Ex-ABC consultant (Debat) was intern, not official, says French Defense Ministry

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

Further doubt was cast Friday on a former ABC News consultant who apparently faked interviews, when France's Defense Ministry disputed claims that he had worked as an official there.

The consultant, Alexis Debat, had previously been identified in stories by a range of media, including The Associated Press, as a former French Defense Ministry official or analyst. In the National Interest, an online publication he wrote for, identified him as a "former adviser to the French minister of Defense on trans-Atlantic affairs."

But the ministry said Friday that the only trace it could find of Debat in its records was a five-month internship at a ministry advisory office in 2000 and one month of military service.

Debat never served in an office directly under the defense minister and there was no sign that he worked as an official in other defense branches, said Col. Patrick Chanliau, a defense ministry press official.

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/14/europe/EU-GEN...

[formercia]

1. Junior's French alter-ego.

[brentspeak]

2. "Debat quit the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank..."

Debat quit the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank, on Wednesday after Obama's representatives claimed an interview with the senator appearing under Debat's byline in the French magazine Politique Internationale never took place. The interview quoted the Democratic candidate as saying the Iraq war was "a defeat for America."

[annabanana]

3. an operative unmasked...

Watch him disappear. I don't think they will try to rehabilitate. .