Posted on 07/30/2005 11:36:27 AM PDT by Liz
WASHINGTON - Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., led congressional efforts in the mid-1990s that handcuffed the CIA's abilities to recruit spies - a key policy that helped allow the attacks of Sept. 11 to take place with no intelligence warnings. Current and former CIA operatives say that Clinton administration policies, which forbade the CIA from recruiting known terrorists and other criminals, left the U.S. government bereft of all intelligence about such terrorist groups.
In 1995, then-Rep. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., made secrets public at the behest of left-wing activist Bianca Jagger, his girlfriend at the time, according to Newark Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine in the January/February issue of Heterodoxy.
The secrets suggested that the CIA had on its payroll one or more unsavory characters who had been involved in murder.
Torricelli gave away secrets he obtained through his membership on the House Intelligence Committee.
This so outraged then-Speaker Newt Gingrich that he tried to have the New Jersey Democrat kicked off the panel.
Later, Torricelli was criticized in a committee report for having compromised American intelligence-gathering abilities around the world, adding that numerous CIA sources had decided to stop giving information for fear they would be outed by a congressman.
At the time, Torricelli's activities and leaks against the CIA garnered a large amount of press attention.
Mulshine’s article showed how Torricelli’s action in giving away the name of a CIA source in Guatemala was based not on fact, but on a conspiracy theory of "the loony left,” as Heterodoxy later characterized it.
The lawmaker was accused of having leaped to a number of inaccurate conclusions about the CIA’s role in the deaths of an American hotel owner named Michael DeVine and a Guatemalan guerilla named Efrain Bamaca Velazquez.
In its 1997 report, the House Intelligence Committee had this to say about the antics of Torricelli, by then a senator:
"None of the allegations raised by Rep. Torricelli in the March 22, 1995 letter to the president [Clinton] or subsequent public statements concerning the involvement of the CIA in the DeVine and Bamaca deaths in Guatemala have proved true.”
Still, Torricelli efforts paid off with the Clinton administration, which moved to ban the use of spies or the recruitment of spies that had any involvement with criminals or terrorists.
Torricelli effectively blinded the CIA.
He says he can't imagine ever running for office again, but he won't absolutely rule it out. A more realistic goal, he says, would be to serve as a US ambassador. He still has $2 million in leftover campaign funds, and he wants to play a major role in a presidential campaign. His choice is Hillary Clinton. He plans to host a fund- raiser ......for her Senate re-election campaign, and says she can win the presidential race in 2008.
READ MORE HERE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1453248/posts
He has his hand in taxpayer funds and is close associate of Corzine's.
Coruuptzine was in on the infamous Torricelli Shuffle when the lowlife quit the race and McGay and the rest of them got the NJSC to break the law to install Loutenberg.
Where and when did the ball get dropped and by whom that allowed all these criminals (well, terrorists) to come into power?
And he's got all his buddies in on the lucrative Honeywell deal that we, the peons, are paying for.....of course that's besides the equity positions the scumbag's got in the companies doing cleanup business for the govt.....which he's hidden in LLC's.
And how about Torislutty doing business in Taiwan? Maybe he's helping 'em tear down their intel agencies---like he did in the US.
Scumbag.
Torricelli always wore nice suits though.
Something I've long wondered about...
Why is is that there's a guy who's in prison for bribing "the Torch," but "the Torch" is out and about, running around scott free, and making a ton of money?
Why is the "briber" in jail, but the "bribee" isn't?
Mark
The Democrat vote centers on labor (big in NJ), women, enviros, and hypehnate voting blocs. They don't have to do much except pander----by promising big buck state and federal perks to all their blocs......which means taxpayers subsidize their " public service. "
This is Liberal La La Land personified. All they ever wanted.....the criminals go free while others get punished. Thank you liberals (gag).
I wonder if he's ever been nicknamed "noodle boy", which would seem fitting.
Ping to another chapter in the takeover of America.
And that's just cash flow on the surface for a single scam.
As I say, that's only the tip of the tax-paid bundle......
Torislutty's got hidden interests in businesses he hires for the cleanup.
The scam deal is Booby gets a piece of the action or they don't get any business.
Why isn't he in prison?
"Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around, Money makes the world go around, it makes the world go round."
Torch "the Torch" (Toricelli's nick name), his name is "toast" (& has been for some time).
-PJ
Good read:
13:21 2002-10-07
More of Dem Scandals
What’s happening in New Jersey? It is not as complex as the TV news would have you think…
Incumbent Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli has been embattled by ethics problems. So much so that he was officially censured by the US Senate, notably not only because of the infrequency that censuring takes place, but also because the Democratically controlled Senate was very friendly to Mr. Torricelli as he was the top fund raiser in the party. So great were his ethics woes that a previously unknown republican opponent, Doug Forrester, began to lead him in the polls.
A once untouchable Democratic incumbent was going to be felled to a “no name” leaving the majority in the Senate up for grabs. A worried Dem leadership yanked him from the ticket hoping to replace Mr. Torricelli with a candidate who was more likely to beat the come-from-behind challenger. Regardless of the fact that state law mandates that no candidate can be replaced on the ballot less that 51 days before an election, shaken Democrats scrambled to replace Mr. Torricelli on the ballot with a popular former senator, Frank Lautenberg.
The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed to hear the case today to see if the Democrats can indeed change the rules of the game while the game is in progress. This is exactly what the Democrats attempted to do during the 2000 national election. Either way, the Democrats will be the losers as they are seen as switching out a losing candidate with a healthier one- at best, a cheap attempt of maintaining the majority in the Senate.
Why all the fuss? For the answer, one has to look no further than today’s headlines. The Junta of Ten, the Senate Judiciary Committee- again Democrat controlled, whose strings are pulled by liberal special interest groups, will soon take a vote on yet another Bush nominee to the Federal Bench. This time it is Dennis Shedd from South Carolina. Liberal special interests know that they could never get their radical agenda past the American people so they must use a form of judicial tyranny to enact legislation through the hands of an unelected bench. Axing conservative judges is a great way to keep the status quo of liberal judges overriding the people’s will.
If the balance of power shifts to the Republicans in the upcoming mid-term elections, the Junta of Ten will lose their power to influence President Bush’s judicial legacy. The number one priority of the Democratic majority in the Senate is being able to obstruct conservative nominees to the Federal Bench, and Bob Torricelli stood in the way of this with his ethics woes steering a failing campaign.
Fallen Leaves: Barbra Streisand’s actions over the last few days have not cost the GOP a single vote. Her silly songs attempting to roast the Republican Party did little but make her and the Hollywood-laced crowd look silly for wishing for the scandal-ridden days of Bill Clinton to return. Perhaps she should start shouldering around with Bob “the Torch” Torricelli, as he mentioned his hero is Mr. Clinton in his tear ridden “I got the boot” speech on Sunday.
Ms. Streisand: You’ve come out for too many encores and we’re tired of seeing you…
Stephen A. McDonald
Bigtreenews.Com
Can we all say it together? DUH! She would make him an ambassador in a heartbeat, if (cough, gag) given the chance.
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