Great news: FBI agent with possible ties to Hezbollah pleads guilty to stealing classified info about the group
posted at 6:32 pm on November 13, 2007 by Allahpundit
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They’re not calling it spying because apparently they can’t prove that she passed the information along. That only makes this good news, though. What makes it great news is the fact that she was in the United States fraudulently.
Yup. An illegal immigrant FBI agent.
Oh, and she also worked for the CIA.
The sister-in-law of the indicted fugitive owner of the La Shish restaurant chain got sensitive jobs at the FBI and CIA, despite being an illegal immigrant, federal prosecutors said in court documents unsealed today in Detroit.
The woman, Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, of Vienna, Va., also tapped into a sensitive FBI computer to find out what federal investigators knew about her, La Shish restaurant owner Talal Chahine, and her sister, who is married to Chahine.
Prosecutors said she took an unknown quantity of classified information home with her. It’s unclear what happened, or what she did with the information, prosecutors said.
The information pertained to a federal investigation of Chahine and his possible involvement with Hizballah, which has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S State Department…
Prouty hired an unemployed U.S. citizen to marry her in 1990, a year after she entered the country and overstayed her student visa.
They want to deport her — but they can’t, because she knows too much. So after serving her 6-12 month sentence, she’ll be left to roam around the United States, presumably tailed by the agencies she once worked for. Although given what a bang-up job they did on the background checks when they hired her, who knows?
Debbie Schlussel’s been following the case of Talal Chahine for awhile so follow the link for essential background. Your exit question, via Debbie: When exactly did the FBI find out about her accessing classified info? The complaint says this stems from an incident in 2003. Did they keep her on staff for four years knowing she was shady?
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Banana Republic?
jp on November 13, 2007 at 6:37 PM
What I find funny about the whole situation now is how the media is suddenly acting as if being an illegal immigrant is a bad thing. Quite a shift from their view point of them just being poor undocumented workers who are being persecuted by racist Americans.
ViperPilot on November 13, 2007 at 6:39 PM
Doing the spy work that Americans won’t do.
Find them all and get them out now.
bbz123 on November 13, 2007 at 6:40 PM
That’s par for the course.
TheSitRep on November 13, 2007 at 6:41 PM
Can she use Sandy Berger as her lawyer?
MayBee on November 13, 2007 at 6:42 PM
Seriously, MayBee. Did she hide it in her socks or in her Burqa?
see-dubya on November 13, 2007 at 6:46 PM
Will Valerie Plame be telling us she’s covert and shouldn’t have had her name published?
clghitis on November 13, 2007 at 6:47 PM
I… I’m…. but… how…
I give up.
Frozen Tex on November 13, 2007 at 6:48 PM
Just wow. Some people (other than the obvious illegal herself) need to lose their jobs over this fiasco.
SPIFF1669 on November 13, 2007 at 6:58 PM
Heads. Must. Roll.
Bill C on November 13, 2007 at 6:59 PM
Can I just say, AP, that you have the funniest pics to go with your stories.
Weight of Glory on November 13, 2007 at 7:02 PM
this is misleading… the FBI and CIA hire thugs for information all the time… CI’s, informants, drug deals, information stings… if she picked up some file she saw that had to do with her case or looked it up on a computer it’s a joke… did she actually hack into CIA computers and find real intelligence? or just a note book of notes on her own case?
Kaptain Amerika on November 13, 2007 at 7:04 PM
Rope.
Tree.
Traitor.
Some assembly required.
CurtZHP on November 13, 2007 at 7:04 PM
This isn’t infiltration, this is ‘tolerance’. I don’t know why anyone is surprised. . . we’ve been giving the Taliban all the information we have about the WOT in Afghanistan and Pakistan through our ‘friendship’ with the ISI (Pakistani intelligence group).
Hey it’s the American way to call our enemies our friends these days. Look to Jimmy Carter the Nobel Prize winner as the shining example.
Our intelligence agency and the state department need their heads examined because they are getting beaten handily by banana republics.
ThackerAgency on November 13, 2007 at 7:12 PM
Kaptain–
One of the articles said she had an analyst position. She wasn’t a source. She got to see the information from the covert sources who agreed to put their lives on the line and talk to the CIA and FBI.
The damage of something like this is incalculable. If you live in Lebanon or Jordan or Syria and someone from American intel community wants to talk to you, you have to ask yourself if someone like Nada Prouty is going to be reading your file and telling Hezbollah what you said.
She needs to swing.
see-dubya on November 13, 2007 at 7:15 PM
After Prouty is released from prison, she’ll depend for her life on the opinion of each person around her that it’s good for him to leave her alone.
Kralizec on November 13, 2007 at 7:18 PM
Is she Larry Flint material?
Kini on November 13, 2007 at 7:28 PM
Yeah,, but that’s why we need more cameras on the streets and in the yards and in the barns!
JellyToast on November 13, 2007 at 7:29 PM
Ask Clancy what to do …
amend2 on November 13, 2007 at 7:45 PM
She must have been looking for information to help her with her own “inner spiritual struggle.”
MikeHu on November 13, 2007 at 8:01 PM
2 behind the ear, no questions asked!
dmann on November 13, 2007 at 8:20 PM
I think the question needs to be asked. Did the FBI / CIA decide to just ignore her illegal status or were they so incompetent that they never checked? Neither is a good option but I’d like to know if they were just criminal or criminally stupid.
Buzzy on November 13, 2007 at 8:45 PM
The only possible good news about this would be if they hired her knowing she is a plant and then fed her false information to disseminate. We can only hope that they weren’t just more worried about offending someone than they were about protecting the nation.
I have adopted a standard response for when I read stories like this. The next day I go out and buy at least one box of practice ammo.
deepdiver on November 13, 2007 at 9:10 PM
Let’s not let this be a lesson to anyone…
Handing info to the enemy is not spying? Only if your muslum?
A commie ‘Slum could make a fortune with little risk.
BL@KBIRD on November 13, 2007 at 9:22 PM
What now? Let me tell you what now. I’ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin’ n******, who’ll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin’ - The Marsellus doctrine
Alden Pyle on November 13, 2007 at 10:48 PM
I was interviewed for a friend’s security clearance once. I have never had a conversations with more leading questions in my life. It’s not fair to extrapolate based on only one experience, but I’m…jaded about the effectiveness of background checks. Plus now we hear that less than half the FBI has internet access? I’m not enthusiastic about our chances in the homeland defense department.
TexasDan on November 13, 2007 at 10:54 PM
6-12 months?????
um wtf???
Mojack420 on November 13, 2007 at 11:49 PM
An illegal immigrant from a Middle Eastern country got a job at the CIA and FBI? Are you kidding me? How the hell does that even happen?
SoulGlo on November 13, 2007 at 11:59 PM
Never Double Tap an unarmed spy; that’s what Firing Squads are for.
Implant a homing device and return her to Lebanon; fireworks to follow. {Note: Won’t happen; she knows too much to be allowed out of the country}.
As another once said, “I feel the need for… guillotine.”
Yep - feels right to just get ‘er done.
Why is Prouty not being charged with treason? From the DOJ press release:
Well - I guess none of us can imagine, then, a treason charge that would include the death penalty… Gentlemen, prepare to defend YOURSELVES… and your families… since our government won’t!
T J Green on November 14, 2007 at 2:49 AM
Thank god the “the decider” is keeping us safe… this woman needs to end up at Gitmo. Can you say “enemy combatant”? Want to know who she told what to? “here hold this bucket for a second”…
Between the crazy boarder here in TX, that s&!tbag blogger Kahn in carolina and now this… it may not be bad idea to stock up on some ammo. The government is at best asleep at the wheel and at best paralized by political posturing.
BadBrad on November 14, 2007 at 6:43 AM