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

[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

[MJY1288]

It's the DNC talking points being repeated by these MOLES

[Mo1]

You know, I keep hearing alot of accusations .. but no proof to back up their claims

As for those misiles .. weren't there a couple them found?

[Mo1]

The Al-Masoud2 missiles that were found in Iraq were capable of striking Israel and I guess those missiles that were fired into Kuwait were actually just a figment of our imagination.

That's what I thought

[piasa]

I agree; the goal is to damage the United States itself for the benefit of internationalists who believe the sovereignity of the US is a stumbling block to their agenda. Rockefeller is an internationalist. So is Gore Vidal, Hillary, etc. They feel closer in spirit to Havana than to the fifty states. They have a lot in common with islamicists, who also want a form of internationalism, albeit under a theocracy. The leadership of the islamicists, and their western followers, never forget, frequently attended the same universities the western left inhabit. Whatever differences there are, they have a common interest in bringing down the US and fitting it with the yoke of "international concensus," to be used as their personal draft animal and milk cow in forwarding an international socialist agenda.

[MJY1288]

The sad part of all of this is that these low-life anti-american liberals are hurting this country with these blatent lies.

The Bush Administration better be ready to confront these scumbags head-on, if they don't the liberal echo chamber (ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, C_Span and others) will be pushing these lies as far as they can

[piasa]

Is Joseph wilson perchance, Terrance J. Wilkerson?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Mmmmh... excellent question.

[Amelia]

If nothing appears on Nexis, and the media doesn't pick up the story, then it will be left to people like Freepers, to expose the story. A year from now, when looking for the articles, they won't appear.

The articles that are here on FR will be picked up at least by GOOGLE...that may not help the press, but they won't be gone for good.

[PhiKapMom]

I was told by someone that if you see the word "socialist" is used to describe President Bush by someone that he (someone) is working for Clintons, Dean, or Buchanan.

Now Dean has thrown in on this?

I am going to need a whole new roll of tinfoil before this week is even over.

[PhiKapMom]

I am totally convinced that the Clintons are the front people and someone with money that wants Hillary as their puppet in the White House is behind this.

This week is the first time I have acknowledged that I believe that she wants to take out Bush to run in 2004!

[GOPJ]

If you find one, let me know. Somehow, it would make the world seem kinder.

Has anyone seen a false story that trashed a liberal? Or made a liberal group look bad?

Hmmmm...I can't think of any. I suppose there have been a few over the last couple of decades but none that I can remember.

[EllaMinnow]

FINALLY google news has the Powell statement up:

PRETORIA, South Africa - Secretary of State Colin Powell defended the administration in its handling of information about Iraqi weapons programs, saying Thursday that President Bush shouldn't have to apologize for a statement that later proved false.

Powell's remarks were the administration's strongest defense yet of Bush's decision to include an assertion in his State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Africa.

"There was no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the administration to mislead or to deceive the American people," Powell said in Pretoria, South Africa, where he was traveling with Bush. "The president was presenting what seemed to be a reasonable statement at that time."

As weeks have passed with the American search turning up no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, criticism, especially from Democrats, has been building concerning assertions the administration made as justification for the war.

One reason Bush gave for taking military action was that Saddam possessed of weapons of mass destruction. In his Jan. 28 State of the Union message, Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Powell said the line in Bush's speech reflected the best available intelligence at the time. Days later, as Powell prepared his Feb. 5 speech on Iraq to the United Nations, the secretary said he decided not to use the information.

"I didn't use it, and we haven't used it since," Powell said. "But to think that somehow we went out of our way to insert this single sentence into the State of the Union Address for the purpose of deceiving and misleading the American people is an overdrawn, overblown, overwrought conclusion."

Democratic lawmakers are calling for deeper investigations into how Bush handled the intelligence.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is running for president, said the issue was not a matter of politics, but national security.

"When we go to other countries and say we have evidence of X or Y or Z, it is important that they believe us," Kerry said Thursday at the Capitol in Washington. "And when we go to the American people and ask them to support some effort in the future, it is more than important that they believe us. So I believe we need a thorough investigation in order to re-establish the credibility of our own government."

Powell compared intelligence gathering to a moving train.

"It turned out that the basis upon which that statement was made didn't hold up and we said so," Powell said. "And we have acknowledged it. And we moved on. ... We can chew on this sentence in the State of the Union Address forever, but I don't think it undercuts the president's credibility."

He reiterated the administration's message - that Saddam's government had developed weapons of mass destruction and had used them. When the 1991 Gulf War was over, American forces found them and destroyed some, he said. For years, the U.N. weapons inspectors searched for more, but could not find them all, Powell said.

He also noted that President Clinton ordered missile strikes against Saddam in 1998.

"What did he bomb?" Powell asked, rhetorically. "He bombed for four days, in Operation Desert Fox, facilities that were believed to possess or were developing or producing weapons of mass destruction.

"The entire international community has felt over this entire period that Saddam Hussein had these weapons and there was sufficient intelligence available to all the major intelligence agencies of the world that they existed and they do exist."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0710PowellIraq10-ON.html

[Registered]

You should post that as a thread if it isn't already!

[EllaMinnow]

Anyone have a subscription to The Economist online? They have this new headline:

"Britain's spies are annoyed by an American retraction"

and I can't access the article.

[PhiKapMom]

Thank you for posting that. You might want to make it its own thread! SoS Powell is getting a bad rap I believe especially from some folks on here that have been relying for their news from places like CHB. Have heard SoS Powell say several times when he was quoted that he didn't say those things. After Thompson using quotes of the President that were bogus, I believe it!

[EllaMinnow]

I'll search and post it if it's not up yet.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I too have noticed that after the dust clears in the latest Powell controversy, that it usually emerges that Powell did not say what was attributed to him.

[PhiKapMom]

Brown mentioning it as a lie?

Do pigs fly?

I am getting a stronger hunch that Thompson knows this story was planted and he ran with it. He hates the Bush Family and wouldn't think twice of using the word "lie" -- clintons were in Britain and now Wilson turns up in a story from there!

All this stinks! Now what to do is the question?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Hmmm.... if they were truly good spies, wouldn't they have seen the retraction coming, long before? LOL

[piasa]

It's MOST curious that this guy did NOT comne forward the da after the SOTU speech if he "knew" that info was "false"!!! Any ideas WHY??

Because he didn't get his talking points, yet, of course.

It takes a while to fabricate good lies, even James Carville can't work without sucking the heads of a few potfuls of mudbugs first. Then he has to forward the material to McAuliffe, then to someone else, then to Hillary, who probably has to take time out for some occult consultations with Eleanor Roosevelt, and seems to be the sort who would swing down to some Santeria priestess to buy dolls to stick pins in, maybe sacrifice a chocolate lab or two. This sort of thing takes time! With the dreaded Ashcroft monitoring international financial transactions for terrorist activity, it is much harder to be sure the Chinese monk's financial support goes unnoticed, and the Chinese aren't as free with their cash now that Bubba can't guarantee they will get the designs for the latest US aerospace product prototype or updated security codes for Los Alamos. The DNC probably had to build a whole new financial network. ;o)