Goss Folds
David Corn weighs in on the CIA influence peddling poker games and sex-for-influence ring connected to Duke Cunningham, in light of CIA Director Porter Goss's recent and very sudden departure from the agency:
Wilkes did hold parties and poker games for CIA officials and lawmakers, including members of the House intelligence committee. (Goss has been a CIA director, a lawmaker, and a member of the House intelligence committee.) Wilkes was pals with Foggo. (As CIA executive director, Foggo manages the CIA on a day-by-day basis for Goss.) So might Goss know anything about (a) a rigged contract; (b) bad behavior at Wilkes' poker bashes; (c) the non-recreational use of prostitutes; (d) all of the above or something we cannot even imagine?
Jon Ponder has more:
Last week, Harper’s magazine reported that party-goers “under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees — including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description.
Think Progress has put together a concise and thorough primer on the Agency, Cunningham, and their connection to Goss. Jane Hamsher, 'Dr. Miguelito Loveless' over at Thoughtcrimes.org, DailyKos's 'georgia10', and Peter Daou offer their views.
I don't know if this story will get any traction, though, until we can agree on a concise '-gate' name for it. Is it Watergate 2? The hookers were taken to the Watergate and to the Westin, and the poker games were held at the Westin. Is it 'Hookergate'? In DC, is that really being specific enough? It's at least a hair less vague than 'Scandal the media will never cover because it involves Republicans-gate'...
And just what do we call that scandal?
posted by Management at 11:48 PM
8 Comments:
Goss in the Cold: A Scandal Skedaddle?
I just posted the below in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....
A bolt out of the blue? Or a bolt?
Porter Goss's sudden announcement of his departure from the CIA is puzzling. The former Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee and ex-CIA case officer offered no reason for vacating the CIA directorship, and there was no successor ready to go. News of his resignation came during a brief joint appearance at the White House by George W. Bush and Goss on Friday afternoon (the traditional time slot for putting out bad news). And--whaddayaknow--no pesky questions from journalists. This has led to the obvious speculation: was it the hookers?
I'll get to the (potential) hot stuff in a moment. But consider this: The CIA has been a mess for years--especially after 9/11. Former CIA officials routinely say that morale is lousy and that employees have been fleeing the agency, many of them alienated by the heavy-handed Goss regime, regarded as too close to the White House. One former CIA official recently told me that the retention rate for new analysts and case officers has plummeted. Many are leaving after a year. Private contractors routinely troll the CIA cafeteria, luring away the best talent they can find. ("We'll pay you more, contract you back to the agency, and you won't have to deal with those damn bureaucrats.") And there is a war still going on. The Bush administration has yet to declare al Qaeda defeated. In fact, Osama bin Laden is continues to make his videos.
The CIA beset with problems, Americans dying overseas--why would Goss give up this crucial post at a critical time before a replacement was in the wings? What sort of patriot is this?
And--I'm getting closer to the sex angle--there's already turmoil on the Seventh Floor of CIA HQ. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the CIA's executive director (who was put in that post by Goss), has been under investigation by both the CIA's inspector general and the FBI. Foggo, the No. 3 man at the CIA, was a regular at a poker game hosted by Brent Wilkes, a businessman tagged by federal prosecutors as a coconspirator in the bribery case that landed Republican Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham in jail. The CIA IG is examining whether Foggo helped one of Wilkes' companies win a CIA contract for providing bottled water, first-aid supplies and other items to CIA officials in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to he San Diego Union-Tribune, critics have claimed the CIA overpaid for this contract.
Did Foggo help Wilkes, his best friend since the late 1960s, bilk the CIA?
That may be the least of it. Last week--here it is!--the Wall Street Journal reported that the feds are investigating whether Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor who pleaded guilty to giving Duke Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes, supplied Cunningham with prostitutes, limos and hotel rooms (a dangerous combination). The Journal wrote, "Besides scrutinizing the prostitution scheme for evidence that might implicate contractor Brent Wilkes, investigators are focusing on whether any other members of Congress, or their staffs, may also have used the same free services, though it isn't clear whether investigators have turned up anything to implicate others." Other members of Congress. That's something to ponder.
Wade reportedly has confessed that he did periodically arrange for a limousine to pick up Cunningham and a hooker and ferry them to a suite at the Watergate Hotel or the Westin Grand. Wade also said that Wilkes participated in the ply-Duke-with-sex scheme.
What's this got to do with Porter Goss? Maybe nothing. But here's the reason for speculation. Wilkes did hold parties and poker games for CIA officials and lawmakers, including members of the House intelligence committee. (Goss has been a CIA director, a lawmaker, and a member of the House intelligence committee.) Wilkes was pals with Foggo. (As CIA executive director, Foggo manages the CIA on a day-by-day basis for Goss.) So might Goss know anything about (a) a rigged contract; (b) bad behavior at Wilkes' poker bashes; (c) the non-recreational use of prostitutes; (d) all of the above or something we cannot even imagine? The Foggo-Wilkes-hooker links are certainly quite sketchy at the moment. But--to put this in perspective--they are firmer than some of the intelligence the Bush administration used to claim Saddam Hussein was in bed with bin Laden.
Did Goss attend those poker games? Does he have a connection with Wilkes? Is there a bad movie in all this? Some initial reports have suggested that Goss left the CIA after losing a bureaucratic turf fight against John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. But if Goss had a good explanation for his decision to bail, he could have shared it--even on a Friday afternoon. And if the reason is just old-fashioned anger over losing some of his power, he could have orchestrated a smoother transition. What led to his abrupt resignation should not be a top secret.
His departure is not necessarily a loss for the CIA. He brought in aides who were assailed as political hacks. Weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that the White House officials had asked the CIA to tell them the political affiliations of senior CIA officials. (Why would the White House want that information?) Representative Jane Harman, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, pointing to all the experienced hands who have left the agency after Goss took over, recently complained that "CIA is in a free fall." And Goss has hardly inspired confidence--in the agency or his own leadership. Last year, he said in a public speech that he was overwhelmed: "The jobs I'm being asked to do, the five hats that I wear are too much for this mortal. I'm a little amazed at the workload."
Well, Goss is hanging up those five hats--and prompting suspicion that there are other shoes (or high heels) to drop.
Is the Resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss Hookergate Related?
Posted by Jon Ponder | May. 5, 2006, 10:51 am
Rumors have been swirling around Washington that CIA Director Porter Goss may have been involved in the poker and prostitute parties at the Watergate Hotel hosted by the defense contractors who bribed former Rep. Duke Cunningham. Goss was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when the parties took place, so it is possible he was involved somehow in either the bribery, the sex with prostitutes or both.
Goss’s abrupt resignation today was offered without a reason — not even the old Washington bromide of an urgent need to spend more time with his familiy. The news readers on CNN and MSNBC are pussyfooting around it but it is hard to see how Goss’s sudden departure after a little more than a year as head of the CIA is not connected to the Watergate II scandals.
Here’s some background on the scandals that posted on Alternet earlier today:
According to recent reports, federal investigators have traced the outlines of a far more extensive network of suspected corruption, involving multiple members of Congress, some of the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence officials, bribery attempts including “free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes,” tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts awarded under dubious circumstances, and even efforts to influence U.S. national security policy by subverting democratic oversight…
CIA director Goss tied to scandal?
Last week, Harper’s magazine reported that party-goers “under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees — including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description. (”This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn’t even been to the Watergate in decades,” a CIA spokeswoman said. When asked if Goss had attended Wilkes’ parties at the Westin or other locations, she repeated the denial. “It’s horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue.”) But the alleged links between Goss, Foggo, and Wilkes have led some to return to questions raised when Goss initially selected Foggo to be executive director in November 2004.
Update: NBC’s Tim Russert has been rushed in front of the cameras to insist that Goss’s resignation is a result of head-butting from John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. In other words, “Move along, folks, move along. Nothing to see here.”
CIA Director Porter Goss resigns
Air Force Gen. Hayden is Bush’s leading candidate for post, official says
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:46 p.m. ET May 5, 2006
WASHINGTON - CIA Director Porter Goss resigned unexpectedly Friday, leaving behind a spy agency still battling to recover from the scars of intelligence failures before America’s worst terrorist attack and faulty information that formed the U.S. rationale for invading Iraq.
Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, is the leading candidate to replace Goss, a senior Bush administration official said late Friday. An announcement could come as early as Monday.
Hayden served as National Security Agency director until becoming the nation's No. 2 intelligence official one year ago.
Since December, Hayden has aggressively defended the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program. He was one of its chief architects.
Others talked about as possible candidates to replace Goss were Bush’s homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend; David Shedd, chief of staff to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte; and Mary Margaret Graham, Negroponte’s deputy for intelligence collection.
Sudden departure
Friday's announcement was the latest in a series of moves by President Bush to shake up his team and reinvigorate his second term.
Neither Bush nor Goss offered a reason for his departure.
Making the announcement from the Oval Office, Bush called Goss’ tenure one of transition.
“He has led ably,” Bush said, Goss at his side. “He has a five-year plan to increase the analysts and operatives.”
Goss said the trust, confidence and latitude that Bush placed in him “is something I could have never imagined.”
“I believe the agency is on a very even keel, sailing well,” Goss said. “I honestly believe that we have improved dramatically.”
The president said Goss’ replacement would continue his reforms.
“As a result, this country will be more secure,” Bush said. “We’ve got to win the war on terror, and the Central Intelligence Agency is a vital part of the war. So I thank you for your service.”
Focus on intelligence reform
When Bush nominated Goss in August 2004, in the midst of the president’s re-election campaign, he said he would rely on the advice of the CIA officer-turned-politician on the sensitive issue of intelligence reform.
“He knows the CIA inside and out,” Bush said in a Rose Garden announcement at the time. “He’s the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation’s history.”
Goss, a former congressman from Florida, head of the House Intelligence Committee and CIA agent, had been at the helm of the agency only since September 2004.
He came under fire almost immediately, in part because he brought with him several top aides from Congress who were considered highly political for the CIA.
He had particularly poor relations with segments of the agency’s powerful clandestine service. In a bleak assessment, California Rep. Jane Harman, the Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, recently said, “The CIA is in a free fall,” noting that employees with a combined 300 years of experience have left or been pushed out.
Among those Goss pushed out during his tenure were the deputy director of intelligence, the chief of the clandestine service, two deputy chiefs of the clandestine service, the chief of the directorate of intelligence, the director of the counterterrorism center and the comptroller, according to NBC News.
Under Goss and the sweeping intelligence overhaul Congress approved in December 2004, the CIA lost considerable clout among U.S. spy agencies. With the installation of the country’s first national intelligence director, John Negroponte, Goss no longer sat atop the 16 intelligence agencies. Negroponte took that role — and many of the CIA director’s responsibilities. That includes Bush’s morning intelligence briefings.
Publicly admitted feeling overwhelmed
Goss also had some public blunders. In March 2005, just before Negroponte took over, Goss told an audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that he was overwhelmed by the many duties of his job, including devoting five hours out of every day to prepare for and deliver the presidential briefings.
“The jobs I’m being asked to do, the five hats that I wear, are too much for this mortal,” Goss said. “I’m a little amazed at the workload.”
Goss has pressed for aggressive probes about leaked information.
“The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,” he told Congress in February, adding that a federal grand jury should be impaneled to determine “who is leaking this information.”
Just two weeks ago, Goss announced the firing of a top intelligence analyst in connection with a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. Such dismissals are highly unusual.
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said Goss’ resignation was good news. “His management style has been wrecking the country’s most important intelligence agency,” Obey said. “I hope that whoever is selected to take his place will rebuild agency morale and competence.”
Negroponte, with the backing of the White House, raised with Goss the prospect that he should leave, and the two talked about that possibility, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide a fuller account of what happened.
Bush aides have been looking for ways to rescue his presidency from sagging poll ratings and difficulties with the Iraq war and his agenda in Congress.
Shake-up started with chief of staff
The shake-up began with the resignation of Andrew Card as chief of staff and his replacement by Joshua Bolten.
Other changes have included the replacement of press secretary Scott McClellan with Fox News commentator Tony Snow. The move means that an experienced conservative television personality, who at times has been critical of the president, is the public face of the White House.
McClellan’s last briefing at the White House was Friday. His final day isn’t until next week, but the president is traveling in Florida the first part of the week, meaning McClellan would brief from the road.
Bush political aide Karl Rove kept his deputy chief of staff title, but was stripped of day-to-day oversight of policy coordination. That job was given to Joel Kaplan, Bolten’s former No. 2 when he was budget director. Bush also named Rob Portman, a former six-term Republican congressman from Ohio who now serves as U.S. trade representative, to replace Bolten at the head of the Office of Management and Budget.
The vacant job of domestic policy adviser has not yet filled.
Other changes that have been expected included changes in the White House lobbying shop run by Candida Wolff and the expected departure of communications chief Nicolle Wallace, whose husband recently moved to New York. Officials have also done little to discourage speculation that Treasury Secretary John Snow is leaving.
NBC News’ Robert Windrem contributed to this report.
© 2006 MSNBC.com
Color me confused. Everyone on TV seems to be buying the line that the Goss resignation has been planned for weeks. No natural curiosity about the fact that it takes effect immediately, or that there is no replacement, or that he had a meeting scheduled this afternoon he didn’t show up for. Not to mention the fact that as Professor Foland pointed out in the comments, the White House would’ve probably sacrificed its collective left nut to avoid stepping on a drunk Kennedy story.
But has the entire press corps turned into such a pile of humorless prudes that they can’t connect the dots in the Brent Wilkes hooker scandal?
From the Wall Street Journal on April 27:
Mr. Wade in February pleaded guilty to giving bribes of more than $1 million to Mr. Cunningham, including cash, antiques and payment for yachts. Mr. Wade, who hasn’t been sentenced yet, is cooperating with prosecutors. According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Mr. Wade told investigators that Mr. Cunningham periodically phoned him to request a prostitute, and that Mr. Wade then helped to arrange for one. A limousine driver then picked up the prostitute as well as Mr. Cunningham, and drove them to one of the hotel suites, originally at the Watergate Hotel, and subsequently at the Westin Grand.
Then it got a bit jucier in Harpers:
The two defense contractors who allegedly bribed Cunningham, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I’ve learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.
A powerful intelligence post? Who could that be? TPM Muckracker speculated, because it would’ve been irresponsible not to:
After a long series of off-the-record phone calls with CIA spokespeople, I was finally given an on-the-record comment — about Goss. Speaking on behalf of the director, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck said, "This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn’t even been to the Watergate in decades."
When I asked if Goss had attended Wilkes’ parties at the Westin or other locations, Millerwise Dyck repeated the denial. "It’s horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue."
Let’s see. Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, spokeswoman for Dick Cheney from 2001-2003, who has been questioned by Fitzgerald about "the vice president’s knowledge of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of staff." I see she’s moved on to greener pastures. That settles that then.
Or maybe not. Laura Rozen quotes a reader:
"Dana Priest is on MSNBC right now saying we’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s paper to find out why he resigned. The Post must have called him for comment on a story running tomorrow about his involvement with Brent Wilkes."
Pourquoi Brent Wilkes? Says Josh Marshall :
Wilkes has deep ties into the CIA. The focal point of those ties is to Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the man Porter Goss appointed to the #3 position at CIA when he took over the Agency last year. Remember, Wilkes’ scam was getting corrupt contracts deep in the ‘black’ world of intelligence and defense appropriations, where there’s little or no oversight. Foggo was in the contracting and procurement field at the CIA. So you can see how he and Wilkes, who have been friends since high school, had plenty to talk about.
Lack of oversight…hmmm….well the Bush Administration is certainly the perfect petri dish for that, given their knee-jerk response to getting oversighted.
And how did Goss make the acquaintance of Foggo?
That’s how we get into the other part of this story — those ‘hospitality suites’, that moveable feast of food, poker and love, Brent Wilkes ran in Washington for maybe fifteen years. We hear that’s how Goss got to be friends with Foggo, whom he later promoted to executive director of the CIA, the number 3 post at the Agency.
Foggo admitted to be part of the Wilkes festivities, though he says there were no hookers. PJ O’Rourke will no doubt vouch for him.
Time for some talking heads to develop a little natural curiosity. Hell we know he didn’t get the boot for incompetence, lying or corruption, that would be unprecedented.
Scandal fatigue may finally be working against them.
UPDATE: AP has the story.
UPDATE II: We’ve put together a primer on the connection between Goss and the Cunningham scandal:
For more than a decade, Cunningham-linked defense contractor Brent Wilkes curried favor with lawmakers and CIA officials by hosting weekly parties at lavish hospitality suites at the Watergate and Westin hotels in Washington. Guests would gamble, socialize, and sometimes receive prostitutes; according to Harper’s magazine, the festivities “began early with poker games and degenerated” into what one source described “as a ‘frat party’ scene — real bacchanals.”
GOSS’ NO. 3 ADMITS ATTENDING PARTIES: The highest-ranking CIA official to admit he attended the poker parties thrown by Wilkes is Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the agency’s third-ranking official. (Foggo even “occasionally hosted the poker parties at his house in northern Virginia,” though he denies ever seeing prostitutes at the gatherings.) Foggo’s connections to Wilkes and fellow contractor Mitchell Wade are now the focus of an investigation into CIA contracts by the agency’s inspector general, first made public in March. One of Wilkes’ companies, Archer Logistics, won a contract to provide supplies to CIA agents in Afghanistan and Iraq despite having “no previous experience with such work, having been founded a few months before the contract was granted.”
GOSS CONNECTED? Last week, Harper’s magazine reported that party-goers “under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees — including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description. (Goss denied the accusations through a spokesperson.) But the alleged links between Goss, Foggo, and Wilkes led some to return to questions raised when Goss initially selected Foggo to be executive director in November 2004. At the time, the decision was viewed with skepticism since Foggo’s previous position was as a “midlevel procurement supervisor,” and because following his unexpected selection, “Porter Goss lieutenant Patrick Murray went to then-Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence Mary Margaret Graham and informed her that if anything leaked about other Goss appointments — in particular, Foggo’s — she would be held responsible.”
Project on Government Oversight fellow Jason Vest reported last week that much of Foggo’s counterintelligence file “has to do with various social encounters over the years, none of which he’s been deceptive about when polygraphed, and all of which have been deemed to be of no threat to operational security — but are still the types of things that could be embarrassing for Goss and the Agency.” Vest suggests the latest reports raise important questions about the “relationship between Foggo and Wilkes, and the relationship of each with Goss.”
CIA Director Porter Goss resigned unexpectedly Friday, leaving behind a spy agency still battling to recover from the scars of intelligence failures before America's worst terrorist attack and faulty information that formed the U.S. rationale for invading Iraq.
It was the latest move in a second-term shake-up of President Bush's team.
Hmmm, now isn't that rather curious? No warning, no hints, Goss just up and quits in the middle of his purge of liberals and other disloyal traitors at the CIA. I wonder if it could have anything to do with this:
Ken Silverstein reports at Harper's blog on the spreading Cunningham-Wade-Wilkes prostitute scandal. He says more lawmakers, past and present, are being investigated. Sounds like he thinks House Intel Chair-turned-CIA Director Porter Goss is one of them.
Since this post, Kyle Foggo has been pegged for investigation by the Justice Department. But Foggo was the guy Goss promoted to the #3 spot at CIA, and many people were wondering how they knew each other. Perhaps they played poker together at the parties frequented by hookers and bent congressman Randy Cunningham?
CIA Director Resigns Abruptly, Bloggers 2 Steps Ahead of the Kennedy-Obsessed Media
The first observation I'll make in light of Goss's shocker is that the cable nets were knocked off their Patrick Kennedy hyper-focus. The second is that the first blush of coverage distinctly ignored the blog buzz about Goss's possible -- and I stress possible -- involvement in the Duke Cunningham prostitute scandal.
Here's an April 27th post from TPM Muckraker: "Ken Silverstein reports at Harper's blog on the spreading Cunningham-Wade-Wilkes prostitute scandal. He says more lawmakers, past and present, are being investigated. Sounds like he thinks House Intel Chair-turned-CIA Director Porter Goss is one of them: I've learned from a highly-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees -- including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.
Yowzah. Actually, make that a double-yowzah: Remember that Goss is the one who plucked one of Wilkes' old San Diego friends, the unusual and colorful Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, out of CIA middle-management obscurity to be his #3 at the agency. At the time of Foggo's appointment, no one could figure out where he came from, or how Goss knew him."
Denials followed that post, but the online buzz hasn't died down and the resignation is certainly unexpected.
CNN, MSNBC, and Fox have now tiptoed into the 'Hooker-gate' waters, tossing in a couple of mentions as they speculate about this surprise announcement, but bloggers have been two steps ahead on this story.
This comes on the heels of renewed warfare between bloggers and the traditional media. The Colbert flap is one example (Eric Boehlert and Media Matters provide hundreds more), with the media doing their level best to ignore the Bush-Colbert-Press showdown. The media's abandonment of its investigative and interrogatory roll -- with some honorable exceptions -- has rendered the blogs the last remaining source of hard-hitting coverage of the Bush administration and the only check on a supplicant and not-so-free press. Digby explains:
"Ok. Let's go over this again, shall we? Let us stipulate that the left blogosphere is a bunch of shrieking freaks who have completely lost our marbles. We are rude, crude and out of control. But louder than the other side? Because of some blogswarms? If only.
For the last twenty years we have had your rightwing radio, your rightwing TV, your rightwing publishing, your rightwing speakers bureaus and your rightwing magazines and your rightwing pulpits. Then you have your imbalanced panels on news shows, your intermarried politicos and journalists and your faux liberal punditocrisy. Yet, our little blogswarms have the entire journalistic establishment all atwitter, wondering what has happened to the discourse?
The entire DC establishment went stark raving bonkers for eight years, followed by nearly five years of a kind of courtier sycophancy we haven't seen since Louis XVI. I do not know the explanation for why this happened, although I have my suspicions. (The question brings out almost as many possibilities as "why did we invade Iraq?") But it happened. I saw it with my own eyes. Now they decide that something's gone wrong?
Are we "louder" now? Certainly. We were veritably silent before. But the entire rightwing media infrastructure still spews out its disgusting bile on a daily basis. perhaps the sound of it has become so familiar to those who live and work in Washington that they no longer hear it."
UPDATE: In the space of writing and posting this blog entry, the cable news nets have gone back to their Patrick Kennedy roadblock. Nice to know they have their priorities straight.
CIA Director Porter Goss Resigns
by georgia10
Fri May 05, 2006 at 11:11:16 AM PDT
This isn't part of some White House shake-up. This is a scandal-plagued Bush appointee resigning just as an investigation into another Republican corruption scandal hits too close to home.
Former Republican lawmaker and current CIA Director Porter Goss's name has surfaced time and time again in the Republican bribe scheme, which began with a focus on disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham and his Republican lobbyists (hmm, do I think I mentioned "Republican" enough in that sentence?).
It is Goss's hand-picked #3 man at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo who is under serious investigation in connection with a massive bribery scheme that touches on sweetheart deals, million dollar contracts, and yes, even hookers.
You will recall that Ken Silverstein, based on a source, noted that the prostitution scandal could touch a former lawmaker "who now holds a powerful intelligence post." Speculation abounded that Porter Goss fit that description perfectly.
It may not be the hookers. It may not be his possible participation in a million-dollar bribery scheme affecting our national security. It may be that he hated his job, and the CIA hated him. Or it may just be that Goss decided to spent time with his family.
But the press has a duty to find out why one of our nation's top intelligence officials just up and quit all of sudden on a Friday afternoon.
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