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

[PatrioticAmerican]

bump

[windchime]

"Check out Wilson -- he worked for Gore!"


Great find PKM!!

[PhiKapMom]

Check this out! Found this in a Newsmax article from during the Clinton impeachment:

Excerpt from How Hillary Nuked Nixon http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1998/10/1/55325

And research done by Labovitz and Rodham became the roadmap for three articles of impeachment reported out of the House Judiciary Committee that promptly destroyed any remaining congressional support for Nixon. Before the full House vote on the articles of impeachment, three senior Republican senators apprised Nixon of the handwriting on the wall. The Nixon presidency ended on Aug. 8, 1974.

The House Judiciary Committee’s former chief counsel, Jerome Zeifman, waited 22 years to unleash his bombshell, which would reveal that the deck was stacked against Nixon by none other than the wife of the man who now faces a similar fate. It was Hillary Clinton who rigged the proceedings against the 37th president, as Zeifman revealed in a little-noticed passage of his 1996 book, "Without Honor: The Impeachment of President Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot."

Zeifman quoted his own 1974 diary, which reports that just four days after Nixon resigned "John Labovitz came to my office and apologized for having participated to some extent to conceal from me the work that was being done. Some months ago, he and Hillary lied intentionally to me and told me there were no drafts of proposed rules of procedure for the [Nixon] impeachment inquiry."

The New York Daily News noticed this earthquake confession, and sought Zeifman's elaboration on the historic subterfuge perpetrated by our current first lady. The Daily News reported:

If the United States was going to topple its own president, rules were important, Zeifman told us Friday. "Suppose we were going to have the World Series next week and suddenly one of the team managers says, 'We want to change the rules to two strikes and you're out.'"

That's basically what [Hillary] Clinton and Labovitz did, Zeifman claims. In other words, they drew up new impeachment protocols to replace those in existence since Jefferson's day -- and then denied it. Congress -- and the country -- would have been completely polarized if it had seemed Nixon was being railroaded out of office with new rules, Zeifman said. (New York Daily News – Feb.12, 1996)

Nixon was likely guilty of the Watergate cover-up. But Ruth's memo to Jaworski shows there really wasn’t any "smoking gun" evidence of it.

And that's likely why Hillary Diane Rodham, who regarded Nixon as "evil," according to Clinton biographer David Maraniss, had to discard impeachment rules in place for two centuries in order to nail her quarry.

[Carolinamom]

When will you be making a personal appearance on TV to "explain" that your article and headline are riddled w/inaccuracies and that your retraction has NOT been noted by most of the media?

[RedWhiteBlue]

It's STILL yesterdays meatloaf...and YOU still need to get a life.

Why the hostility? The only thing I did was to gently (and non-critically) point you to another thread so that you could read more background on the subject. William McKinley had put together a great synopsis on the subject, and I thought that you might like to get a quick run-down. I'm puzzled at your reaction towards me.

BTW, this IS still a very hot topic around here, so apparently not too many Freepers consider this to be "yesterday's news." There are too many unanswered questions. But if you thought that it was so "yesterday," why did you even comment on a thread more than 24 hours after it first started?

As for your advise for me to "get a life," I can't imagine where you are coming from since you don't even know me or know who I am. Ad hominem attacks when someone was being helpful are fairly puzzling.

[windchime]

"The Democrats would never let a little fact like that get in the way of one of their spin cycles."


No kidding!

[ladyinred]

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

Yes she is running right now for 2004, no doubt in my mind. Today on a local talk show, a woman called in spouting the Bush lied story saying he is through, and that Hillary is going to be elected President in '04, and she would be the best, smartest, most intelligent one we have ever had!

[ladyinred]

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

I have been asking myself that question all day as I have been trying to play catch up on this tread. Somehow this needs to be exposed on a level that assures the American people hear it, but how? The left have the major media all sewn up, and all day they have been repeating the mantra, including Foxnews that Bush lied! I am just so frustrated by this!

[PhiKapMom]

That's why I am convinced the clintons are behind these attacks to take Bush down and pave the way for her to run.

RNC Research better be digging in their bag of anti-Clinton items ready to launch them. They have got to take her out before she gets any momentum. That lady scares me!

[ladyinred]

There are rumors that someone has dug up a great deal of nasty material on Rice. I have no idea what it could be.

I have a couple of ideas on who might be doing that dirty work. One, she is highly considered for the governor of California if the recall is successful. There are stories that she is interested. Secondly, and I would think the most likely culprit would be the fact that she is also regarded as a potential Presidental candidate for the first woman president. I think we all know who would be perturbed by that possibility don't we?

[PhiKapMom]

I am frustrated as well! Maybe it is time we all started calling in talk shows and supporting the President although C-SPAN probably wouldn't let us on.

I just cannot believe the media this week! It is like they are taking marching orders from the clintons and printing their talking point papers. Fox really disappointed me during the day today because I thought they would be honest but they had on more RATs and more of pointing the finger that Bush was lying then I could have imagined. Their fair and balanced was nothing more than words today and had absolutely no meaning!

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Okay... but what is the dirt on Rice? Probably really hard to find out, and I don't feel like looking, to be honest with you. I like Dr. Rice, she makes me smile everytime I see her on television.

[Lauratealeaf]

I emailed this thread to Britt Hume. Since Tony Snow mentioned this story in Fox News Special Report tonight he seemed to take Doug Thompson's word that he was fooled by Wilkinson. Hope they check out the thread.

[ladyinred]

So well said Imal, and I am afraid, so very true. I am so thankful someone finally said it.

[piasa]

See #1180... I think there's a good chunk of it in those threads.

[ladyinred]

The Link you provided has the lying article posted even as we speak. Bill Moyers son huh? Figures.

[piasa]

You'd think pardoning terrorists would raise some eyebrows regarding the Clinto admin..

[PhiKapMom]

That seems lost right now too!

[Iowa Granny]

FYI

A long, but very necessary read.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Email him again, and point out post number 1020 from Imal... the best post on the whole thread. Cut and paste it, so that it can't be missed.