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BREAKING: Conned big time "CIA Witness" to White House Lying about Intel story found to be FRAUD
Capitol Hill Blue ^ | July 9, 2003 | Doug Thompson

Posted on 07/09/2003 4:04:00 PM PDT by Doug Thompson

Damn, I hate it when I've been had and I've been had big time.

In 1982, while I was working for Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a man came up to a me during a gathering in Albuquerque and introduced himself as Terrance J. Wilkinson. He said he was a security consultant and gave me a business card with his name and just a Los Angeles phone number.

A few weeks later, he called my Washington office and asked to meet for lunch. He seemed to know a lot about the nuclear labs in New Mexico and said he had conducted "security profiles" for both Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs. Lujan served on the committee with oversight on both labs and he offered his services if we ever needed briefings.

We already had nuclear experts on the committee, on loan from the Department of Energy, and we never used Wilkinson for briefings but we kept in touch over the years. He said he had served in Vietnam with Army Special Force, worked for Air America, later for the FBI and as a consultant for the CIA. He said he had helped other Republican members of Congress I called some friends in other GOP offices and they said yes, they knew Terry Wilkinson.

"You can trust him, he's one of the good guys," one chief of staff told me. When I left politics and returned to journalism, Wilkinson became a willing, but always unnamed, source.

Over the last couple of years, Wilkinson served as either a primary or secondary source on a number of stories that have appeared in Capitol Hill Blue regarding intelligence activities. In early stories, I collaborated his information with at least one more source. His information usually proved accurate and, over time, I came to depend on him as a source without additional backup.

On Tuesday, we ran a story headlined "White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes." For the first time, Wilkinsson said he was willing to go on the record and told a story about being present, as a CIA contract consultant, at two briefings with Bush. He said he was retired now and was fed up and wanted to go public.

"He (Bush) said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said in our story. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."

After the story ran, we received a number of emails or phone calls that (1) either claimed Wilkinson was lying or (2) doubted his existence. I quickly dismissed the claims. After all, I had known this guy for 20+ years and had no doubt about his credibility. Some people wanted to talk to him, so I forwarded those requests on to him via email. He didn't answer my emails, which I found odd. I should have listened to a bell that should have been going off in my ear.

Today, a White House source I know and trust said visitor logs don't have any record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever being present at a meeting with the President. Then a CIA source I trust said the agency had no record of a contract consultant with that name. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever heard of this guy," my source said.

I tried calling Terry's phone number. I got a recorded message from a wireless phone provider saying the number was no longer in service. I tried a second phone number I had for him. Same result.

Then a friend from the Hill called.

"You've been had," she said. "I know about this guy. He's been around for years, claiming to have been in Special Forces, with the CIA, with NSA. He hasn't worked for any of them and his name is not Terrance Wilkinson."

Both of his phone numbers have Los Angeles area codes but an identity check through Know-X today revealed no record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever having lived in LA or surrounding communities.

His email address turns out to be a blind forward to a free email service where anyone can sign up and get an email account. Because it was not one of the usual "free" services like Hotmail, Yahoo or such, I did not recognize it as one (although you'd think that someone like me would have known better).

The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme. I've spent the last two hours going through the database of Capitol Hill Blue stories and removing any that were based on information from Wilkinson (or whoever he is). I've also removed his name, quotes and claims from Tuesday's story about the White House and the uranium claims.

Erasing the stories doesn't erase the fact that we ran articles containing informattion that, given the source, were most likely inaccurate. And it doesn't erase the sad fact that my own arrogance allowed me to be conned.

It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information. The next one who does had better be prepared to produce a birth certificate, a driver's license and his grandmother's maiden name.

Any news publication exists on the trust of its readers. Because I depended on a source that was not credible, I violated the trust that the readers of Capitol Hill Blue placed in me.

I was wrong. I am sorry.

© Copyright 2003 by Capitol Hill Blue


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: New Mexico
KEYWORDS: 200307; 20030709; 20yearsofsuckerhood; admiralboorda; afoolandhissources; andstillnonames; apology; batboy; beatitdoug; bush; capitalhillblue; capitolhillbs; ccrm; chb; chrissteele; chump; cia; corn; correction; corrrection; coupplots; davidcorn; debkaneedsdoug; dougthompson; fraud; gocheckcaponesvault; hoax; inaccuracies; iraq; itsalongroadbackdoug; keywordsgohere; laughingstock; leavefrdoug; lies; longwalkshortpier; losalamos; loseyourdayjob; lostcredibility; makesthenytlookgood; marcash; markash; meaculpa; media; mediabias; nosoupforyou; notreadyforprimetime; rankamateurmistake; retraction; ruinedpermanently; salonishiring; sandia; sandianationallab; scoop; steeledossier; suuuuuucker; terrancejwilkinson; terrancewilkinson; thescoopthatwasnt; tookthedougforawalk; truthout; uranium; whosthefraud; wilkerson; wilkinson; wilkinsonsbitch; wmd; yourestilllyingdoug; youvebeenowneddoug
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To: nopardons
I stand by what I said. I see an absence of malice. I still like and respect Doug.
641 posted on 07/10/2003 12:51:11 AM PDT by 185JHP ( Down South, where the hogs have jowls...)
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To: Mo1
"... I can't pin point it .. but my gut tells me there is some more going on that we haven't figured out yet."

When your gut feeling gets to the point where you think that Doug Thompson made the whole thing up -- including his excuse for how it happened -- let us know.

642 posted on 07/10/2003 12:52:21 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: MJY1288
Scott Peterson will have some serious questions to answer

Oh good grief Mike .. It's Ritter .. not Peterson .. LOL

Just teasing .. and yes I agree it will all come out

643 posted on 07/10/2003 12:53:05 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: bootless
No, it takes Doug being called upon for his slanders and OUTED, for him to recant obliquely. That's all. This is NOT the first time, though it IS the worst of it.

Don't praise a liar for lying some more, in a most obvious attempt to CYA.

644 posted on 07/10/2003 12:53:57 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: The KG9 Kid
oh I realize that part .. it's something else ..
645 posted on 07/10/2003 12:54:20 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: 185JHP
You " see an anscence of malice " ?

Remove the blinkers, the blindfold, the putty, and the two fried eggs and look at the facts; the facts, which others have found and posted to this thread !

646 posted on 07/10/2003 12:56:02 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: 185JHP; nopardons
"... I stand by what I said. I see an absence of malice. I still like and respect Doug."

I see an 'absence of malice' when someone pitches a harmless water balloon at a fire truck in a parade carrying Dennis Hastert, but what makes you believe Doug Thompson is telling the truth all of a sudden?

Is it because you 'like' him?

Irrational.

647 posted on 07/10/2003 12:56:24 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: nopardons
absence

Typo ... sorry.

648 posted on 07/10/2003 12:57:12 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: The KG9 Kid
See what I mean ? LOL
649 posted on 07/10/2003 12:57:50 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: piasa
I'm more interested in truthout.org and how fast it put the article up

Yep .. I'd like to know also

650 posted on 07/10/2003 12:58:06 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: Mo1
"... oh I realize that part .. it's something else .."

I see.

I'd very much like to know too.

651 posted on 07/10/2003 1:01:15 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: The KG9 Kid
On a scale of malice ranging from 1 to 10, I put the terroristic act against Hastert at a 1.5 and Doug's error at about a .3. He didn't make the thing up himself - he believed a well-crafted bogus story.
652 posted on 07/10/2003 1:01:26 AM PDT by 185JHP ( Down South, where the hogs have jowls...)
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To: Mo1
I've just returned from vacation (without FR) so I'm more than a little behind.

But, I was under the impression that the WH confirmed the information was false. I hope I've gotten the wrong impression.
653 posted on 07/10/2003 1:01:37 AM PDT by Right_in_Virginia
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To: nopardons
It's people like these that makes me confident that Scott Peterson can get a fair trial just about anywhere in America.
654 posted on 07/10/2003 1:02:00 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: Jim Robinson
AMEN!
655 posted on 07/10/2003 1:03:00 AM PDT by scott7278 ("If I'm not back by dawn -- call the president.")
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To: 185JHP
"... He didn't make the thing up himself - he believed a well-crafted bogus story."

Only if you take Thompson's word for it, and his word is doo doo.

Read it over and over and contemplate it. Nothing about the explanation makes sense.

656 posted on 07/10/2003 1:04:31 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: 185JHP
No, no, no, NO ! The apology is a LIE !

Piiisssssssssssssssssssst ... wanna buy a bridge ? How about some swa ... great land I own down by a creek ? "Dirty, French postcards " ?

Wake up and smell the coffee...errrrrrrrrrrrr, stench !

657 posted on 07/10/2003 1:05:08 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: The KG9 Kid
*sigh*
658 posted on 07/10/2003 1:05:54 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: Right_in_Virginia
But, I was under the impression that the WH confirmed the information was false. I hope I've gotten the wrong impression.

About this Wilkinson guy? .. That is what Doug said

659 posted on 07/10/2003 1:10:43 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: Mo1
About what this "Wilkinson" guy said. The impression I got was that the WH (other than Wilkinson) admitted the information was fraudulent. Am I a victim of media spin?
660 posted on 07/10/2003 1:16:18 AM PDT by Right_in_Virginia
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