Former FBI Counterespionage Manager John Cole has confirmed one of the recently published claims by Sibel Edmonds that there was a cover-up of the investigation into a former State Department official revealing state secrets to foreign agents.
"I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI’s decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article, Marc Grossman, which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability..."
Edmonds has claimed that US officials worked as double agents of Turkey and Israel.
She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.
She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.
One of the officials whom she named was Marc Grossman, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
Edmonds claims that Marc Grossman—ambassador to Turkey from 1994-97 and undersecretary of state for political affairs from 2001-05—was a person of interest to the FBI and had his phone tapped by the Bureau in 2001 and 2002. In the third-highest position at State, Grossman wielded considerable power personally and within the Washington bureaucracy. He had access to classified information of the highest sensitivity from the CIA, NSA, and Pentagon, in addition to his own State Department. On one occasion, Grossman was reportedly recorded making arrangements to pick up a cash bribe of $15,000 from an ATC contact. The FBI also intercepted related phone conversations between the Turkish Embassy and the Pakistani Embassy that revealed sensitive U.S. government information was being sold to the highest bidder.
Edmonds has also claimed that Grossman blew the cover on the front company of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Edmonds' on-the-record disclosures also include bombshell details concerning outed covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's front company, Brewster Jennings. Edmonds alleges the front company had actually been shut down in August of 2001 --- three years prior to Bob Novak's public disclosure of the covert operative's identity --- following a tip-off to a wire-tap target about the true nature of the CIA front company. The cover was blown, Edmonds alleges, by Marc Grossman, who was, at the time, the third highest-ranking official in the U.S. State Department. Prior to that, Grossman served as ambassador to Turkey. He now works "for a Turkish company called Ihals Holding," according to Edmonds' testimony.
Edmonds has said that another FBI translator, Melek Can Dickerson, tampered with classified documents relating to 9/11 detainees.
Edmonds’s claims that the section was infiltrated by translators who should never have received security clearances and who were deliberately failing to translate incriminating material are supported by the Justice Department inspector general investigation and by an FBI internal investigation, which concluded that she had been fired after making "valid complaints." One translator, Melek Can Dickerson, who had worked for three Turkish front organizations under investigation—she failed to reveal this when applying for employment—allegedly stamped many documents of interest "not pertinent," removed classified documents from FBI premises, and forged signatures on classified documents relating to 9/11 detainees. An Urdu translator was the daughter of a Pakistani Embassy employee who worked for Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of the Pakistani intelligence service who is accused of authorizing a $100,000 wire transfer to Mohammed Atta’s Dubai bank account immediately before 9/11. The Justice Department IG report confirmed Edmonds’s charge that translators’ section managers issued a go-slow order shortly after the terrorist attacks to create an artificial backlog that would justify an increase in budget and manpower. Those managers are reportedly still in place. Some have been promoted.
Cole, the former FBI Counterintelligence Manager, did not comment on other alleged members of the espionage ring including former Pentagon officials Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.
She further reports that beginning in 1999, the FBI was investigating senior Pentagon officials who were assisting agents of foreign governments, including Turkey and Israel...Its "rogues gallery" includes photos of Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. Perle was chief of the Pentagon’s prestigious Defense Policy Board when Edmonds was working at the FBI, and Feith was undersecretary of defense for policy. If either were being investigated, it would be a matter of record, as would any reasons for dropping the investigation. "If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials," Edmonds told the Times.
Edmonds claimed that the top Congressional targets of the FBI investigation were Dan Burton, Dennis Hastert, and Bob Livingston.
In early 1997, because of the information that the FBI was getting on the Turkish diplomatic community, the Justice Department had already started to investigate several Republican congressmen. The number-one congressman involved with the Turkish community, both in terms of providing information and doing favors, was Bob Livingston. Number-two after him was Dan Burton, and then he became number-one until Hastert became the speaker of the House.
Edmonds’ testimony from August in the case of Congresswoman Jean Schmidt vs David Krikorian, where the candidate was charged with making false statements over charges of Turkish ‘blood money’ donations to the Schmidt campaign, has been released to the public.
Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 1 of 5 from Velvet Revolution on Vimeo.
Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 2 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.
Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 3 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.
Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 4 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.
Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 5 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.
Note: This follows up to a previous diary on the interview of Sibel Edmonds by Phillip Giraldi.