Later On

Interesting report on the GOP-run CIA:

Paramilitary agents for the CIA’s super-secret Special Activities Division, or SAD, perform raids, ambushes, abductions and other difficult chores overseas, including infiltrating countries to “light up” targets from the ground for air-to-ground missile strikes. This week the government acknowledged for the first time that some of SAD’s sensitive air operations were swept up in a fraud conspiracy that reached the highest levels of the CIA and cost the government $40 million.

That information was contained in a series [1] of court [2] filings [3] released in advance of the long-awaited sentencing of Kyle Dustin “Dusty” Foggo, the disgraced former No. 3 official at the CIA.

One remarkable affidavit came from a leader of SAD, a branch of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, which handles covert actions. It indicates that Foggo forced SAD to use a shell company set up by defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes to handle its sensitive air operations, even though Wilkes and his company had no experience in clandestine aviation operations.

Wilkes was Foggo’s boyhood friend and a co-conspirator in the bribery scandal that erupted around former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who is serving more than eight years in federal prison.

Since the 9/11 terror strikes, SAD’s role in the war on terror has become more prominent. Its paramilitary operatives have been used to snatch high-value suspects from the streets of foreign countries for rendition to black sites for interrogation. When carrying out their operations in other countries, the agents typically do not wear uniforms or carry items that connect them to the U.S. government. If they are caught, the government may disavow any connection to them.

Foggo’s sentencing, scheduled Thursday before Judge James C. Cacheris in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., will be the final sentencing of the ring of co-defendants in the bribery scandal that erupted around Cunningham.

Foggo, 53, was running the CIA on a day-to-day basis until he resigned in 2006 after his name surfaced in the scandal. At first, …

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