FBI Seattle MOU Details Safe Streets Task Force (SSTF) Procedures
HardPressed has obtained the current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in effect between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the King County Sheriff's Office (KCSO) concerning the operation of the FBI Seattle Safe Streets Task Force (SSTF).
The remit of the SSTF is wide-reaching. According to the MOU, "the mission of the SSTF is to identify and target for prosecution criminal enterprise groups responsible for drug trafficking, money laundering, alien smuggling, crimes of violence such as murder and aggravated assault, robbery, and violent street gangs, as well as to intensely focus on the apprehension of dangerous fugitives where there is or may be a federal investigative interest."
To do all this, the FBI empowers violent individuals with significant criminal histories to act as paid informants. In some cases, informants have been publicly outed, and in another case, a person who was not cooperating with law enforcement was suspected of being an informant and murdered in the street, according to SSTF Task Force Officer (TFO) Jonathan Huber. Huber is one of several Seattle Police Department employees who are detailed as FBI TFOs.
"In those instances where a participating agency provides a CHS [confidential human source], the FBI may, at the discretion of the SAC [special agent in charge], become solely responsible for the CHS's continued development, operation and compliance with necessary administrative procedures regarding operation and payment as set forth by the FBI," the MOU states.
In January, HardPressed revealed that the SSTF works in concert with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), sharing resources including informants, to affect the secret outcomes desired by the FBI. The fact that the JTTF and SSTF work together could expand the capacity of subversive efforts currently underway as the FBI implements President Trump's NSPM-7.
The SSTF MOU outlines that participating agency heads "shall be kept fully apprised of all investigative developments by his or her subordinates," and that "it is agreed that matters designated to be handled by the SSTF will not knowingly be subject to non-SSTF law enforcement efforts by any of the participating agencies."
"All law enforcement actions will be coordinated and cooperatively carried out," the MOU states. That would signal that local police chiefs are fully aware of any disruptive efforts President Trump's FBI is engaged in now, or has engaged in previously.
In January, HardPressed published an MOU concerning the operation of the FBI Seattle Division's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). In parallel with that MOU, local law enforcement officers who serve as SSTF TFOs may also be "federally deputized Special Deputy United States Marshals."