Shameless Lindsey Graham's Boston Cracks Blow Up in His Face

BY JEFF STEIN

Does Lindsey Graham have a screw loose? Or is he just shameless in his latest attempt to wring partisan advantage from a national tragedy?

Whatever, his latest attacks on an American intelligence agency blew up on him Monday like a trick cigar.

Hot Shots - Another Hawk for the Secret Court

FISA Court Adds Another Hawk: Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the D.C. District Court has been named to a seven-year term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the ever-vigilant Steve Aftergood at Secrecy News tells us. Collyer, appointed by SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts, replaces Judge John D. Bates, whose term ended on February 21, Aftergood said. 

(A roster of the current membership of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can be found here.)

Judge Collyer, a George W. Bush appointment, wrote a Sept. 2011 opinion “accepting the CIA's view that for the agency merely to acknowledge the fact that it had an interest in the use of drones for targeted killing would pose unacceptable damage to national security,” Aftergood writes.

“Today, the DC District of Appeals unanimously reversed Judge Collyer's decision,” Aftergood added. “The appeals court said the CIA was adhering to ‘a fiction of deniability that no reasonable person would regard as plausible.’ The case -- American Civil Liberties Union v. Central Intelligence Agency -- was remanded to Judge Collyer for further processing."

Benghazi (cont’d): “The FBI was given direct access to” Benghazi assault suspect Faraj al-Shibli “and it interviewed him recently in the presence of Libyan authorities,” CNN reported. Shibli has been held for about 2 days. No report yet on what his role, if any, was during the attacks and “it's also unclear whether his detention is likely to lead to charges in connection with the assault on the compound,” CNN said.  However, sources say he has connections to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

The Benghazi Debacle: FUBAR

On the very first night of my arrival in Vietnam to take over a secret intelligence operation, I was invited with my team to attend a cocktail party at the American consulate in Da Nang, an old French colonial port city on the central coast. I was so new, I was memorizing my cover story even as we drove to the consulate.

I was going to be running a “unilateral” espionage operation, which is to say, I not only wouldn't work with my South Vietnamese counterparts, who were heavily infiltrated by the communists, I was to consider them potential enemy agents, too.

A South Vietnamese colonel approached me during the party and asked what I did.  Using my fresh-from-language school Vietnamese, I told him that I was Army civilian working with a civilian refugee assistance program.

“Oh,”  he said with a smirk, “you’re a spook.” 

I froze. Later on, driving back to our safe house (in a Jeep painted black with diplomatic license tags, no less), I nervously told my teammates about the encounter with the colonel.

“Oh, that’s nothing”, one said, chuckling. “The Green Berets captured a Vietcong terrorist map six months ago. It had a big X on our house.”

“What happened?” I asked. “Nothing,” they said in unison, smiling with war-weariness. “Obviously we haven't moved.

"It’s just Fubar."