If Hillary not indicted, U.S. gov’t should exonerate ex-CIA agent Kiriakou

“Bill and Hillary Clinton and their friends, sycophants and defenders are a stench in the nostrils of honest and patriotic Americans.” – Police Chief Donald Frye (Ret.)

Based on information already known and statements by legal experts, Democratic presidential heir apparent  Hillary Clinton should be indicted if only for allegations that she leaked Israeli war plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program to newspaper reporters. The Israelis provided that classified information in the mistaken belief that the Obama administration was their ally.

A former Department of Justice prosecuting attorney who now works as an independent government watchdog, Larry Klayman, has said that he believes then-Secretary of State Clinton was responsible for leaking classified intelligence regarding the military plans of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish States intelligence and military officials with the goal of destroying Iran’s facilities used to create a nuclear bomb.

“If Clinton doesn’t face indictments for the leaks, the unauthorized use of a non-government email server, Clinton’s casual relationship with classified information and other allegations, then the Obama administration should exonerate Kiriakou of all charges,” said former police detective and military intelligence operative Michael Snopes.

According to a 2012 news story by Jim Kouri for the Magic City Morning Star, former veteran Central Intelligence Agency operations officer, John Kiriakou, was charged with frequently disclosing classified intelligence to journalists, including the identity of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the identity and role of another CIA employee in classified activities, according to a U.S. Justice Department reported obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.

The charges result from an investigation involving CIA Senior Operations Officer John Kiriakou that was triggered by a defense filing in January 2009, which contained classified information the defense had not been given through official government channels, and, in part, by the discovery in the spring of 2009 of photographs of certain government employees and contractors in the materials of high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The investigation revealed that on multiple occasions, one of the journalists to whom the 47-year old Kiriakou is alleged to have illegally disclosed classified information, in turn, disclosed that information to a defense team investigator, and that this information was reflected in the classified defense filing and enabled the defense team to take or obtain surveillance photographs of government personnel.

The journalists are not identified by name in court documents, but many believe that Kiriakou was a source for a June 2008 New York Times article written by Scott Shane.There are no allegations of criminal activity by any members of the defense team for the detainees.

Kiriakou, of Arlington, Virginia, was a CIA intelligence officer between 1990 and 2004, serving at headquarters and in various classified overseas assignments. He was charged with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer and two counts of violating the Espionage Act for the alleged illegal disclosure of national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it.

Kiriakou was also charged with one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA in an unsuccessful attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to include classified information in a book he was seeking to publish.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who was appointed Special Attorney in 2010 to supervise the investigation,

announced the charges with James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they thanked the Central Intelligence Agency for its very substantial assistance in the investigation, as well as the Air Force Office of Special Investigations for its assistance.

“Protecting the identities of America’s covert operatives is one of the most important responsibilities of those who are entrusted with roles in our nation’s intelligence community. The FBI and our intelligence community partners work diligently to hold accountable those who violate that special trust,” said Mr. McJunkin.

The CIA filed a crime report with the Justice Department on March 19, 2009, prior to the discovery of the photographs and after reviewing the January 19,

2009, classified filing by defense counsel for certain detainees with the military commission then responsible for adjudicating charges. The defense filing contained information relating to the identities and activities of covert government personnel, but prior to January 19, 2009, there had been no authorized disclosure to defense counsel of the classified information.

The Justice Department’s National Security Division, working with the FBI, began the investigation. To avoid the risk of encountering a conflict of interest because of the pending prosecutions of some of the high-value detainees, Mr. Fitzgerald was assigned to supervise the investigation conducted by a team of attorneys from the Southern District of New York, the Northern District of Illinois, and the Counterespionage Section of the National Security Division who were not involved in pending prosecutions of the detainees.

Prior to publication of his book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, Kiriakou submitted a draft manuscript in July 2008 to the CIA’s Publication Review Board (PRB). Kiriakou allegedly lied to the PRB by falsely claiming that the technique was fictional and that he had never heard of it before.

Upon conviction, the count charging illegal disclosure of a covert operative’s identity to a person not authorized to receive classified information carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, which must be imposed consecutively to any other term of imprisonment; the two counts charging violations of the Espionage Act each carry a maximum term of 10 years in prison; and making false statements carries a maximum prison term of five years. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000.

(“John C. Kiriakou, the first CIA officer to be imprisoned for leaking classified information to a reporter, has been released to home confinement after serving nearly two years in federal prison in Pennsylvania.” – New York Times, Feb. 9, 2015)