McCarthy ‘categorically denies’ being source for secret-prisons story

April 25, 2006

Over the weekend, we learned that the [tag]CIA[/tag], following an investigation headed personally by Director [tag]Porter Goss[/tag], had dismissed [tag]Mary McCarthy[/tag], a veteran intelligence analyst who until 2001 was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, for [tag]leak[/tag]ing word to the Washington Post about the CIA’s secret prisons in Eastern Europe. Based on press accounts, it sounded like McCarthy had been caught — she reportedly failed a lie-detector test, made several calls to the Post’s Dana Priest, and even “confessed” according to some accounts — which shifted the debate to whether McCarthy’s alleged conduct was justified and whether the Bush administration was using a double standard on leaks.

But the assumptions about McCarthy’s role in the leak may have been wildly off-base.

A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told Newsweek.

The fired official, Mary O. [tag]McCarthy[/tag], “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one of McCarthy’s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy.

Ty Cobb, McCarthy’s lawyer, added “She categorically denies leaking classified information. She denies having access to the information attributed to her.”

The biggest mistake, I suppose, was the assumption that CIA Director Porter [tag]Goss[/tag] would want McCarthy fired for her alleged role in the leak, as opposed to some other, less principled, reason. After all, McCarthy was an obvious [tag]Democrat[/tag] and CIA hold-over from the Clinton years — and Goss is a former House Republican who has tried to [tag]purge[/tag] top-ranking CIA officials of anyone who wasn’t loyal to Bush. Consider this Newsday report from November 2004:

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

“The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,” said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. “Goss was given instructions … to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president’s agenda.” (emphasis added)

And now we’re supposed to believe that Goss, whose history of rigid partisanship is overwhelming, ran a fair and objective investigation of McCarthy? Please.

I wish Dana Priest would write a follow-up article.

  • It’s amazing how the White House and Goss spun this to make it seem as if McCarthy was the source of the secret prisions leak.

    But I suppose I should have known it was a load of crap when the right-wing pundits started mentioning her political contributions AS IF THEY WERE A SUFFICIENT EXCUSE FOR FIRING HER.

    For the third time, this is not the way to maintain the morale of the intelligence community.

  • The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals

    Just how far have the political lines shifted when the CIA is a hotbed of liberalism?

  • Think the MSM is going to blast this out as much as the initial reports?
    I heard the report of the lie detector & the “confession,” but I doubt that this will be as big. At least on FOX.

  • If the object is reliable intelligence, an ideological purge is such a patently grave mistake, that it defies comprehension. What’s really galling about this is that Goss would rid the CIA of the people who got it right, and keep the ones who got it wrong. If Goss has his way, we should rename it the Central Idiots Agency.

  • Firing someone who was days away from retirement is the least serious action they could have taken,” said a former intelligence official who is friendly with McCarthy but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of speculation on the administration’s motive. “That’s certainly enough to frighten those who remain in the agency..(from raw story)
    *******************************************
    Mary had only ten days to go… Fear and Loathing in Langley through ham handed political intimidation. If intelligence was warped before by a poltical lens, the message is clearer now.. If you want to keep your career, be very aware of political implications.

    Freedom is on the march, and it’s goosestepping.

  • I believe the only people who are allowed to use lie detectors as proof of anything is … the government. No court allows them as evidence because results of tests are almost completely up the discretion of the operator of the machine.

    I don’t know if she did it or not, but because of political history, it’s hard to believe that this is on the up and up. If this were rare with this administration, then maybe we’d be scratching our heads a little. But it’s so common, it’s hard to give the benefit of the doubt to Goss.

  • If her attorney is as tough and cantankerous as his namesake, she should be in good hands.

    And which Dems voted for the nomination of Porter Goss? I bet my idjit Mary Landrieu was one of them.

  • Bush is setting a truly dangerous precedent by purging intellgence agencies on ideological grounds. Not only is he getting rid of everyone who might object to the government fabricating evidence for our next grand military adventure, it also replaces merit with patronage as the deciding factor in government hiring practices. And I don’t think there’s any doubt the entire federal bureacracy is undergoing similar purges. Whether through outright termination or resignation in complete disgust, many talented, respected and experienced people have been or are being forced out of civil service.

    So that leaves at least a government bureacracy staffed with Bush loyalists for the next president to contend with. At the most, we can expect massive government turnover every four to eight years, as a new president takes office and fills positions with his or her lackeys. It’s short-sighted and backwards.

  • This is strue, isn’t it? The McCarthy firing turns out to be a smoke-and-mirrors publicity stunt. She’s hurt, no doubt about it–but she was leaving anyway and she does get to keep her pension so she doesn’t need to mount the kind of desperate counterattack that you might expect from someone seriously impaired.

    Meanwhile firing her deflects attention from the fact that (a) they still don’t know who leaked it to Priest or; (b) they do know and for GOK what reason, do not want to out that person.

  • This is sooo nauseating. Why even bother with the pretense of a democracy any more?

    I knew we were in trouble when Bush stole the 2000 election, but, boy, did I misunderestimate. I never would have thought it possible for the Boy Chimp and his minions to have laid us so low so soon. I guess I thought maybe the Dems in DC or the public would have put up more of a fight. Guess I misunderestimated them (and us) as well. Why haven’t we taken to the streets? What are we waiting for?

    Torches and pitchforks! Let’s roast some Republicans over an open fire!

  • No court allows them as evidence because results of tests are almost completely up the discretion of the operator of the machine.

    OT, but one of the main reasons that lie detectors are not used, besides user error and subjectivity, is that psychopaths can manipulate the results. They don’t affect the same skin conductivity, heart-rate, and various other measured traits when lying.

    On topic, political cleansing in the intelligence community is one of the most dangerous things I think I can imagine. In fact, politics shouldn’t enter that arena at all.

    When merit no longer becomes the measuring stick, we all suffer. This is supposed to be the party of national secuirty? That is more laughable everyday.

  • The larger picture is that this is part of a war between the CIA and the White House that has been going on for most of Bush’s presidency. The CIA did not support the inflammatory claims made by the White House prior to the invasion. Because of their reluctance, the administration cut them out of the loop and set up the office of special plans to promote any raw intelligence no matter how apocryphal. The CIA was lambasted in the conservative press for being skeptical about WMD claims. As soon as it was discovered that the skepticism was justified, the White House turned the tables and argued that the CIA had misled them even though it was clear that the administration had been out in front of the WMD assertions all along. Add to that the outing of a CIA agent, which clearly pissed off the CIA, and you have the makings of a intragovernmental war. Still I wonder how Bush, Sr. fits into this since his first big job was head of the CIA.

  • I don’t know why people are surprised by this. This is the administration that is creating their own reality, after all. And how do you get rid of the inconvenience of being found out that your wars are elective and your reasons are bald faced lies? Get rid of any body who might uncover and report anything that doesn’t fit the manufactured facts.

  • Bush’s dad was Director CIA,

    Bush’s dad started DEA,

    Bush’s son has two problems,
    Love Hate fists had a meaning………………..

    Larry leaked Plames role at CIA (back to ‘the farm’)as being Iran just before the announcement of the Iran new desk at the State Department. Larry did’nt like that Supervisor at CIA. She’s fired. Larry likes Plame. Plames okay.

  • Ty Cobb was one nasty son-of-a-bitch. He was so paranoid that he always carried a pistol in the clubhouse. He frequently slid into base when he didn’t have to, just for the opportunity of using his sharpened cleats to slash the legs of the man guarding the base. He once ran into the stands and started beating up a cat-calling fan who had no arms (he had to be pulled off). Not sure I’d want to name anyone, even a lawyer, after him.

  • White House rule for crisis management: If at first you can’t swiftboat someone, get a sacrificial lamb.

    It probably wasn’t a polygraph she failed, just the idealogical purity litmus test.

  • I think we do a real disservice to the people who work for the CIA when we try to characterize this as a “war” between the CIA and the WH. All of these people have taken an oath of office much the same as the President. They have on-going extensive background checks. Many of them place themselves in very real danger to do their job. The last thing any of these people want is a “war” with their own government.

    What we have instead is a classic case of the king spearing the messenger bearing bad news. There has always been some of this, but now we may be witnessing the spearing of an entire agency. Before this, Congress was always there to counterbalance the WH so that the CIA was able to perform it’s function even if not in the optimal manner. Now, the Rubberstamp Repulican Congress has blocked that avenue, and Gross has started an idealogical purge.

    This attitude of telling the boss only what they want to hear happened too many times in the summer of 2001, and the results was 9/11. We need to toss out the Rubberstamp Republican Congress so that we get a functional government again. Otherwise we are even more exposed to acts of terrorism than we were before 9/11.

  • Glenn – I disagree. This is a ‘war’. If it makes you feel any better, I think that the WH started it. Or if war is too strong a word, use intragovernmental sparring, or bureaucratic infighting.

  • Neil,

    What really worries me is that we all know today’s target is Iran. Are we going to get sucked into a conflict with Iran only to find out two years from now that it’s all a bunch of lies? From all appearances the ability of the CIA to provide a good NIE is even worst than it was for Iraq. The agency has lost lots of experience and is still dealing with a WH and Congress which will not listen to dissenting opinions. Add to that the obvious concern within the military leadership that the WH is pushing another bad plan and we have ourselves all set for a complete and total mess.

    I prefer to call all of this a broken government. Bush is exceeding the authority granted to him in the Constitution (and don’t talk founding father intent – I’ve read the Federalist Papers) and the Republican Congress is helping him rather than doing their job! Without this basic foundation of government working, everything else cannot function. That’s what’s happened to the CIA. They’re just trying to do their job to the best of their abilities.

  • Glen,

    The intelligence agencies are weakened because of a loss of experienced personnel and politicization. But I wouldn’t worry about the impact that will have on policy because the policy is driven by ideology (and short term political gain) and not intelligence (in both senses of the word).

    Congress will exert its power eventually. The Federalist Papers point out how competing interests of the 3 branches of government lead to checks and balances. Sorry, I can’t give you a specific reference (perhaps Fed. 79?). Republicans have given up the oversight role initially because they thought that Bush and Rove might lead them to a decade long domination of the federal government, and later because of cowardice and the fact that they are now co-conspirators in the mismanagement of government.

    btw I understand your concern about calling it a ‘war’. This is unfair to most CIA employees, but not to the administration that clearly tried to force its will upon the intelligence agencies after 9/11 and during the run up to the Iraq war. I remember thinking that it was stupid to take them on so agressively. As Johnson said about Hoover, ‘Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.’

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