FBI director Louis Freeh warns that Russian organized crime networks are growing and that they pose a menace to U.S. national security. He says that Russian syndicates are forging ties with the Italian mafia and Colombian drug cartels. Though Freeh would become personally involved in terrorism investigations after the 1996 Khobar Towers attack, 1998 African embassy, and October 2000 USS Cole attacks, his personal focus remains organized crime, and—under Bush administration Attorney General John Ashcroft before 9/11—on pornography.
Freeh would leave office on June 25, 2001 seven years into his ten-year term. The FBI then had an acting director until September 4, when Robert Mueller was confirmed as the sixth director, just a week before 9/11.