorney for the state of Colorado. Lipsky and Fimberg had once been close friends, like brothers. The earnest, hardworking FBI agent and the aggressive, liberal-minded lawyer had teamed up to lead, in the summer of 1989, the first and only U.S. Justice Department raid on a Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear-weapons facility, the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant located between Boulder and Denver. Three years later, the maligned investigation of Rocky Flats was itself being investigated, and Lipsky and Fimberg were barely on speaking terms.

The raid had led to Colorado's first special grand jury, to investigate alleged environmental crimes at Rocky Flats. After years of exhaustive study into operations at the 40-year-old nuclear weapons plant, the Justice Department announced in spring 1992 a plea agreement with Rocky Flats' operator, Rockwell International. In exchange for Rockwell paying an $18.5 million fine – less than the government bonuses the plant operator received while operating the plant – no Rockwell or DOE employees were charged with crimes and the numerous boxes of grand-jury evidence pertaining to alleged wrongdoings at Rocky Flats were locked in a vault, never to be shown to the public.

In response to public outcry over the plea bargain, Howard Wolpe (D-Mich) had announced he would head an investigation of the Justice Department's handling of the Rocky Flats raid. The Justice Department reacted by circling the wagons. There was only one problem: Jon Lipsky.

Of the government officials associated with the Rocky Flats investigation, Lipsky had become the Boy Scout of the group. He did not hide his displeasure over how the raid had turned out. Fimberg and other Justice Department staff met with Lipsky to allegedly tell him, "You're not stuck with how you felt before. Even today, your opinion can change." The FBI had arranged a special meeting for Lipsky with Bureau Director William Sessions. According to Lipsky, Sessions' message was clear: Do the FBI proud – keep your mouth shut.

The day before Lipsky was to speak for the second time to the Wolpe congressional subcommittee about Rocky Flats, Fimberg was meeting with Lipsky to seal the deal. Fimberg handed him an affidavit for him to sign. The affidavit allegedly stated that Lipsky agreed that there'd never been enough evidence to indict individuals at Rocky Flats. Lipsky believed there was enough evidence to indict individuals, but the investigation had been mysteriously cut short by the Justice Department. It appeared to Lipsky that he was being asked to lie.

Lipsky put his pen to the affidavit – but did not write his signature. Instead, on the back, in large, angry letters, he scrawled "Bullshit." He would never talk to Fimberg, his former friend, again. Lipsky told Congress there was enough evidence to indict individuals. He told Congress that he had been ordered to curtail his investigation of Rocky Flats. Soon after, Lipsky, one of the FBI's star environmental crime agents, was transferred to a gang unit in Los Angeles. His days working environmental crimes were over.

It would not be the last time that Lipsky would speak out against what he believes is a government cover-up of criminal wrongdoing and radioactive contamination at Rocky Flats – nor the last time he would suffer the consequences. Years later, when Congress voted to turn the site of the now-closed Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge, Lipsky teamed up with a former Rocky Flats employee, the foreman of the Rocky Flats grand jury and an environmental lawyer to write the book, The Ambushed Grand Jury.

The four argued that the government knowingly distorted the truth about the extent of environmental contamination at the weapons plant, thereby seriously calling into question current plans to clean up and open Rocky Flats to the public. While the book made international headlines early last year, Lipsky, still with the FBI, remained out of the public limelight. When Lipsky attempted to go public with his concerns this past summer, he says he was muzzled by his superiors.