CIA Vet on 'Hartmann Program' Today: FBI Whistleblower Edmonds 'Very Credible'

[BradBlog]

CIA Vet: FBI Whistleblower Edmonds 'Very Credible'
Longtime counterterrorism agent, Phil Giraldi comments on FBI vet John Cole's recent confirmation of Bush official targeted in 'decade-long' espionage probe
(Giraldi also slated to be my guest on Wed.'s 'Malloy Show')

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, the author of American Conservative magazine's explosive cover story interview with FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds finds her to be "very credible", even though "as a former intelligence officer", he says, he's "normally suspicious of these kinds of stories."

Giraldi was a guest on the Thom Hartmann Program today, as guest hosted by Peter B. Collins. In the 13 minute segment, he discussed a number of aspects of Edmonds' disturbing allegations with Collins, including yesterday's confirmation by a long-time FBI veteran (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7439 ) of a key element in her claims which include bribery, blackmail, and the theft of nuclear secrets as aided and abetted by high-ranking U.S. officials.

Giraldi, a long time counterterrorism specialist with the CIA commented on the confirmation by 18-year FBI counterintelligence vet John Cole, who, in a published claim yesterday, acknowledged the existence of a "decade-long investigation" targeting the former third-highest ranking official in the Bush State Department, Marc Grossman, as Edmonds has long maintained. Citing Cole's first-hand experience with the espionage investigations in question, Giraldi told Collins during the interview:

This is something that, presumably, if the mainstream media were interested in it, would be a line of inquiry that would lead to a major investigation. ... I'm a former intelligence officer, I find her very credible. And of course, as a former intelligence officer, I'm normally suspicious of these kinds of stories. In this case, John Cole, who obviously had direct access to the investigations going on, is confirming her story.

FULL STORY, 13-MINUTE AUDIO INTERVIEW: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7440

NOTE: I'll be sitting in to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show again tomorrow night (Wednesday), and have also scheduled Giraldi as a guest. We'll have him on for a full hour at the beginning of the show (live at 6p PT, 9p ET) and will invite your calls and questions for him at 877-520-1150.

[abelenkpe2]

1. Huge story

I hope we start to see more of this in the main stream media.

[BradBlog]

2. Thanks for rec'ing and, more in the media tomorrow night...

...As I'll be hosting Mike Malloy and having Giraldi as a guest.

I'll leave it to you if you feel that's "main stream media" or not

[dotymed]

15. Brad,

Thank you for staying with this story from beginning to end.
If only more 'JOURNALISTS" were as dedicated as you, we
could clean up the trash pretty quickly...

[JohnyCanuck]

3. I'll be listening K&R n/t

[AntiFascist]

4. K&R n/t

[bertman]

5. I don't think Mike Malloy's show is on in our area. Can we pick it up on line?

Recommend.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. Try this link

http://www.radioshowlinks.com/internet_radio/mike_mallo...

You can also go to http://mikemalloy.com and in the top right corner of his home page is a listen live link.

[bertman]

7. Many thanks, JohnyCanuck.

[BradBlog]

10. Yup - See BradBlog.com tomorrow night during the show, where...

...We'll also have a live chat room set up for the three hours that the show is live. We'll have several live listening links for ya as well, at various radio stations around the country, etc. Giraldi will be in the first hour.

[nashville_brook]

8. knr nt

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Do you plan to ask him about his pedophilia? n/t

[BradBlog]

13. Uh, what?! (ATTENTION MOD, I THINK THE COMMENT ABOVE SHOULD BE DELETED!)

No idea what you're talking about, but it seems this comment should be removed unless you're able to offer a cite to what the hell your reference is to.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. Your newfound concern about people making allegations without corroborating evidence...

...is duly noted.

[cascadiance]

23. Where's your FBI case ID on this?

Before you try to equivalence your COMPLETE BS with her comments that CAN be verified through a simple document inspection!

[JordanSmith73]

11. Interesting

[midnight]

12. K&R

[dotymed]

14. Since so many, high ranking, conservative

intelligence people, find Sibel Edmonds testimony
"credible", (not like the ACORN B.S.), it is
Sickening that our MSM won't report the story. That confirms
the credibility just as much as an admission...

[Vattel]

16. I know we should all be jumping on the Edmonds bandwagon,

but so far Cole only corroborated Edmonds claim that Grossman was the target of an investigation. The issue with Edmonds is not whether she was aware of investigations of espionage, etc. involving persons in government, but whether she has gone well beyond the facts in drawing conclusions about persons being guilty of various crimes.

[cascadiance]

17. And we won't know that without a full investigation! Are you AGAINST such an investigation?

and instead just want to "presume" instead that she's making up facts instead of actually seeing the real facts to know one way or the other the truth?

[Vattel]

28. I'm not in a position to know

whether there should be an investigation. If I were the President, or a Congressperson, or the AG, I would certainly make inquiries to see whether a formal investigation is warranted. I hope someone has done or is doing that now. But absent any possible access to classified information, I can only guess about whether a full-blown DOJ investigation is warranted.

[cascadiance]

31. The problem is that from the sounds of it, there are too many points of conflict of interest...

Where unless you have some degree of public release of the facts, there still will be a level of distrust whether things have been covered up. The way its been handled so far, the time to quickly dismiss it so that there wouldn't be that level of distrust has already passed a long time ago (assuming that there wasn't anything to cover up). Therefore I think there has to be some level of public scrutiny of the details to offer us an explanation of why this has been held back from us for so long and not dismissed earlier if there truly was no "there there".

[mmonk]

19. In your mind, that may be the issue. For people who see our foreign

and domestic policy up for sale, the issue is troubling.

[Vattel]

30. I am troubled by the possibility

that crimes by high-ranking government officials may have been committed and investigations of those crimes stopped. I'm a long way from being convinced by Edmonds that such was the case.

[AntiFascist]

21. Since she can cite specific documents....

it would be an easy matter to determine whether she has gone beyond the facts. Obviously, the FBI and many in government want to see this covered up and swept under the rug.

[mmonk]

18. Thanks for the post. We need to trot out a lot of former officials.

[Vinnie From Indy]

22. Was Edmonds the FIRST to offer that Grossman was under investigation?

Or, is her claim against Grossman simply adding his name to her very long list of Americans that have committed treason and all the rest? Did she take this information, which might have been publicly available elsewhere prior to her first claim, and graft it onto her story in an attempt to add to her credibility?

[cascadiance]

24. Again! Who are YOU to know what's in the data she saw? SHE saw it! YOU didn't!

If it was "made up" as you keep trying to imply she did, then don't you think it would have been very simple for the government to have ended this many years ago and taken her to court and prove her having made it up? Wouldn't have been too difficult. And I'm sure in that case, you wouldn't have had the IG and two Senators supporting her in any way either.

[Vinnie From Indy]

25. Your post is mildly amusing

I offer simple questions and you rant and rave about things that are in no way connected to my questions. I am also amused that you simply refuse to acknowledge the truth of your bogus claim that the IG and Senators Grassley and Leahy support her allegations of spying, selling state secrets and the blackmailing of a sitting house member. They don't and it has been pointed out repeatedly on threads in which you have posted. FYI - no matter how many times you keep repeating it, it still will not be true. Cheers!

[cascadiance]

26. Have Grassley, Leahy, and the IG denied publicy they supported her allegations of spying?

NO! How do YOU know that they aren't/weren't supporting her allegations of spying? Who made you God? The fact is you don't. I'm not claiming they did know it. But likewise, you can't claim that they didn't and label the rest of us as "bogus" for stating the OBVIOUS that you don't know the truth either. If Dickerson was linked to Grossman, you have NO way of knowing that he wasn't the secret they were trying to protect initially.

They just support her creditability. They aren't specific as to what they are referring to, nor are they probably ALLOWED to do so publicly.

If you DO know something the rest of us don't, I think its time you level with us who you REALLY are, so that we can have a basis to know why we should trust your "word" or not.

[AntiFascist]

27. Also, there were both public and classified versions of the IG report...

so we don't know what is in the classified version. The public version was released, in part, to encourage congressional oversight. That's difficult to do when key congresspeople may be implicated.

[Vattel]

29. Well, you can never know for sure,

but the unclassified report describes what is in the classified report. Neither report addresses any claims by Edmonds other than her initial complaints. The OIG report found that many of her most serious charges against the coworker had some basis in fact. It also found that some of her charges were false. It did not come to the conclusion that the cowrker was (or was not) guilty of espionage; rather it recommended that the FBI make that determination.

[AntiFascist]

32. How can the unclassified version describe what is in the classified version?

http://ftp.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/sedmonds.html

"We believe this unclassified version summarizes the core of the OIG report, although it does not include all of the facts in the full report or even all of the allegations addressed in the full report. Moreover, we recognize that, in some instances, it is difficult to understand this version of the report fully because much of the information from the full report remains classified and cannot be included here. However, this version is the maximum that the FBI and the DOJ Civil Division agreed was unclassified and allowed to be released publicly."

[Vattel]

33. I should have been clearer.

The unclassified version describes the scope of the OIG's investigation and hence identifies the scope of the issues addressed even in the unclassified report:

"We closely examined nearly a dozen separate allegations by Edmonds against the co-worker which, when viewed together, amounted to accusations of possible espionage. We sought to determine, with respect to each individual allegation, whether the facts supported or refuted the allegation. However, the ultimate determination as to whether the co-worker engaged in espionage, as Edmonds' allegations implied, was beyond the scope of the OIG's investigation. We communicated to the FBI during our review that the OIG was not making such a determination, and that the potential espionage issue should be addressed by the FBI, not the OIG. Instead, our investigation focused on the FBI's response to the complaints Edmonds raised about her co-worker and other language translation issues.

According to some media accounts, Edmonds made additional allegations relating to the September 11 terrorist attacks and the allegedly inappropriate reaction by other FBI linguists to those attacks. However, Edmonds never raised those allegations to the OIG, and we did not investigate them in our review. Rather, we understand that staff from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) interviewed Edmonds regarding these claims. Our review focused on the allegations made by Edmonds to the OIG, particularly Edmonds' allegations regarding the FBI's handling of the concerns about the co-worker, her allegations about inappropriate practices in the language program, and her allegation that the FBI retaliated against her for raising those allegations.Our review focused on the allegations made by Edmonds to the OIG, particularly Edmonds' allegations regarding the FBI's handling of the concerns about the co-worker, her allegations about inappropriate practices in the language program, and her allegation that the FBI retaliated against her for raising those allegations."

[cascadiance]

34. The scope included her coworker, which therefore could include Marc Grossman...

Since she notes in the American Conservative that her coworker's husband worked with Marc Grossman... And since Marc Grossman would appear to be at the nexus of all of these investigations for many things, how do we KNOW where the scope was really defined in the unclassified version. The fact is that we DON'T!