The 1992 standoff between white separatist Randy Weaver and federal agents on a mountainside in northern Idaho resulted in the fatal shootings of Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan; Weaver's wife, Vicki, and their 14-year-old son, Sam.
Potts said he rejected his lawyers' advice to assert his Fifth Amendment right not to testify because "when you have nothing to hide, there is no reason not to explain your actions."
Declaring that he had been treated unfairly, Potts said: "At no time did I order or encourage any person to destroy or alter records relating to this incident."
He said his denials could be corroborated by documents that the Justice Department refused to turn over to him or the subcommittee.
"We have a criminal investigation going on, and we don't hand out documents that could allow people to tailor their testimony to the documents," said a department spokesman, Bert Brandenburg.
Potts has been censured by the FBI for improper supervision at Ruby Ridge, and was suspended because of the criminal investigation.
As a result, Potts said, a legal cloud continues to hang over his head and ''my life has become an absolute disaster."
Potts and Danny Coulson, who supported Potts' testimony yesterday, were the number-two and number-three officials in the FBI's criminal investigative division in Washington during the standoff at Ruby Ridge.
Both men disputed earlier testimony by Eugene Glenn, the FBI's field commander at Ruby Ridge, that his superiors had made him a scapegoat.
Coulson said he was "shocked" by a "violent" plan of operation that Glenn faxed to him on the day that Vicki Weaver was fatally shot by an FBI sharpshooter.
