The recent FBI lawsuit filed against John Kiriakou, former CIA agent and former Democrat Senate staffer, for treason (multiple counts of allegedly violating the Espionage Act and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act) is serious business. But, a close review of the details of the case seems to indicate that Vice President Biden, while serving in the Senate as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condoned this treason in order to boost his political profile and to further his political agenda.
There has long been a mutually beneficial circle among the Democrat leaders in congress, leakers (usually former civil servants) and the mainstream media. The Beneficial Circle's efforts seem to be directed at discrediting Republican policies and GOP leaders.
The "Circle" works in this way: Step #1--an "investigator" or other civil servant expresses a shared political agenda with a leading Democrat and promises salacious "insider" anecdotes to support the claim. The “investigator” is encouraged to leak the sensitive information to one or more members of the press.
Step #2--The press "scoops" the story and publishes this "exposé", usually on page 1. A Democrat member of congress, usually a committee chairman who has the power to call a hearing, is shocked by the revelations of the press and calls for a hearing to expose alleged Republican corruption and alleged wrongdoing.
In the case of Kiriakou, the Democrat playbook worked. He left the CIA, and then, went to work as a consultant for McLarty Associates, where, among other tasks, he co-authored an inflammatory editorial in the LA Times, "The Other War We Are Losing", criticizing the Bush Administration's Afghanistan and Middle East policies and actions and broadcasting the message that he had an axe to grind with the Bush Administration.
Despite the oath he had taken to uphold the Constitution, and despite the possibility that he might be endangering American lives abroad, Kiriakou went forward with the disclosure of classified data, allegedly leaked to three members of the media. (As a former station chief for counter-terrorism in Pakistan, Kiriakou was certainly aware that disclosing even the most discreet information about operatives and operations in the field was wrong, dangerous and could lead to lives lost.)
Now for Step #3 of the Beneficial Circle's media playbook, The next day, right on cue, then-Senator Joe Biden, who, at the time was serving in the Senate and serving as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, called for a special counsel to be appointed to look into the allegations of water boarding and the destruction of interrogation tapes.
At the time, Biden was also running for President, and he seems to have been eager to make his mark among potential voters. Biden was also fully opposed to Bush anti-terrorism policies. Without a doubt, Mr. Kiriakou was now publicly providing just the sort of inflammatory anecdotes and inside information that Biden and others (Note: Senator Barack Obama also served on the Senate Foreign Relations committee during this period of inquiry) were so eager to exploit. And so they did just that.
But not once does it appear that Biden or Obama publicly questioned the ethical problem of relying on information from someone committing treason.
Nor was Biden or Obama interested in talking to other CIA agents who might have offered a different opinion or who might have revealed the fact that Mr. Kiriakou was keenly interested in advancing a political agenda that others did not support.
It is important to note that leakers always have an advantage over the 99% of other government employees who do not leak, for leakers know full well that other civil servants that could potentially refute the most salacious charges or provide a different perspective will refuse to do so.
Most government employees know it is wrong to leak sensitive and classified information and they are simply not going to do it.
But back to the Beneficial Circle. Following Biden's request that a Special Counsel be appointed, the Washington Post and the New York Times performed their roles as expected with stories trashing the Bush Administration, all based upon a single source of Mr. Kiriakou.
Mainstream media, but particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, seem to be suffering from Jayson Blair Syndrome, where reporters write and newspapers publish what they want readers to believe, news stories that advance their political agenda, filled with innuendo and half-truths, rather than stories that have been researched from multiple primary sources.
What makes the Kiriakou case even more interesting is how the "beneficial" circle continues. After his "exposé", Kiriakou then went to work for the very committee to which he provided the leaked information-- though by this time, Biden was Vice President and former Presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, was chairman of the committee.
Kiriakou seems to have been brought on board as an investigator, as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, to help continue the committee's Bush-bashing hearings on water boarding and foreign policy in the Middle East.
By this time, Kyriako's leak had provided valuable services to Biden, Obama, and Kerry by giving them selective intelligence leaked from the CIA, and providing the opportunity for the to look tough on the issues of water boarding, which at the time was a hotly contested election issue.
So, why then did they hire Kiriakou? Was it wise to reward Kiriakou (that knowingly committed treason) with a high level job in the Senate? This job, too, requires a security clearance and trustworthiness. But none of that seemed to matter, for the Democrats had found their man, and so, Kiriakou was rewarded for services rendered with a new job of working for the Democrat Senate Staff. As an "Investigator" in 2009 and then later as a "Senior Investigator where he served until April 30,2012.
Now that the Kiriakou affair has blown up in their Democrat faces, and make no mistake--the FBI affidavit pulls no punches about their views regarding the illegality of the data improperly shared or the seriousness of the consequences of the revelations, we are seeing the Democrat's end game.
Having been exposed, Democrat leaders and the mainstream media are now trying to back as far away from their support of Kiriakou as they can. A recent Washington Post article on the arrest and charges against Kiriakou did not mention that he worked in the Senate for a Democrat or a former presidential candidate.
Fingerprints are being erased and the tracks are being covered by the very cabal that set this entire sad episode into action in the first place.
Get ready. Americans will see the final chapter soon as Obama and other senior Democrat leaders try to claim credit for getting tough with CIA leaks, hypocritically ignoring their critical role in the debacle.
Sure, they will make also some speeches glorifying whistle-blowers. But, I guarantee you they will not mention the often devious role they play, seemingly encouraging and abetting disgruntled federal employees to commit treason. Nor will they ever hint at the harm they are doing the nation with these underhanded tactics.
I am fully in support of the important role that whistleblowers play in ensuring the integrity of our nation's government. But, Kiriakou surrendered any pretense to being a whistleblower when he went to work for the Democrat Senate staff. From that point onward he was no longer a concerned whistleblower but, instead, a fully committed political operative working for the Democrat party.
Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald summed it up best when he said: "They were careless people--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."