Changes

===Whitey Bulger===

===Whitey Bulger===

The federal government’s cozy dealings with Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill gang have produced widespread and long-lasting damage to the reputations of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.<ref>https://masslawyersweekly.com/2013/04/17/bulgers-immunity-defense-what-appearance-of-justice-requires/</ref><ref>https://www.thedailybeast.com/whitey-bulgers-defense-to-reveal-widespread-fbi-complicity?ref=home</ref>

Whitey Bulger was convicted at the age of 81 of 19 murders during his lifetime career as a [[Boston]] crime boss. The actual number of killings Bulger was responsible for is likely much higher.<ref>The AP identified 11 killers believed to have committed 52 murders while under the Bureau’s protection from the 1960s to the mid-1990s. https://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-did-mueller-know-hoovers-dark-secret/</ref> Bulger was an FBI informant against a rival gang, and Robert Mueller was cited as a defense witness on Bulger's witness list.<ref>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335614/Trial-Boston-mob-boss-James-Whitey-Bulger-gets-underway-family-victims-say-look-eye.html</ref> Bulger spent sixteen years on the run as number two on the FBI Most Wanted list, behind [[Osama bin Laden]]. While on the run witnesses and evidence against Bulger continued to disappear.  The federal government’s cozy dealings with Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill gang have produced widespread and long-lasting damage to the reputations of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.<ref>https://masslawyersweekly.com/2013/04/17/bulgers-immunity-defense-what-appearance-of-justice-requires/</ref><ref>https://www.thedailybeast.com/whitey-bulgers-defense-to-reveal-widespread-fbi-complicity?ref=home</ref>

Whitey Bulger was convicted at the age of 81 of 19 murders during his lifetime career as a [[Boston]] crime boss. The actual number of killings Bulger was responsible for is likely much higher.<ref>The AP identified 11 killers believed to have committed 52 murders while under the Bureau’s protection from the 1960s to the mid-1990s. https://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-did-mueller-know-hoovers-dark-secret/</ref> Bulger was an FBI informant against a rival gang, and Robert Mueller was cited as a defense witness on Bulger's witness list.<ref>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335614/Trial-Boston-mob-boss-James-Whitey-Bulger-gets-underway-family-victims-say-look-eye.html</ref> Bulger spent sixteen years on the run as number two on the FBI Most Wanted list, behind [[Osama bin Laden]]. While on the run witnesses and evidence against Bulger continued to disappear.

Howie Carr of the ''Boston Globe'' wrote a book about Bulger and described how Bulger and his sidekick, Stevie "The Rifleman" Flemmi., strangled two of Flemmi’s 26-year-old girlfriends as Flemmi lured them to their deaths. One was a Flemmi step-daughter whom Flemmi had been molesting since she was 15. In each instance, Bulger and Flemmi used pliers to yank out the victims’ teeth and cut off their fingers. Andrew Krieg of the Justice Integrity Project notes, "This kind of blunt reporting about such crimes is widely known William Bulger in Boston area. But the sheer depravity of many such crimes tends to get lost in standard news accounts for national audiences."

A commission member of the [[Massachusetts]] parole and pardons board claimed four members of a rival gang had been framed by the FBI and Bulger for a 1965 gangland killing, and were unjustly convicted. Mueller, as Assistant US Attorney and Acting US Attorney, opposed clemency throughout the 1980s for the four innocent men framed by the FBI. Meanwhile, Bulger's career as a crime boss and FBI informant flourished, with Mueller and the FBI removing his rivals from the streets. Exculpatory witnesses for the innocent men were murdered.<ref>https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/1970/01/19/one-lingering-question-for-fbi-director-robert-mueller/613uW0MR7czurRn7M4BG2J/story.html</ref>

A commission member of the [[Massachusetts]] parole and pardons board claimed four members of a rival gang had been framed by the FBI and Bulger for a 1965 gangland killing, and were unjustly convicted. Mueller, as Assistant US Attorney and Acting US Attorney, opposed clemency throughout the 1980s for the four innocent men framed by the FBI. Meanwhile, Bulger's career as a crime boss and FBI informant flourished, with Mueller and the FBI removing his rivals from the streets. Exculpatory witnesses for the innocent men were murdered.<ref>https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/1970/01/19/one-lingering-question-for-fbi-director-robert-mueller/613uW0MR7czurRn7M4BG2J/story.html</ref>