Exclusive: While lesser Americans face years in jail for leaking secrets even to inform fellow citizens of government abuses retired Gen. David Petraeus gets a misdemeanor wrist-slap for exposing covert officers and lying about it, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was jailed just for trying to ask Petraeus a question.
By Ray McGovern
The leniency shown former CIA Director (and retired General) David Petraeus by the Justice Department in sparing him prison time for the serious crimes that he has committed puts him in the same preferential, immune-from-incarceration category as those running the financial institutions of Wall Street, where, incidentally, Petraeus now makes millions. By contrast, “lesser” folks and particularly the brave men and women who disclose government crimes get to serve time, even decades, in jail.
Petraeus is now a partner at KKR, a firm specializing in large leveraged buyouts, and his hand-slap guilty plea to a misdemeanor for mishandling government secrets should not interfere with his continued service at the firm. KKR’s founders originally worked at Bear Stearns, the institution that failed in early 2008 at the beginning of the meltdown of the investment banking industry later that year.
Gen. David Petraeus in a photo with his biographer/mistress Paula Broadwell. (U.S. government photo)
Despite manifestly corrupt practices like those of subprime mortgage lenders, none of those responsible went to jail after the 2008-09 financial collapse which cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes. The bailed-out banks were judged “too big to fail” and the bankers “too big to jail.”
Two years ago, in a highly revealing slip of the tongue, Attorney General Eric Holder explained to Congress that it can “become difficult” to prosecute major financial institutions because they are so large that a criminal charge could pose a threat to the economy or perhaps what he meant was an even bigger threat to the economy.
Holder tried to walk back his unintended slip into honesty a year later, claiming, “There is no such thing as ‘too big to jail.’” And this bromide was dutifully echoed by Holder’s likely successor, Loretta Lynch, at her confirmation hearing in late January.
Words, though, are cheap. The proof is in the pudding. It remains true that not one of the crooked bankers or investment advisers who inflicted untold misery on ordinary people, gambling away much of their life savings, has been jailed. Not one.
And now Petraeus, who gave his biographer/mistress access to some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and then lied about it to the FBI, has also been shown to be too big to jail. Perhaps Holder decided it would be a gentlemanly thing to do on his way out of office to take this awkward issue off Lynch’s initial to-do list and spare her the embarrassment of demonstrating once again that equality under the law has become a mirage; that not only big banks, but also big shots like Petraeus who was Official Washington’s most beloved general before becoming CIA director are, in fact, too big to jail.
It strikes me, in a way, as fitting that even on his way out the door, Eric Holder would not miss the opportunity to demonstrate his propensity for giving hypocrisy a bad name.
A Slap on Wrist for Serious Crimes
The Justice Department let David Petraeus cop a plea after requiring him to admit that he had shared with his biographer/mistress eight black notebooks containing highly classified information and then lied about it to FBI investigators. Serious crimes? The following quotes are excerpted from “U.S. v. David Howell Petraeus: Factual Basis in support of the Plea Agreement” offered by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division:
“17. During his tenure as Commander of ISAF in Afghanistan, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS maintained bound, five-by-eight-inch notebooks that contained his daily schedule and classified and unclassified notes he took during official meetings, conferences, and briefings. … A total of eight such books (hereinafter the “Black Books”) encompassed the period of defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS’S ISAF [Afghanistan] command and collectively contained classified information regarding the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions, quotes and deliberative discussions from high-level National Security Council meetings, and defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS’s discussions with the President of the United States of America. [emphasis added]
“18. The Black Books contained national defense information, including Top Secret//SCI and code word information.”
Despite the sensitivity of the notebooks and existing law and regulations, Petraeus did not surrender them to proper custody when he returned to the U.S. after being nominated to become the Director of the CIA. According to the Court’s “Factual Basis,” Petraeus’s biographer/mistress recorded a conversation of Aug. 4, 2011, in which she asks about the “Black Books.” The Court statement continues:
“ [Petraeus] ‘Umm, well, they’re really I mean they are highly classified, some of them. … I mean there’s code word stuff in there.’ … On or about August 27, 2011, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS sent an email to his biographer in which he agreed to provide the Black Books to his biographer. … On or about August 28, 2011, defendant DAVID HOWEL PETRAEUS delivered the Black Books to a private residence in Washington, D.C. where his biographer was staying. … On or about September 1, 2011, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS retrieved the Black Books from the D.C. private residence and returned them to his own Arlington, Virginia home.” [emphasis added]
I would think it a safe guess that Petraeus’s timing can be attributed to his awareness that his privacy and freedom of movement was about to be greatly diminished, once his CIA personal security detail started keeping close track of him from his first day on the job as CIA Director, Sept. 6, 2011.
“32. On or about October 26, 2012, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS was interviewed by two FBI special agents. … [He] was advised that the special agents were conducting a criminal investigation. … PETRAEUS stated that (a) he had never provided any classified information to his biographer, and (b) he had never facilitated the provision of classified information to his biographer. These statements were false. Defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS then and there knew that he previously shared the Black Books with his biographer.” [emphasis added]
Lying to the FBI? No problem. As “Expose Facts” blogger Marcy Wheeler immediately commented: “For lying to the FBI a crime that others go to prison for for months and years Petraeus will just get a two point enhancement on his sentencing guidelines. The Department of Justice basically completely wiped out the crime of covering up his crime of leaking some of the country’s most sensitive secrets to his mistress.” [emphasis added]
Talk about “prosecutorial discretion” or, in this case, indiscretion giving Petraeus a fine and probation but no felony conviction or prison time for what he did! Lesser lights are not so fortunate. Just ask Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for disclosing information to the public about U.S. war crimes and other abuses. Or Edward Snowden, who is stuck in Russia facing a U.S. indictment on espionage charges for informing the people about pervasive and unconstitutional U.S. government surveillance of common citizens.
Or former CIA officer John Kiriakou who was sent to prison for inadvertently revealing the name of one Agency official cognizant of CIA torture. Here’s what Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said then: “The government has a vital interest in protecting the identities of those involved in covert operations. Leaks of highly sensitive, closely held and classified information compromise national security and can put individual lives in danger.”
When, on Oct. 23, 2012, Kiriakou acquiesced to a plea deal requiring two-and-a-half years in federal prison, then CIA Director Petraeus sent a sanctimonious Memorandum to Agency employees applauding Kiriakou’s conviction and noting, “It marks an important victory for our agency … there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy.” [emphasis added]
Consequences for Kiriakou but not, as we now know, for Petraeus.
If you feel no discomfort at this selective application of the law, you might wish to scroll or page back to the “Factual Basis” for Petraeus’s Plea Agreement and be reminded that it was just three days after his lecture to CIA employees about the sanctity of protecting the identity of covert agents that Petraeus lied to FBI investigators on Oct. 26, 2012 about his sharing such details with his mistress.
Why Did Petraeus Do It?
Old soldiers like Petraeus (indeed, most aging but still ambitious men) have been known to end up doing self-destructive things by letting themselves be flattered by the attentions of younger women. This may offer a partial explanation human weakness even in a self-styled larger-than-life super-Mensch. But I see the motivation as mostly vainglory. (The two are not mutually exclusive, of course.)
Looking back at Petraeus’s record of overweening ambition, it seems likely he was motivated first and foremost by a desire to ensure that his biographer would be able to extract from the notebooks some juicy morsels he may not have remembered to tell her about. This might enhance his profile as Warrior-Scholar-“King David,” the image that he has assiduously cultivated and promoted, with the help of an adulating neocon-dominated media.
Petraeus’s presidential ambitions have been an open secret. And with his copping a plea to a misdemeanor, his “rehabilitation” seems to have already begun. He has told friends that he would like to serve again in government and they immediately relayed that bright hope to the media.
Sen. John McCain was quick to call the whole matter “closed.” A strong supporter of Petraeus, McCain added this fulsome praise: “At a time of grave security challenges around the world, I hope that General Petraeus will continue to provide his outstanding service and leadership to our nation, as he has throughout his distinguished career.”
And Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings’ neocon military specialist who rarely gets anything right, spoke true to form to the New York Times: “The broader nation needs his advice, and I think it’s been evident that people still want to hear from him. … People are forgiving and I know he made a mistake. But he’s also a national hero and a national treasure.”
The “mainstream media” is trapped in its undeserved adulation for Petraeus’s “heroism.” It is virtually impossible, for example, for them to acknowledge that his ballyhooed, official-handout-based “success” in training and equipping tens of thousands of crack Iraqi troops was given the lie when those same troops ran away (the officers took helicopters) and left their weapons behind at the first sight of ISIL fighters a year ago.
Equally sham were media claims of the “success” for the “surges” of 30,000 troops sent into Iraq (2007) and 33,000 into Afghanistan (2009). Each “surge” squandered the lives of about 1,000 U.S. troops for nothing yes, nothing except in the case of Iraq buying time for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to get out of town without a clear-cut defeat hanging around their necks.
Many of the supposed successes of Petraeus’s Iraqi “surge” also predated the “surge,” including a high-tech program for killing top militants such as Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the formation of the so-called Sunni Awakening, both occurring in 2006 under the previous field commanders. And, Bush’s principal goal of the “surge” to create political space for a fuller Sunni-Shiite reconciliation was never accomplished. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Surge Myth’s Deadly Result.”]
And last, it is important to note that David Petraeus does not have a corner on the above-the-law attitudes and behavior of previous directors of the CIA. The kid-gloves treatment he has been accorded, however, will increase chances that future directors will feel they can misbehave seriously and suffer no serious personal consequence.
The virtual immunity enjoyed by the well connected even when they lie to the FBI or tell whoppers in sworn testimony to Congress (as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has done) feeds the propensity to prioritize one’s own personal ambition and to delegate a back seat to legitimate national security concerns even basic things like giving required protection to properly classified information, including the identity of covert officers.
One might call this all-too-common syndrome Self-Aggrandizing Dismissiveness (SAD). Sadly, Petraeus is merely the latest exemplar of the SAD syndrome. The unbridled ambitions of some of his predecessors at CIA the arrogant John Deutch, for example have been equally noxious and destructive. But we’ll leave that for the next chapter.
Full Disclosure: Petraeus has not yet answered McGovern’s letter of Feb. 3 regarding why McGovern was barred from a public speaking event by Petraeus in New York City on Oct. 30, 2014, and then was roughly arrested by police and jailed for the night. McGovern wonders if Petraeus failed to respond because he was pre-occupied working out his Plea Agreement.
Ray McGovern worked for a total of 27 years in all four of CIA’s main directorates. He served under seven Presidents and nine CIA Directors, and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He now works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.
do you belive d h,petraeus his honnestly- no -because he use some honnest woman to use them and play whith them ,and her innoncence
Broadwell was a Reservist on active duty when she was “writing” Betrayus’s biography and doing period maintenance on his dick. Both of them should have been prosecuted/court martialed and and their security clearances revoked.
has anyone looked into the possibility that broadwell was working for someone else? sounds kinda conspiracy-theory crazy, but seems like using a young woman to pry secrets from a powerful older man is right out of a spy playbook.
also, seems odd she would ask about the black books. why would a biographer need to dig into the secrets of a top general/cia director? that’s stuff that would never make it into print anyway.
love to see an answer from ray mcgovern or robert parry. didn’t see a way to ask them directly, so using the comment section.
Of course, we’ll never know the truth. Historical analogies do provide models upon which to speculate. Finding out “real names”, marriage interrelationships and business connections help as well. An intrepid pilot with aviation records under his belt was portrayed as an eccentric lunatic. He may well have been. But he didn’t act alone. The official narrative describes a lone nut with delusions of grandeur, and little chance of success. He had an appointment with influential persons. Their stage names were Windsor and Hamilton. A fighter escort accompanied him to the coast. Radio navigation beacons wore turned on to intersect his destination at great risk. Fighter interceptors could have stopped him. Instead, they were recalled. Miraculously, he arrived within walking distance of his objective. Injuries subdued him. Imprisoned incommunicado for the rest of his life, he never revealed the truth. Neither did those with whom he was to rendezvous. Personal letters regarding the episode were classified, then destroyed. Was treason afoot? Their real names were Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The eccentric pilot was the perfect patsy should plans go awry. But of course, that’s all just “conspiracy theory”. Common sense should never be allowed to masquerade as a rational explanation when there is a perfectly implausible “official story”. Paula Broadwell nee Kranz and the likelihood she represented a classic “honey trap” and a foreign intelligence agency would probably fall into that category. I suggest reading Robert David Steele’s interpretation. Mind you, its just a “conspiracy theory”. Don’t let common sense lead you astray.
“…conspiracy-theory crazy?”
You lost me on that one.
Over the past decade, “King” David Petraeus was directly involved at key stages of the destruction of the Iraqi, Syrian and Libyan civil societies.
RELENTLESS VIOLENCE IN IRAQ
In June 2004, Petraeus was promoted to lieutenant general and became the first commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq in June 2004.
This newly created command had responsibility for training, equipping, and mentoring Iraq’s growing army, police, and other security forces as well as developing Iraq’s security institutions and building associated infrastructure.
Acclaimed as a counter insurgency expert, Petraeus “built relationships and got cooperation†by training and equipping the Iraqi ministries of Defense and Interior. These units became notorious for their secret prisons, torture centers and mass killings.
Training and weapons distribution was haphazard, rushed, and did not follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005 when security training was led by Petraeus. When Iraq’s security forces began to see combat, the results were predictable.
Petraeus continued to fail upwards. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced that Petraeus would succeed Gen. George Casey as commanding general of Multi-National Force-Iraq.
Based on the Petraeus Doctrine that “more terror is better,†the good General implemented a massive security crackdown in Baghdad combined with the infamous “surge†in coalition troop strength.
Petraeus’ “surge†was credited for a reduction in the death rate for coalition troops. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior reported similar reductions for civilian deaths.
However, a September 2007 report by an independent military commission headed by General James Jones found that the decrease in violence may have been due to areas being overrun by either Shias or Sunnis. In addition, in August 2007, the International Organization for Migration and the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization indicated that more Iraqis had fled since the troop increase.
In short, Petraeus’ vaunted counter insurgency strategy to “secure the population†had succeeded by further depopulating and ethnically polarizing Iraq.
Thus Petraeus was instrumental in advancing the US plan to effectively divide Iraq into three states: a Sunni state across wide swaths of central Iraq and Syria, a Shi’ite state in the south, and a Kurdish state in the north.
After serving as CENTCOM commander (2008-2010), commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan in Afghanistan (2010-2011), Petraeus was nominated by Obama to become the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. On 30 June, 2011, Petraeus was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate 94–0.
ATTACKS IN LIBYA AND SYRIA
From 2011 up to the present, the situation in Syria manifests “an armed intervention and the illegal violation of the UN Charter by the US and various other countries including most likely Turkey.â€
Shifting from CENTCOM to the International Security Assistance Force to Central Intelligence, Petraeus was well-positioned to coordinate a “new way forward†in the Syrian conflict.
In August 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, began sending Syrian and Iraqi ISI guerillas across the border into Syria. Led by Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, this group began to recruit fighters and establish cells throughout the country.
Al-Qaeda is viewed by many as a long-term CIA asset. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Al-Qaeda re-boot, rapidly expanded during Petraeus’ tenure as CIA Director (September 6, 2011 – November 9, 2012).
ISIS allegedly started as a counterguerilla project in Iraq.
On 23 January 2012, the group announced its formation as Jabhat al-Nusra, more commonly known as al-Nusra Front. Al-Nusra grew rapidly into a capable fighting force with popular support among Syrians opposed to the Assad regime.
In July 2012, al-Baghdadi released an audio statement online announcing that the group was returning to the former strongholds from which US troops and their Sunni allies had driven them prior to the withdrawal of US troops. He also declared the start of a new offensive in Iraq called Breaking the Walls, which was aimed at freeing members of the group held in Iraqi prisons. Violence in Iraq began to escalate that month.
Jihadists who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan were recruited to overthrow Gadhafi in Libya. Weapons had been shipped to these forces through Qatar with American approval. In the spring of 2012, Petraeus made several trips to Turkey to facilitate the supply operation.
According to multiple anonymous sources, the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was used by CIA as a cover to smuggle weapons from Libya to anti-Assad rebels in Syria.
Petraeus allegedly was running the CIA ratline, transferring Libyan arms (and possibly Al-Qaeda forces) to southern Turkey so the terrorists could launch attacks into Syria.
Seymour Hersh cited a source among intelligence officials, saying that the U.S. consulate had no real political role and that its sole mission was to provide cover for the transfer of arms.
The September 11-12, 2012 attack on this hub of CIA activity allegedly brought end to active US involvement, but did not stop the smuggling of weapons and fighters to Syria.
POINTED QUESTIONS FOR THE RAT KING
When the Rattenkönig resigned, purportedly due to the FBI’s discovery of the Broadwell affair, Petraeus was scheduled to testify under oath the following week before power House and Senate committees regarding the attack on the Benghazi consulate.
Petraeus’ official actions as CIA Director, not his personal indiscretions, were a political liability to Obama during the 2012 election.
Petraeus and Obama were spared many pointed questions in November 2012.
Those questions still need to be asked and answered.
Imagine the majestic rat king squeaking about how the US as “all in†with Al-Qaeda in Libya, Syria and Iraq. Now that would be a truly “riveting insider’s account.â€
Abe, nice briefing on Petraeus. From what you mentioned here, one could say, we are living through ISIS the ‘Petraeus Doctrine’. What a doctrine this shameless general has given us. Everything sounds good around a conference table, but then what? Innocent people suffer, and that’s just collateral damage, so what. It’s as though worldly instability is the goal, and then beef up the police state at home to guard against blowback. Why, because that’s what greed needs to do to protect their riches. How creative it would be of them to replace tanks with bulldozers. How creative of them to replace bombs with roads and bridges. Instead their beastly ways bred the likes of Petraeus.
World instability IS the goal. The rich continue to profit fabulously from the Global War of Terror while the militarized police state at home provides their security. Lackeys like Petraeus are protected unless they cease to be useful.
How right you are, Abe. Yet the real profits to be made could be made through peace. Consider all of what the people of the world need. Building a 21st century worldwide infrastructure could be a start. If there is to be a New World Order then have them create a worldwide healthcare system. Mandate every country manufacturers a third of what they need. Actually make money on product you can farm, or manufacturer. Quit, having bankers making all the money on financial make believe portfolios. Have a Manhatten Project by installing, and developing renewable energy. Oil won’t be around forever.
You get the idea. We should all get beyond promoting the Petraeus’s of the world.
Joe, I wish for your view to be promoted 24/7. You are right. It didn’t HAVE to be an MIC, as President Eisenhower described it, developing after WWII. That was largely engineered by “Imperial Money Powers” in Wall Street and City-of-London, to sink “New Dealism” and drive a false wedge between WWII allies USA and USSR. It could have been FDR’s New Deal, permanently institutionalized in a CCC/WPA/TVA-industrial complex, working on behalf of World Development, under U.N. auspices, to develop all the former colonies of European Empires. The World is now being given a second chance at development, through BRICS. This is yet another sad chapter in the on-going War between The Republic and The Empire, that has been roiling and ripping at Western Civilization for the last 2,500 years, ever since the Roman Republic lost out to the Roman Empire, in violent, bloody, Civil War. It is a War that has now engulfed the entire World.
Brad, your historical references gives great reflection to times of good rhetoric, wonderful romance, and the better side of young budding empires. I like Ike, FDR, and reliable Cincinnatius. Although while Eisenhower gave his speech January 17 1961 ask yourself what was our CIA up to. FDR’s administration weren’t very nice to Japanese Americans. My Italian relatives (Semnites) beat the Roman Republic until around 2bc we decided to join the soon to be empire. I won’t go into Spartacus.
If we as a people could only realize that as our world gets smaller and smaller, we will need to actually end all war. No one can win thid fight we (mostly the U.S.) are waging. Why, real entrepreneurs would jump all over projects such as keeping people fed. Once fed, well the sky’s the limit.
Instead of studying history only to notice the rhyme why not do something to change it if we see a point of repeation. I think our world is at one of those times where real sane change is needed. Thanks for your reply.
But, how can this be? Has not our president repeatedly assured us that “no one is above the law”? Just ask Chelsea Manning, John Kirakou, Jeffrey Sterling for examples. There’s all the proof you need.
Did the “private residence” have copy machines, computers and internet? No doors were broken and no body got searched? The police dog never barked? This never happened because Betrayus never won any battles or any wars, never captured any country’s or even any towns.
The all volunteer professional military has left the USA with a fat bloated officers corps, sitting in offices on a thousand bases world wide just waiting for retirement. The enlisted are wasted on repeated tours of combat.
Not only “sitting in offices.” Waiting for retirement would be way too boring if it wasn’t for the periodic Tail Hook type drunken sex orgies. And don’t forget all the fun on Duke Cunningham’s yacht financed by the military industrial complex. How many complaints and investigations of “sex harassment” and even rape by officers are now well documented? How and why do attractive civilian women who live near military bases like Broadwell’s nemesis, Jill Kelley, get appointed “volunteer social liaison” for the officer clubs? All volunteers, like Petraeus, just wanna have some fun waiting for their even fatter checks that come after they go through the revolving door.
I’m guessing the reason Broadwell was not prosecuted is she’s considered to be a member of the press as she was Petraeus’ biographer?! But at very least, one would think the FBI would have investigated what Broadwell did with the classified information and covert identities. She could have shared the info further as another comment suggests.
Also check out this 2012 story by Michael Daly of the Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/12/exclusive-paula-broadwell-s-emails-revealed.html) which fawned over Petraeus but turned out very wrong:
“the FBI agents found no indication that it constituted a crime or a threat to national security. They confirmed this when they interviewed Broadwell and then Petraeus. They are both said to have been forthcoming and consistent, even telling the agents more than they already knew.
Petraeus seems to have been the first guy in memory not to lie about sex. And a good thing too, because lying to a federal agent is a crime. Martha Stewart found that out the hard way.”
Time to topple the Entire TREASONOUS E$TABLISHMENT; BetrayUS, included.
I am an independent researcher who has been trying to blow the whistle on and get an investigation into all sorts of conflicts of interests I have found hidden in the “network” of senior officials who have been using the CIA to enrich themselves since the CIA was formed.
I first started researching the CIA after reading the research on the CIA that was being compiled by a former CIA analyst named Steve Kangas who was found suspiciously dead with a hole in his head in the bathroom next to the office of Richard Mellon Scaife in 1999 – right before he was about to expose research into Richard Mellon Scaife and other members of the CIA. Steve Kangas has detailed it all in his website http://www.Liberalismresurgent.com. which hopefully is still being run by some friend of Steve’s. (One day, I would like to see the Steve Kangas murder investigated – but it seems that in Pennsylvania, all they needed to do was report the death – two months after Kangas was found dead – which gave Scaife’s “bodyguard”, Rex, time to clear out Kangas’ computer.) Who is in charge when this is what passes for “justice” in Pennsylvania?
I recently watched a Documentary on Ray McGovern and I appreciate his honesty and transparency and I take his word for it that there may have been some “good apples” in the CIA over the years. What frustrates me is that there have been so many bad apples exposed by investigative journalists and the Church Commission and others since then, but there still has been no accountability for the criminal acts and the War Crimes that have been done by the CIA and the NSA and the military and the Legal Counsels associated with our Republican party and the social welfare agencies/ lobbying groups like Citizen’s United that are protected by the legal counsels to the Republican pundits and operatives.
Much of the CIA corruption seemed to start with the the CIA and the Dulles Brothers – who Truman, and Eisenhower and Kennedy and others said were never supposed to be doing the operational targeted assassinations they were doing in the name of the CIA yet they have kept doing it until today – with impunity. I have tried to write to the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility that supposedly oversees CIA misconduct but nothing happens.
Is there a way that we could get an independent investigation and prosecution of all the fraud and conspiracy that remains “hidden” and “classified” in the CIA? For instance, it is known and publicaly verifiable in documents now that from the beginning of the CIA under CIA Director Allan Dulles, a known Nazi War Criminal who served under Hitler, Reinhard Gehlen, was hired by CIA Director Allan Dulles and paid over a million US dollars to plot the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran for the benefit of English oil interests and this is the known conspiracy of US and UK and Israeli Capitalists that are still using CIA and CIA funded propagandists to wage war on developing countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan who have a right to their own oil. It has also been revealed in declassified documents that the CIA was behind the genocide and War Crimes in El Salvador, Cambodia, and East Timor. How many more war crimes will be done in America’s name? Who is the legal body to get this prosecuted? Why not the UN? In the documentary, the Trials of Henry Kissenger, a Legal Jurist with the last name of Tiger seemed to understand how he could prosecute this trial. I think it would help to get the former CIA analysts and investigative journalists like Ray McGovern and Robert Parry on board as well.
I think the reason all of these guys are getting away with the “too big to prosecute” line is that they are using their access to the Dept of Justice to dismantle the regulations that criminalize their war crimes. Ted Olson actually bragged to a Federalist Society dinner that he told Bill Clinton when Clinton was first President that the difference between Bill Clinton’s job as president and Ted Olson’s job in the Justice Department (with Cheney, Reinquest, Bush, Rumsfield, Bork, Scalia, and others) was that Olson’s job was not limited by the Constitution. Maybe that is the Constitutional Amendment “gap” that needs to be plugged.
Another major abuse of power I see as needing to be prosecuted somehow is that “undue influencers” like Bill Crystal and Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were able to somehow “legally” start this pre-emptive war on terror even before 9-11 – and the victims of their legal machinations and lack of “Honest Services” regulations seem to not have any legal standing, except maybe to sue them somehow.
Another dirty trick that needs to be exposed and re-regulated is that, as a result of someone not putting into the law the Citizen’s Protection Laws that were voted into law by large majorities in the House and Senate, Legal Counsels, Prosecutors and Lawyers like Ted Olson and David Addington now can only be prosecuted when they are caught taking money illegally as lawyers and even when that is the case, its seems there are laws in place about who’s Office of Professional Responsibility in the Inspector General’s office has the “legal standing” to sue these corrupt Lawyers for corrupting the law and dismantling the legal protections and due process laws that the justice system is supposed to provide equally to the people.
Could it be that someone like me – who is a friend of a single victim – say Steve Kangas – the former American CIA Analyst who was killed by the Richard Mellon Scaife’s or his people – has the right to a competent criminal investigation into crimes of Richard Mellon Scaife and others he is affiliated with who corruptly used the cover of the CIA and a corrupt classification system – to get an investigation into the CIA officials – living and dead – whose monies are still being used to tilt the playing field toward supply side parties who benefit from wars to the detriment of the conscientious objectors to war.
I think one major CIA-affiliated connection that needs to be investigated and prosecuted are the think tanks like the Manhattan Institute and others who were started by former CIA Director William Casey’s Capital Cities venture (which included ABC and other assets that may have belonged to the US taxpayers). Dick Cheney’s legal Counsel, David Addington, should also be investigated for the potential that he misused US Treasury money to fund appropriations to his NATO allies in Poland and the Ukraine and his covert and probably illegal misuse of funds for propaganda through Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and USAID.
Also, regarding the legal punishment for David Petraeus,, we need a Justice Department or a Military Justice Department to look into David Petraeus’ connection with Grayson Wolfe – the husband of Natalie Kawham Wolfe – the sister of the woman who blew the whistle on Broadwell. Grayson Wolfe’s Akkadia is a huge Middle Eastern private venture that is clearly benefiting from the War on Terror that no one has talked about in the media.
According to the web site, Grayson Wolfe is the managing partner of Akkadia http://www.akkadianpv.com/ Grayson Wolfe previously served as Director of Broader Middle East Initiatives and Iraqi Reconstruction and Special Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer at the Export-Import Bank of the United States. He was appointed to the bank by President Bush in June 2002. Between January and August 2004, Wolfe served as Manager of the Private Sector Development Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq. In this capacity he was directly responsible for implementing a wide range of initiatives to attract foreign direct investment and provide financing to Iraqi companies. During this time, Wolfe worked extensively on the ground with senior Iraqi and Kurdish officials, and with the Ministries of Finance, Trade and Oil.
From 2001 to 2002 Wolfe worked as an attorney for the law firm of Fleischman and Walsh, LLP, where he represented clients engaged in Homeland Security, Telecommunications and Intellectual Property matters. He served as a member of a seven-person team that worked with the North American Railroads and Chlorine Chemical Industries to develop a National Homeland Security Risk Analysis and Management Plan. This plan was adopted by the Class I Freight Railroad CEOs on Dec 6, 2001. Wolfe served as Legislative Director and Counsel for members of Congress from 1999-2002. He has also served in numerous positions in presidential, federal and state political campaigns. Before this, he worked for Citicorp in Poland focusing on emerging markets and franchise development opportunities in Central and Eastern European countries.
I think Broadwell’s close ties to Israel merit investigation.
Broadwell’s close ties to Israel merit investigation.