Hippie Flashback- CIA Director John Deutch gets pardon from William Jefferson Clinton

100 people, including former CIA Director John Deutch gets pardon from William Jefferson Clinton

WASHINGTON - With just hours to go in his presidency, Bill Clinton issued pardons Saturday to more than 100 people, including former CIA Director John Deutch; former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros; and Susan McDougal, a former Clinton business partner who was jailed in the Whitewater scandal.

Associated Press Last Updated: Sept. 15, 2000 at 11:35:08 p.m. WASHINGTON - Former CIA Director John M. Deutch, who previously admitted to mishandling sensitive data while heading the CIA, is now being investigated by the Defense Department for similar incidents, according to The Washington Post.

Defense Department documents allege that Deutch used unsecured computers at home and his America Online account to access classified defense information in the early to mid-1990s when he held high-ranking jobs at the Pentagon, the Post said in Saturday's issue.

``We find his conduct in this regard particularly egregious in light of existing DOD policy directives addressing the safeguarding of classified information,'' the Post quoted an internal Defense Department memo as saying. ``This situation was exacerbated because Dr. Deutch, while serving as the (deputy secretary of defense), declined departmental requests that he allow security systems to be installed in his residence.

``The evidence we obtained clearly establishes that Dr. Deutch failed to follow even the most basic security precautions.''

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed that the probe had been widened and asked the Justice Department to look into it, the newspaper said.

``This is now a pattern,'' Grassley was quoted as saying. ``Evidently, Mr. Deutch is a congenital downloader of classified information.''

A spokeswoman for Grassley did not return a message seeking comment late Friday night.

When allegations first arose concerning Deutch's use of computers while at the CIA, the Pentagon said it would try to determine whether similar problems had occurred while Deutch was at the CIA.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Tim Taylor, said that as recently as Thursday, officials had said no results of that investigation were available. He had no other comment on the Post report.

Deutch served as defense undersecretary for acquisitions and technology from April 1993 to March 1994, when he became deputy defense secretary. He was appointed CIA director in 1995, and left the CIA in December of the following year.

Two days after Deutch retired from the CIA, agency personnel discovered classified information stored on government computers at Deutch's home. Deutch eventually admitted the security breach, apologized and was stripped of his security clearances.

There is no evidence that computer hackers or spies obtained classified information as a result of Deutch's actions, though the Post quoted officials familiar with the case as saying that a Justice Department official and retired prosecutor, Paul E. Coffey, has recommended that charges be brought against Deutch.

In an emotional town hall-style meeting in South Central Los Angeles, the CIA director confronted allegations that his agency was involved in dealing crack cocaine in L.A's inner-city neighborhoods. (4 min. Vivo movie)

"I will get to the bottom of it and I will let you know the results of what I found," Deutch told the packed auditorium, guarded by sharpshooters and hundreds of Los Angeles police.

But that wasn't enough to soothe a boisterous and angry audience that was in no mood to accept assurances.

At one point, when a speaker stood up and identified himself as a former LAPD narcotics officer and said he had encountered CIA drug dealing, the crowd erupted. (13 sec. /160K AIFF or WAV sound)

Amid the rancor, Deutch had a hard time keeping order and getting his points across. He was shouted down several times as he tried to encourage anyone with evidence of a crack conspiracy to submit the information to the LAPD, the CIA Inspector General or a local Congress person.

"It is an appalling charge," he said. "It that goes to the heart of this country. It cannot go unanswered, that the CIA, an agency of U.S. government founded to protect Americans, helped introduce drugs and poison into our children and helped kill their future. No one who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand." (35 sec. /416K AIFF or WAV sound)

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"No one who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand." -- John Deutch

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The allegations were sparked in August by articles in the San Jose Mercury News that purported to trace the origins of the U.S. crack epidemic to a pair of Nicaraguan drug traffickers linked to the U.S.-backed Contra rebels.

Deutch isn't the only one who has disavowed the reports. CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz last month denied that the agency was involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade. "The agency neither participated in nor condoned drug trafficking by Contra forces," he said.

Despite these assurances, the rowdy response at Friday's meeting confirms the deep skepticism, particularly in the African-American community, that the government had something to do with the influx of cocaine into their communities during the 1980s.

WASHINGTON -- Former CIA director John M. Deutch is under investigation by the Department of Defense for the same type security violations he has admitted to while heading the CIA, according to Pentagon documents. The breaches allegedly occurred during the mid-1990s while Deutch was a high-ranking official in the Defense Department, before he went to the CIA. They involve classified information accessed from unsecured computers in Deutch's home and, in one case, computer cards containing a 1,000 page journal with classified information Deutch carried in his shirt pocket, according to the documents, obtained by the Associated Press. Deutch, the papers said, continued handling data on unsecured computers, even after signing a February 1995 memorandum while deputy secretary of defense on "the need to properly safeguard information." "We find his conduct in this regard particularly egregious in light of existing (Defense Department) policy directives addressing the safeguarding of classified information," an internal Pentagon memo said. Deutch left the CIA in 1996. He now teaches at MIT. A message left for him at his office seeking comment was not immediately returned. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed Saturday that the probe was widened. He said the Justice Department expanded its probe to include Deutch's activity at the Defense Department. http://detnews.com/2000/nation/0009/17/a04-120847.htm

WASHINGTON: A US justice department official is recommending criminal charges be brought against former CIA director John Deutch for mishandling secrets on his home computer, government officials said.

They said Paul Coffey, a former veteran justice department prosecutor who was brought out of retirement by attorney-general Janet Reno to review the Deutch case, recently told colleagues he had decided that charges should be brought.

The officials said it would be up to Reno to decide whether to approve Coffey's recommendation, which has yet to be put in writing. They were unable to say when she would act or what she would decide.

Coffey's investigation has marked the second time the justice department has reviewed whether Deutch committed security violations on his home computer.

In April 1999, the justice department declined to bring any criminal charges against Deutch, who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Then in July last year, the CIA inspector-general completed a highly critical report into Deutch's use of his home computer for classified materials while he served as CIA director from May 1995 to December 1996.

Earlier this year, the justice department began a new investigation into the case, and selected Coffey, a veteran organised crime prosecutor, to head the probe.

The justice department has faced criticism in Congress for not bringing any charges against Deutch while it prosecutes Wen Ho Lee, a former US government scientist, for allegedly mishandling nuclear secrets.

Lee, a former scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a naturalised US citizen born in Taiwan, has pleaded not guilty to charges of downloading nuclear secrets to unsecured computers.

A justice department spokeswoman declined to comment on the Deutch investigation. (Reuters)

I forgot Clinton pardoned Susan McDougal. She was a filthy little skank con artist trailer trash that probably had sex with Clinton to boot, and the pardon was as blatant a pay off as you could get. The media made a heroine out of this slob who was involved in destroying a Savings & Loan with her husband. Both Clinton partners, of course.

And just think of the smears on GWB, who doesn't have a single thing like that in his entire career.

>> ...probably had sex with Clinton

That's "probably" as in, "The sun probably rises in the east."

6 posted on 03/24/2004 5:39:29 PM PST by T'wit (Liberals are always wrong, even when they come down on both sides of the issue.)

Now we understand why 911 occurred--right, John Deutch? Wouldn't surprise me to find out that Deutch sold classified info to a Saudi Arabia sheik who in turn sold the info to OBL.

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