Posted on 06/14/2005 6:37:21 PM PDT by wagglebee
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mark Felt, the former FBI official who unmasked himself as the legendary "Deep Throat" source who leaked Watergate secrets, twice led FBI probes into finding Deep Throat, The Nation magazine said on Tuesday.
Combing through originally confidential FBI files now available to the public, co-writers David Corn and Jeff Goldberg found documents that showed Felt in charge of finding the source of Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's Washington Post scoops that helped bring down President Richard Nixon.
"How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI," which shows how Felt cunningly threw the federal agency off his trail, will hit news stands on June 23 and was posted on the magazine's Web site (www.thenation.com) on Monday night.
"He was much more than a secret sharer. He was an operator," says the story, adding he "was able to watch his own back and protect his ability to guide the two reporters."
Felt, filling in for FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray in June 1972 yet already talking secretly with Woodward, cleverly ordered an investigation of whether any FBI official had leaked information to the Washington Daily News. Not surprisingly, that inquiry produced nothing, the story said.
In a memo dated Sept. 11, 1972, Felt wrote to Assistant Director Charles Bates suggesting Woodward and Bernstein might have been receiving secret FBI information from someone outside the FBI, prompting an investigation of the county prosecutor in Miami, who was following the Watergate money trail.
At one point, Felt officially met with Woodward in what appears to have been a move to cover himself, the story said.
Felt, responding to a request from Woodward for an interview, agreed to see the reporter in the presence of his assistant, Wason Campbell, a 25-year FBI veteran. Felt refused to confirm any details presented to him by Woodward.
"That was obviously a staged event," Corn told Reuters on Tuesday. "Felt needed cover."
Even after suspicion grew in the White House that Felt might be the source of leaks, he was again put on the case, the story said.
In February 1973, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst asked Gray to order another investigation into the Washington Post's sources. Felt was assigned the job.
Felt's memorandum said "there is no question that they have access to sources either in the FBI or in the Department of Justice."
Felt later received a report saying there were alternative sources, besides FBI personnel, for everything reported. He forwarded the analysis to Gray, who suggested to Kleindienst that possible sources for the leak were the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington and a White House official, according to the story.
Talk about CYA.
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mark Felt, the former FBI official who unmasked himself as the legendary "Deep Throat" source who leaked Watergate secrets, twice led FBI probes into finding Deep Throat, The Nation magazine said on Tuesday. "
Now this has to be against a law.
Hey, this article was written by one of the Three Stooges!!
Deep Throat Ping!
Ok, throw him in jail. It's a fascinating story.
This guy is too old to prosecute. The administration would get a ton of flak for it. However, Bush could give Felt some sort of pardon. It would be a backhanded way of letting everyone know that Felt did something wrong.
Felt is a bigger scumbag and traitor than I even thought before!
What is the statute of limitations on obstruction of justice?
It's not just that he's too old to prosecute, I am fairly certain he is too old to be incarcerated for a non-violent crime. Plus he is probably not competent enough to stand trial, and would not likely be alive in a few years (which is how long it would take to even go to trial).
In other words, he screwed his agency to save his ass. He's not only "cunning", he's sleazy and underhanded.
Uh, pardon me but isn't that like obstruction of justice?
They're never going to prosecute, he's too old, probably senile and unlikely to be alive by the time they got around to a trial.
If he were a younger man, he could be helping Al Quaeda, just like so many younger men at the dinosaur media.
"How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI," which shows how Felt cunningly threw the federal agency off his trail, will hit news stands on June 23 and was posted on the magazine's Web site (www.thenation.com) on Monday night.
Felt later received a report saying there were alternative sources, besides FBI personnel, for everything reported. He forwarded the analysis to Gray, who suggested to Kleindienst that possible sources for the leak were the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington and a White House official, according to the story
He also knowingly filed false reports to a federal officer, in this case the head of FBI, the AG, and the President. That's how they got Martha Stuart among many, many others.
Remind me to kill you later, Porcupine!!
It's not "like" obstruction of justice, it IS obstruction of justice.
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