Internal FBI memos obtained by The Associated Press offer a rare window into how the bureau escaped hearings in the Oklahoma City prison death. Agents convinced one of Hatch's Senate leaders -- then-Republican whip Don Nickles -- that hearings were unnecessary.

Nickles "intimated that he had a significant role in determining whether this matter would require congressional review, and that such action would most likely not be necessary," FBI agents wrote in a January 28, 1998, memo summarizing their contacts with Nickles.

It may be that FBI agents were not honest with Nickles. The same memos show:

Nickles wanted to know whether there was evidence of a struggle in the cell before prisoner Kenneth Trentadue died, and agents told him that the blood found on various items in the cell belonged to Trentadue. But one of the same agents who briefed Nickles later testified at the civil trial that six months after the death he found a mattress in the prison cell with two blood stains on it -- one which belonged to someone other than Trentadue and which was never tested for DNA.

....Internal probes by the government reaffirmed the suicide ruling but found Justice employees had lied during the case and that evidence was mishandled, including a bloody sheet that was stuffed in an FBI car and putrefied, destroying its value as evidence.

Even Hatch now admits the case was handled improperly. Three senators, including two Republicans, have publicly criticized Hatch:

In February, three of Hatch's colleagues -- two of them fellow Republicans -- took a rare public swipe at their chairman, suggesting some of the FBI's pre-September 11 lapses might have been avoided by stronger committee oversight.

"While it is impossible to say what could have been done to stop attacks from occurring, it is certainly possible in hindsight to say that the FBI, and therefore the nation, would have benefited from earlier close scrutiny by the committee of the problems the agency faced. ... Such oversight might have led to corrective actions," Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, Charles Grassley, R-Iowa and Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, wrote.

Hatch is also drawing fire for not holding hearings into the FBI's conduct in the Chinese intelligence case involving Katrina Leung and her FBI handler/lover. And here's one more:

AP reported earlier this month that Hatch was told by senior staff as early as 1995 that the FBI had missed warning signs about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and was ill-prepared to prevent future domestic terrorist attacks. Though Hatch approved holding hearings in 1995, he never followed through.

Once again, no one is minding the FBI.