Commission Sensitive

Memorandum

Event: Meeting with Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Thomas J. Kneir

Type of Event: Meeting
Date: 12110103
Date memo prepared: 12112/03
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Doug Greenburg
Team Number: 4
Location: FBI Chicago field office
Classification: Unclassified
Participants - FBI: SAC T. Kneir, ASAC Richard Ruminski, Sean O'Neil, Esq.
Participants-Commission: D. Greenburg, J. Roth, S. Wille

On December 10,2003, we met with Chicago SAC Tom Kneir at the Chicago
field office of the FBI for approximately 30 minutes. Kneir had requested the meeting at
the outset of Chicago trip to give us an introduction. This was not an interview, but
rather Kneir providing his thoughts on his office's response to terrorism and terrorist
financing. The following memorandum addresses the key points he made during the
meeting.

Kneir emphasized that he has taken literally the Director' s mandate to make
terrorism the top priority. As a result, he has assigned many of his division's top agents
to CT duties. The CT agents work a demanding schedule, much of it driven by
continuous threat reporting, especially to the Sears Tower.

Kneir said he has also made a priority of meeting regularly with Chicago's
substantial Islamic population. He has frequent community outreach meetings, some of
which also include U.S. Attorney Pat Fitgerald. In this regard, Kneir raised the
prosecution of BIF Executive Director Ernaam Arnaout. He pointed out that Arnaout's
plea to fraud-based charges - but not material support for terrorism - has caused many
people in the Islamic community to doubt the allegations that Arnaout supported
terrorism and to believe he was unjustly targeted for prosecution. Kneir made clear he
has a very high regard for Fitzgerald and does not doubt the wisdom of accepting a guilty
plea to a RICO count carrying serious prison time. He said, however, that a trial would
have been beneficial so the government could have laid out all its evidence against
Arnaout in open court, where the community could see it. [This point was echoed by
several of the agents we interviewed in Chicago].

·-SECREt
Commission Sensitive