Just a week ago the establishment media was aflutter with news that a CIA double-agent had thwarted a new type of underwear bomb attack targeting U.S. flights in a plot devised by al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.
But as the week progressed, a developing bombshell story got buried under President Obama’s gay marriage announcement. Not only is the supposed CIA asset not a CIA asset at all, but the entire operation was exposed prematurely and the double-agent’s life was immediately threatened by an intelligence leak that very well may have come out of the White House for political gain.
Read the whole story, and be sure to click on the links.
That’s pretty serious stuff if it’s true. It should be immediately investigated and if someone did in fact leak this information, they should be prosecuted and spend a long time in prison. Remember a few years ago when the Democrats accused someone in the White House of “outing” Valerie Plame? Wall to wall coverage, FBI investigations, and in the end it turned out no one in the White House outed anyone, Valerie Plame wasn’t a covert agent, and the only conviction was of VP Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff for lying to the FBI. Only no one was quite sure what he lied about since he wasn’t the source of the leak.
In this case, not only was a covert agent exposed, but he wasn’t even a covert US controlled agent. He was an asset belonging to the British and was working for them and the Saudi Secret Police. I can’t imagine that this will improve relations with one of our key allies, not one bit. I also would bet that other nations will think twice, or maybe more than twice, before they share secret information with the US.
The President should order his Attorney General to start an immediate investigation. Better yet, he should appoint a Special Counsel to do that.
I’m not holding my breath, though. Hypoxia is not good for you.
I predict that nothing will come of this story, and no one will face any prosecution for this at all. The British may issue a cautiously-worded statement, though.
What will come of it will be behind the scenes, as in the CIA won’t be included in certain operations and information will be withheld from us.
Prosecuted… on what charge?
Can’t be treason, as the goal was certainly not “aid and comfort” to our enemies; and doing so as a side-effect of something else isn’t treason.
Can’t be the same bullshit as the Plame charges, as the asset in question was not even American, and IIRC the statute in question deals only with American intelligence assets, and possibly only actual employees of American intelligence agencies.
This is a diplomatic nightmare and evidence of being farkin’ amateur incompetents, but I don’t know that any law was broken – it’s not illegal (or treason) to harm relations with an ally for political gain.
It’s unprofessional, cheap, tawdry, and amateurish. But not a crime.
Was the goal merely to aggrandize the President and his role in the War on Terror? Although maybe not the intent, you can make a credible argument that this did give aid and comfort to the enemy and will harm efforts to defeat them.