FBI appalled at CIA’s reaction to the Prouty case
posted at 10:47 am on November 20, 2007 by Bryan
As Robert Spencer says, “So am I.” The Nada Nadim Prouty case has all the hallmarks of a mole exploiting the law and our own naivete to get into strategic positions in our intelligence and counter intelligence agencies for purposes as yet unknown. But to hear the CIA’s reactions to the case, it’s just a run of the mill immigration story.
Prouty, 37, admitted in court that she became a U.S. citizen by hiring an American to marry her. She then joined the FBI in 1999.
“That’s not uncommon – people do it all the time,” said a dismissive CIA source. The source strongly praised her undercover work in Iraq fighting insurgents, and said at worst she used bad judgment before joining the CIA.
Let’s walk that cat backward a little bit. Do people really gain US citizenship under false pretenses and then manage to get sensitive jobs in the CIA and the FBI “all the time?” And do these people usually happen to have connections to the terrorist group that holds the silver medal for killing Americans? If that’s not uncommon, if people are able to pull that series of feats off “all the time,” we’re in big trouble.
Read the whole article to get the full effect of former CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro’s defense of Prouty as just being “concerned about her brother-in-law,” who just happened to be involved with Hezbollah, and that explains the alpha and omega of her illicit searches of his name, her sister’s name and her own name on sensitive computer systems. The most logical explanation for those searches is that she was on the lookout for information about the brother-in-law that could tip her to if and more importantly how intelligence was being obtained about him. That would tell her quite a bit about means and methods being used against Hezbollah, knowledge that she could have used to help Hezbollah evade US intel. The least logical explanation is that she risked everything just to keep an eye out for her terror-connected relative. Granted, people aren’t always logical, but we’re talking about a person who hired a man to marry her so that she could become a US citizen and who was evidently impressive enough to get into the FBI and CIA and still have officers in the latter praising her after her confession.
There is something very much not right about the Prouty case, though like the Berger burglary, I doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom of it.
Blowback
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appalling
urbancenturion on November 20, 2007 at 10:51 AM
…and first
urbancenturion on November 20, 2007 at 10:51 AM
If the CIA, and the rest of the government, was as efficient at uncovering what happens, as covering up what happens…Our government would be a lot stronger and trustworthy.
right2bright on November 20, 2007 at 10:56 AM
If she was a Joooo, passing info required by treaty to be passed to an ally, they’d be stringing up the gallows already…
Doda McCheesle on November 20, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Man, with the writers strike these sitcoms are getting really bad.
- The Cat
MirCat on November 20, 2007 at 11:03 AM
Has he even gotten a trial/hearing yet?
MirCat on November 20, 2007 at 11:05 AM
Is she on any of Hillary’s special friends lists?
bbz123 on November 20, 2007 at 11:10 AM
More to piss you off. I don’t recall seeing this posted here.
A NEW ‘JIHAD JANE’
MrC_5150 on November 20, 2007 at 11:17 AM
Which branch of government runs the CIA?
This is why we need a conservative president.
Valiant on November 20, 2007 at 11:32 AM
I’m not appalled that someone who lies well can get a job as a CIA operative in the area where their background and expertise are of unusual value. In fact, I’m good with it.
The part that unnerves me is that the CIA — in their infinite lameness — buys the lies and gets suckered and then says “hey, she’s good; what can we say…”. The FBI that I read about in the Annie Jacobsen story is the same dork agency that gets suckered by this waitress and then gets all puffed up about it.
How pathetic is our domestic security apparatus?
Jaibones on November 20, 2007 at 11:35 AM
I don’t know about the sensitive jobs. But the fact that people who don’t even know one another are married in “arranged weddings” and then are eligible for citizenship makes it difficult to stop them at INS.
sweeper on November 20, 2007 at 12:12 PM
I have a feeling the CIA is not incompetent, but rather being run by traitors. We can see that with former CIA operatives and analysts. Ever wonder why the Bin Laden desk could not catch Bin Laden? Read what Michael Scheur has written since he left, and you’ll get some idea. The CIA thinks Israel is the real enemy. That’s not surprising, since it was the CIA who worked to get Nazis into the US before the Soviets could. A lot in the CIA are sympathetic to fascists, including this current brand of Islamofascists.
mram on November 20, 2007 at 1:27 PM
Bryan,
I for one am shocked, SHOCKED that you would make such a petty personal attack on this woman who was probably born with that facial blemish.
ConstantSorrow on November 20, 2007 at 2:32 PM
And I thought Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson were traitors…
Debbie Schlussel
Prouty’s lawbreaking was eventually exposed because of ongoing investigations of her brother-in-law, indicted Hezbollah financier Talal Chahine (to whom she is accused of disclosing classified information on three Hezbollah-related investigations that involve him).
Robert Spencer
Several weeks ago I wrote about La Shish, a restaurant chain owned by Talal Chahine, who has fled the country to escape indictment for evading taxes and sending the restaurant money to Hizballah (to the tune of $20 million). La Shish was one of the sponsors of the Arab American Institute’s recent conference, where Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards addressed the crowd via video, while Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Republican candidate Ron Paul attended in person.
The candidates were falling all over themselves to condemn “racial profiling” — anti-terror efforts be damned — and grovel for the Arab vote. Did they know that one of the conference’s principal sponsors was under indictment for funding a terrorist group?
DANEgerus on November 20, 2007 at 2:57 PM
No thanks, Cannistraro was a cheerleader for Sami Al-Arian; he’s proved himself to be a true-blue friend of Islamic security risks. He’s on the NY Times rolodex for such quotes, so there’s nothing surprising about his defense of Prouty.
Nichevo on November 20, 2007 at 4:47 PM