Newsweek: Could one of the world's most notorious terrorist groups have infiltrated U.S. government?

[kpete]

Michael Isikoff andMark Hosenball
A Hizbollah Mole?
Case against CIA spy shocks counter-intelligence community

Nov 13, 2007 | Updated: 7:46 p.m. ET Nov 13, 2007

A former FBI agent who pleaded guilty Tuesday to fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship and then improperly accessing sensitive computer information about Hizbollah was working until about a year ago as a CIA spy assigned to Middle East operations, Newsweek has learned.

The stunning case of Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese native who is related to a suspected Hizbollah money launderer, appears to raise a nightmarish question for U.S. intelligence agencies: Could one of the world's most notorious terrorist groups have infiltrated the U.S. government?

"I'm beginning to think it's possible that Hizbollah put a mole in our government," said Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism chief under Presidents Clinton and, until 2002, Bush. "It's mind-blowing."

..........

The case is clearly a major embarrassment for both the FBI and CIA and has already raised a host of questions. Chief among them: how did an illegal alien from Lebanon who was working as a waitress at a shish kabob restaurant in Detroit manage to slip through extensive security background checks, including polygraphs, to land highly sensitive positions with the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence agencies?


much more at:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70309/page/1

[spanone]

1. K&R

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Apparently, they did, right under the nose of the 'war president'.

[tom_paine]

46. Yeah, right under his nose, right.

:sarcasm:

I no longer buy the incompetence bit. The bushies are VERY competent when doing what they want, killing innocents, torturing, stealing, letting New Orleans drown so Louisiana can turn Republic, tanking the anthrax investigation to protect their Bushie Ally, supressing African-American votes, and so much more.

Yeah, under his nose.

[sinkingfeeling]

47. So you're saying that Bush&co. allowed infiltration of the FBI and CIA by this woman? For what

reason? To 'allow' another 'terrorist attack' here?

[tom_paine]

49. I am speculating, first off. Second, I do not pretend to know the intricate details

of what is going on.

What I DO know is that the Bush Family has a long, deep, and multifaceted habit of dealing with America's enemies for personal gain, from Adolf Hitler to the Vietcong when the sabotaged the 1968 Paris Peace Talks to the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian Radicals, when the Bushies arranged for the hostages to stay hostages until the election was won (Google "October Surprise"). And so much more. History is replete with Bushies dealing with America's enemies for personal gain, and Saddam's mid-90s megadeals with Halliburton are merely the latest in a long string.

There is ample evidence that all of these things are true. Hell, Prescott Bush's NAME is mentioned on the Trading With The Enemies Act of 1942, if you care to look it up.

What I also know is that Bin Laden and the Anthrax Assassin who paralyzed our nation with fear for two months are both free after seven years, and there is no sign that they will ever be caught. Hell, no one even mentions the Anthrax Assassination Attempts of October 2001 anymore. It has become UnHistory.

I will offer one speculation for you, that perhaps she was a convenient conduit while there is her "unknown" role, for people who can't normally be seen communicating nor have any records of it. Two third parties, maybe, who are supposed to be enemies, but are partial allies, each using the other for personal gain?

Maybe, maybe not. Hall, it may be that this infiltration is exactly what is being represented to use by our diligent, courageous, and through MSM, though somehow, like nearly everything else in the past seven years and further back, I seriously doubt it.

[StClone]

3. K&P And LOL

Bush don't need no help and his lit' Cheney too.

[Bonobo]

4. Best way would be as a homosexual male prostitute.

Think about it.

All records of visits to the White House are scrubbed.
Spy/Prostitute would be in position for easy blackmail/extortion.
Victim could never talk about it.

Every closeted gay republican that uses professional services probably call the same place.

That would be the way.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Isn't their priorities freaky?

They removed gay men from translator jobs in the FBI, but they embraced male prostitutes in the white house.

[Bonobo]

11. That is a pretty ironic one all right.

[blm]

19. Remember Gov. McGrory being outed right after 2004 Dem Convention so all

the news media was on that story 24/7 for a week?

That was an Israeli operative and I would bet that he was in service at the time to protect the BushInc/neocon agenda.

[WinkyDink]

26. McGreavy?

[blm]

28. Oops - definitely meant McGreavy. I can't talk on the phone and post at the

same time...heh.

Thanks for catching it. Point is the same, tho.

[leveymg]

39. That's exactly what happened during the Reagan and Bush 41 Administrations.

Which raises the question, was G.H.W. blackmailed, and by whom?

[formerrepuke]

5. I thought this article was about the Bush family......n/t

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. Me too. Bushquida!

nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Are there any parallels with the Sibel Edmonds case?

[lyonn]

27. You gotta wonder, I was. Would like to hear more.

Not likely. This one will be swept away by next week.

[mmonk]

34. You definitely have spies in high places.

They are related to organized criminal activity and they foil counterintelligence efforts with the help of some in government.

[leveymg]

40. According to Sibel and FBI coworkers, the Bureau's Counterterrorism Division was penetrated by

agents working for the American-Turkish Council, a group with close ties to Israeli intelligence and AIPAC. Lukery had a two-part series on this recently: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2272244

[DFW]

9. Of course they could! It's a matter of public record.

They're called "The Republican Party" and they've been up to no good
for decades. I'm surprised this is news............

Oh, wait, did they mean ANOTHER group has infiltrated as well?

[Norrin Radd]

10. k+r

[The Stranger]

12. Mr. Michael Isikoff, do you race-bait much?

So someone "who is related to a suspected Hizbollah money launderer" -- pardon the blatant guilt by association to someone only "suspected" of anything -- must be a "terrorist mole" based, apparently, solely on the fact that this person is a "Lebanese native."

Further:

A U.S. official familiar with the case said Tuesday that the government's investigation has uncovered no evidence so far that Prouty, who was employed by the CIA until last week, had compromised any undercover operations or passed along sensitive intelligence information to Hizbullah operatives.

No evidence as in no evidence?

That is, other than the fact that this person is a "Lebanese native" (Isikoff's words) with relatives supposedly under suspicion of money laundering?

Under, Mr. Isikoff, do you race-bait much?

[Emit]

16. Did you read the entire article? I think there's a bit more to the story than you state.

A former FBI agent who pleaded guilty Tuesday to fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship and then improperly accessing sensitive computer information about Hizbullah was working until about a year ago as a CIA spy assigned to Middle East operations,...

~snip~

... in April, 1999, when Prouty, using the alias of "Nada Nadim Alley" and her fraudulently-obtained U.S. citizenship, landed a job as an FBI special agent. Prouty got the job under a special FBI "language program" designed to recruit Arabic and other foreign-language speakers, a bureau official said today. Not only was she quickly granted a security clearance, she was then assigned to the bureau's Washington field office, where she worked on an extraterritorial squad investigating crimes against U.S. persons overseas. In that capacity, Prouty in September 2000 improperly tapped into bureau computers to access information about herself, her sister, and Chahine. Three years later, Prouty again tapped into bureau computers to obtain information about a case she was not assigned to: a national security investigation targeting Hizbullah being conducted by the Detroit field office.

Prouty, the court papers suggest, may have had a personal motive for seeking information about Chahine and Hizbullah. Her sister, Elfat El Aouar, had by then married Chahine and both of them in August 2002 had attended a "fundraising event in Lebanon." The keynote speakers at the event, according to the court papers, were Chahine and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizbullah, who has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist."

Chahine was subsequently charged in two federal indictments. One of them last year accused him of skimming $20 million from his chain of restaurants in Detroit and routing some of that cash to unnamed persons in Lebanon. (Prouty's sister was also charged in that case. She has since pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison last May.) In the second indictment last month, Chahine—now believed to be a fugitive in Lebanon—was charged with conspiring with a former senior official of the Homeland Security's office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Detroit to extort funds from former employees of Chahine's La Shish restaurant chain. (Although he has since left the country, his lawyer has denied that Chahine had any involvement in terrorism.) The ICE official, Roy Bailey, was accused of misusing his position to accept "large sums of currency and other property in return for granting immigration benefits," according to a Justice Department press release last month. (Bailey has entered a plea of not guilty.)

:shrug:

[leveymg]

41. Apparently, her tenure at the Washington Field Office overlapped that of Sibel Edmonds

Sibel was employed as a translator in the National Security Unit at the Washington Field Office from just after 9/11 until the folowing Spring. Here's the Justice Dept. press release that gives the timeline for Prouty's career at FBI and CIA: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/November/07_nsd_910.html

In April 1999, through a series of false representations and use of her fraudulently procured proof of U.S. citizenship, Prouty, then known as “Nada Nadim Alley,” obtained employment as a special agent of the FBI. It was a prerequisite to FBI employment that she be a U.S. citizen. As a special agent with the FBI, Prouty was granted a security clearance and assigned to the FBI’s Washington Field Office to work on an extraterritorial squad investigating crimes against U.S. persons overseas. During her tenure with the FBI, Prouty was not assigned to work on investigations involving the international terrorist group Hizballah.

In August 2000, Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, entered into a marriage with Talal Khalil Chahine, the owner of La Shish Inc. In September 2000, Prouty, while employed as an FBI special agent, used the FBI’s computerized Automated Case System (ACS), without authorization, to query her own name, her sister’s name, and that of her brother-in-law, Talal Khalil Chahine. In addition, on or about June 4, 2003, Prouty accessed the FBI’s ACS and obtained information from a national security investigation into Hizballah that was being conducted by the FBI’s Detroit Field Office.

According to court documents, in August 2002, Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, and her brother-in-law, Talal Khalil Chahine, attended a fundraising event in Lebanon where the keynote speakers were Chahine himself and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Sheikh Fadlallah had previously been designated by the U.S. government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist based upon his status as a leading ideological figure with Hizballah.

In June 2003, through a series of false representations and use of her fraudulently procured proof of U.S. citizenship, Prouty, then known as “Nada Nadim Prouty,” voluntarily left her position with the FBI and obtained employment with the CIA. It was also a prerequisite to CIA employment that she be a U.S. citizen.

On Nov. 6, 2007, Prouty resigned her position at the CIA. Pursuant to the terms of her plea agreement, she has agreed to fully and truthfully cooperate with the CIA on any matters the CIA deems necessary to transition Prouty out of its employment in a manner consistent with safeguarding the national security of the United States. This cooperation includes participation in debriefing and polygraph interviews

[The Stranger]

50. Okay, let's take a look at what you've got there:

Her sister, Elfat El Aouar, had by then married Chahine and both of them in August 2002 had attended a "fundraising event in Lebanon." The keynote speakers at the event, according to the court papers, were Chahine and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizbullah, who has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist."

Okay, so this person's sister married someone who attended an event where the speaker of the event was designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist.

But wait, what? Who was designated? Someone who spoke at a function that her sister attended. And, wait -- "designated"? "Designated" by what? How does one get "designated"? What is that supposed to mean?

Why in the world would the U.S. Department of the Treasury make criminal "designations" of people? The U.S. Constitution requires that no one can be "designated" without the timeless protections afforded under due process of law. No one can be "designated" except by a court with jurisdiction by a jury of that person's peers. And that person is entitled to be represented by counsel and to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against them.

Now wait: The Treasury Department doesn't seat juries or try cases in court. That sure seems strange to me. Doesn't it seem strange to you? What is going on here?

So this woman's sister attended an event with her husband where there was someone "designated" by a treasury department?

And this makes her a "mole"? Are you reading the same words that I am reading??

And why wouldn't the federal court indictments involving her sister's husband have any allegations about this supposedly nefarious event that her sister and her sister's husband attended?

It begins to become person's related to person's who attended an event somewhere where there was someone else in attendance. There are so many jumps to conclusions regarding people and from one individual to another that one loses track.

This would be called guilt by association -- if only it could even rise to such a level.

Time to call this what it is. The only thing this person did was lie on her immigration papers and search the computers for people she knew. As if people don't do that every day. Oh, but wait, this person is from Lebanon, is a Muslim, Arab, and part of the "Other" against whom the "War on Terror" is being waged. Now Isikoff has a story, doesn't he?

That is why the investigation has uncovered NO EVIDENCE. What Isikoff is peddling is nothing but lying innuendo, not evidence.

[bbgrunt]

17. yes--that is a good point. The spin on this

is suspect. There is plenty of evidence that AIPAC has infiltrated (Larry Franklin) but the concern about that is very muted in the press. This looks to me like just another chance to attack Muslims and ratchet up the fear level.

[dpbrown]

13. Yeah, it's call the Bush Crime Family

'nuff said.

[Bitwit1234]

14. I think they took the back door into the white house you know like

appointment by the Supreme Court..gee whiz, could they have five terrorists in the Supreme Court also.

[Lerkfish]

15. this doesn't pass Lerkfish's smell test. Its counter to the REAL infiltration by

AIPAC for which several staffers were charged.

this smells of disinformation.

[dantyrant]

42. Agreed... this sounds incredible on its face.

That said, I haven't read the article through yet. Will do so now.

[dantyrant]

45. Ok. I've read it.

The article makes the case that Chahine(the cousin) is an unsavory character, but the conclusion that Richard Clarke draws still seems laughable, if only because they don't seem to have any evidence.

[leveymg]

43. I agree. Unlike the AIPAC case, there was no espionage or passing of secrets in this matter.

It appears instead that Ms. Prouty committed visa fraud to obtain her green card, and years later, after she was hired in by the FBI, she checked to see what was in her files along with those of her sister and cousin, who attended a single function abroad where a Hezballah figure spoke. There just doesn't seem to be much here.

Isikof and Hosenball seem to have added their own sensationalized anti-Hezballah spin to this.

The OSP-AIPAC case, on the other hand, was an ongoing foreign espionage and deception operation directed by the Mossad Chief of Station in Washington and two Israeli military intelligence officers that involved an exchange of documents over a course of several years with agents inside the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and AIPAC staff. That spy operation had the intent of planting documents in Pentagon files "suggested by" Mossad related to Iran's alleged WMD program.

[BrklynLiberal]

18. Yes, and they are known as the Bush Administration....

[UTUSN]

20. But ShrubCo has KEPT US SAFE for six years!1 n/t

[Seabiscuit]

21. I expected this to be a story about the Blackwater terrorist organization.

[robbedvoter]

22. Is this about Poppy's Carlyle in business with the Bin ladens on 9.11 and after?

because anything else pales in comparison:


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,5-2001365686,00.html

TUESDAY OCTOBER 23 2001
Bin Laden family to end ties to Carlyle
FROM CHRIS AYRES IN NEW YORK
THE family of Osama bin Laden is close to ending its relationship
with the Carlyle Group, the US investment group backed by George
Bush Snr, the former President, and John Major, the former Prime
Minister.

It is understood that Carlyle Group and the Saudi Binladin Group,
the Middle Eastern conglomerate owned by the family of bin Laden,
have decided to part company by “mutual consent”.

[DCKit]

23. I've been through the clearance process....

And always found it offensive that anyone with a green card zipped right on through.

You see, they have no "history" to check.

Here's hoping the FBI is sufficiently embarrassed THIS time to start doing their jobs while leaving the rest of us in peace. But I won't count on it.

[kelligesq]

24. Wasn't this what Sibel Edmonds was warning about?

so they kicked her out of the job?

[blm]

29. And are actively blocking further scrutiny of her charges.

Both GOPs and Dems - some powerful Dems.

[rcsl1998]

30. My Thoughts Exactly! nt

[Forkboy]

25. But enough about PNAC

[progressoid]

31. Huh? What? Matt Damon is People magazine's 2007 sexiest man!

[TexasLawyer]

32. an illegal alien from Lebanon working as a waitress at a shish kabob restaurant

Someone's doing a heck of a job!

The case is clearly a major embarrassment for both the FBI and CIA and has already raised a host of questions. Chief among them: how did an illegal alien from Lebanon who was working as a waitress at a shish kabob restaurant in Detroit manage to slip through extensive security background checks, including polygraphs, to land highly sensitive positions with the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence agencies?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

33. "Impeachment is off the table"

Please, we'll have no more of your un-Merkan talk.

[Blashyrkh]

35. Is this anything like all the Mossad agents running around Washington?

[bemildred]

36. Is the Pope Catholic?

Do bears shit in the woods?

[Octafish]

37. Norquist may've helped their cause, as well.

If there were a real Department of Justice, Grover Bathtubfetish Norquist would have a lot of explaining to do --Faisal Gill and PTech, for starters.

Of course, the Bushes and bin Ladens were business partners in the Carlyle Group until Sept. 12, 2001. Everybody should know that.

[libodem]

38. Oh, hell, yeah,

they are too busy snoopin' up our asses at airport security to notice.

[Cobalt-60]

44. he said something nice about B*sh

If it's enough to get you command of the Iraqui re construction, its enough to get a desk at the CIA.

[dysfunctional press]

48. and that terrorist group is the BFEE

bush family evil empire.

[Zorra]

51. The Project for a New American Century, the world's most dangerous

terrorist organization, staged a successful coup de etat in November of 2000 and overthrew the elected government of the United States, effectively ending over 200 consecutive years of democratic government in the USA.

The PNAC terrorists then proceeded to use the resources of the people of the US to commit numerous terrorist acts throughout the world, including a military invasion and subsequent occupation of the sovereign country of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of over a hundred thousand innocent people, injury to hundreds of thousands more, and billions of dollars in property damage.