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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Trump instructed CIA not to interfere in Russian presidential elections

2018-03-19

[ALMASDARNEWS] Former CIA employee and current whistle blower "Jeffrey Sterling" announced that US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... had ordered former CIA chief Mike Pompeo to stop taking any sensitive action in the upcoming Russian presidential election. "In return for this order, Trump asked the Russians to end the tensions between the two countries and to not interfere in the next US elections."_ Sterling added. It is noteworthy that the authorities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have taken a decision to prevent such incidents from occurring in the wake of speculation over Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election. Pompeo also said at a meeting of the Senate select committee on intelligence on February 13 that Russia could intervene in the congressional mid-term elections in November. On the other hand, at the Dartmouth Summit held in September 2017 between US and Russian security officials, the level of pessimism between the two countries was reduced and it was decided to find a solution for the challenges between the two countries at the next meeting. The next meeting was held at the Russian security officials visit to Washington in mid-February, and the meeting was held secretly, the result of which was Russia’s guarantee of non-interference in the Senate’s mid-term elections, against US not meddling in the Russian presidential election. Trump’s encounter with the Russians has been a weak one is precedent, he offered cyber assistance to President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... at the first meeting with the Russian leader, which was heavily criticized by some American politicians.

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Home Front: Politix

As Benghazi inquiry fades, Clinton still faces legal questions about emails

2015-11-01

[McClatchyDC] "She's too big to jail," [emphasis added] said national security attorney Edward MacMahon Jr., who represented former CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling in 2011 in a leak case that led to an espionage prosecution and 3½-year prison term. And that's when I realized our Republic was doomed.

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Home Front: WoT

Ex-CIA officer jailed for 3.5 years in Iran leaks case

2015-05-12

[IsraelTimes] Jeffrey Sterling revealed a classified plan to trick Tehran by slipping flawed nuclear blueprints through a Russian intermediary A former CIA officer has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for leaking details of a secret mission to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. Jeffrey Sterling had faced a recommended sentence of 20 years or more under federal sentencing guidelines for violations of the Espionage Act. A jury convicted him in January of telling New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... journalist James Risen about a classified plan to trick the Iranian government by slipping flawed nuclear blueprints through a Russian intermediary. Prosecutors sought a stiff sentence at Monday's hearing in federal court in Alexandria. The defense said his punishment should be more in line with that of former CIA Director David Petraeus. He got probation last month for leaking classified information to his biographer, who was also his mistress. The classified operation at the heart of the trial involved using a CIA asset nicknamed Merlin, who had been a Russian nuclear engineer. Merlin traveled to Vienna in 2000 to foist deliberately flawed nuclear-weapons blueprints on the Iranians, hoping they would spend years trying to develop parts that had no hope of ever working. Former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified at Sterling's trial that the Merlin mission was one of the few options available to the US as it sought to stop Iran's nuclear program. She said the mission was one of the most closely held secrets during her time as national security adviser. Risen published details of the Merlin operation in his 2006 book "State of War." He had tried to publish a newspaper article in 2003, but Rice persuaded Times editors to kill the story, saying its publication would put lives at risk. Sterling was under investigation for years as a potential source of the leak and was charged in 2010. The trial was delayed for four years, though, in part because of legal wrangling about whether Risen could be forced to testify. An appeals court eventually ruled against Risen, who sought immunity from a subpoena on First Amendment grounds. Ultimately, though, prosecutors opted against putting Risen on the stand after he made clear that he would be uncooperative. Prosecutors were also hamstrung by then-Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder ... aka Mister Fast and Furious... , who restricted the questions they could pose to him and reduced their leverage by promising that the Justice Department would not seek to jail news hounds for contempt of court if they refused to testify. Without Risen's testimony, prosecutors built a circumstantial case against Sterling. They introduced evidence showing regular contact between Risen and Sterling by phone and email, though they never produced evidence to show that the two discussed classified information. Prosecutors argued that Sterling was motivated by spite to retaliate against perceived mistreatment at the agency. Sterling, who is African-American, had sued the agency for racial discrimination but had a lawsuit tossed out after the CIA invoked a state-secrets privilege. Defense lawyers had argued that Sterling had talked about his misgivings with the Merlin operation to congressional staffers who oversee intelligence agencies and that those staffers were likely the source of the leak.

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Government

Ex-Klingon convicted of leaking secrets to reporter.

2015-01-27

[Fox] ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A former CIA officer was convicted Monday of leaking classified details of an operation to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions to a New York Times reporter. Jurors convicted 47-year-old Jeffrey Sterling, of O'Fallon, Missouri, of all nine counts he faced in federal court. On the third day of deliberations, the jurors had told the judge that they could not reach a unanimous verdict. But they delivered guilty verdicts later in the afternoon after the judge urged them to keep talking. Three days is not enough? Don't come out until you reach a guilty verdict. Oh, ok. We'll see what we can do. At issue in the two-week trial: Who told journalist James Risen about the secret mission, one that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified was one of the government's most closely held secrets as well as one of its best chances to thwart Iran's nuclear-weapons ambitions? The case was delayed for years as prosecutors fought to force Risen to divulge his sources, though they ultimately decided not to call him to testify once it became clear he would not reveal those sources even if jailed for contempt of court. Prosecutors had acknowledged a lack of direct evidence against Sterling but said the circumstantial evidence against him was overwhelming. Defense lawyers had said the evidence showed that Capitol Hill staffers who had been briefed on the classified operation were more likely the source of the leak. The plan involved using a CIA asset nicknamed Merlin, who had been a Russian nuclear engineer, to foist deliberately flawed nuclear-weapons blueprints on the Iranians, hoping they would spend years trying to develop parts that had no hope of ever working. Risen's 2006 book, "State of War," describes the mission as hopelessly botched, and possibly backfiring by giving the Iranians blueprints that could be useful to them if they sorted out the good information from the errors. In his closing arguments, prosecutor Eric Olshan said the chapter of Risen's book seemed to be clearly written from Sterling's perspective as Merlin's case handler. The book describes the handler's misgivings about the operation while others at the CIA push the plan through despite its risks. No 'buy in' from the CO? Operation was not terminated? Strange, very strange. Furthermore, Sterling believed he had been mistreated and was angry that the agency refused to settle his racial discrimination complaint, Olshan said. Racial discrimination complaint? Ag! So now we at least have a GOV'T motive. Risen had written about that complaint, and he was known to have a relationship with Sterling. The two exchanged dozens of phone calls and emails, Olshan said. But defense lawyers said the government had no evidence that Risen and Sterling talked about anything classified in those phone calls and emails. The government failed to obtain Risen's records to see who else he may have contacted. Defense attorney Barry Pollack said Risen first got wind of the operation in early 2003, within weeks of Sterling reporting his misgivings to staffers at a Senate intelligence committee — a channel that Sterling was legally allowed to pursue. Pollack said it makes more sense that a Hill staffer leaked to Risen.

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Home Front: WoT

U.S. Top Court Declines to Intervene in NY Times Case

2014-06-03

[AnNahar] The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Monday in the case of a New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... news hound involving the protection of sources and the CIA. The top panel rejected an appeal by journalist James Risen, who has been summoned to testify in the trial of former Central Intelligence Agency official Jeffrey Sterling. Sterling stands accused of leaking confidential information about a secret Iran operation. In his book "State of War," published in 2006, Risen describes an aborted CIA effort to send a former Russian scientist to Iran to transmit false information in an attempt to undermine the country's controversial nuclear program. The Supreme Court did not comment on its decision, which upholds an order to testify issued to Risen by a federal appeals court. Risen, who faces jail time if he refuses to reveal his sources, did not immediately respond to an Agence La Belle France Presse request for comment. The case is being seen as a test of the freedom of the press in investigating government abuses.

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Home Front: Politix

U.S. subpoenas author in case of ex-CIA officer

2011-05-25

Federal prosecutors, with the approval of the Attorney General, want to force the author of a book about the CIA to testify at a criminal trial about who leaked information to him about the agency's effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear program at the end of the Clinton administration. The writer, James Risen, a reporter for the New York Times, was served with a subpoena on Monday, ordering him to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer. Sterling was charged this year as part of a larger crackdown by the Obama administration on officials accused of disclosing restricted information to journalists. In a motion filed on Monday, prosecutors argued the First Amendment did not give Risen the right to avoid testifying about his confidential sources in a criminal proceeding. The Justice Department argued Risen was a witness and should be compelled to provide testimony to a jury "like any other citizen." Prosecutors think Sterling provided classified information to Risen that served as the core for a chapter in his 2006 book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." The chapter describes an effort by the CIA in 2000 to interfere with Iran's nuclear program by sending a former Russian scientist to give it blueprints for a nuclear triggering device with a hidden design flaw.

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Home Front: WoT

NYT reporter subpoenaed in CIA case

2011-05-25

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Federal prosecutors issued a subpoena for a New York Times reporter demanding his testimony in the prosecution of a former CIA operations officer charged with illegally leaking classified information. The heart (urp) bleeds... In a court filing late Monday, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia said the reporter, James Risen, can provide crucial testimony implicating the defendant, ex-CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling, of O'Fallon, Mo. But Risen has steadfastly refused to cooperate in the Sterling prosecution. A judge previously quashed a subpoena issued to Risen at an earlier stage in the case. And Risen's lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, said Risen will again seek to quash the subpoena. He declined further comment. Prosecutors say Risen's testimony would be relevant to a jury, and that reporters enjoy no special privilege under federal law to avoid testifying. "Mr. Risen is an eyewitness to those crimes. Mr. Risen's testimony, like that of any other citizen in his situation, should therefore be admitted to permit the jury to carry out its truth-seeking function," prosecutors from the Department of Justice's Criminal Division and the Eastern District of Virginia wrote in a court filing seeking to compel Risen's testimony at trial. Prosecutors allege Sterling was a source for Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, in his 2006 book "State of War" about CIA operations in Iran. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride in the Eastern District of Virginia referred calls to the Justice Department, where DOJ procedures require the attorney general himself to sign off on subpoenaing a journalist.

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