George W. Bush's third-highest ranking State Department official, Marc Grossman, who became the Under Secretary of State after previously serving as Ambassador to Turkey, was targeted as part of a "decade-long investigation" by the FBI, according to an 18-year veteran manager of the agency's Counterintelligence and Counterespionage departments.
For still-unknown reasons, the investigation, which also involved a multitude of cases involving Israeli espionage, was ultimately "buried and covered up," according to the official.
The comment from the former FBI official John M. Cole, in response to recent, stunning disclosures made by former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, helps to shore up a key aspect of her allegations. Cole is now calling for an investigation to help "bring about accountability" in the matter.
Edmonds' allegations of bribery, blackmail, and infiltration by foreign agents at the highest levels of the U.S. government were recently detailed in a remarkable cover story interview, as published last week by the American Conservative magazine.
"I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview," Cole says in his public response, as posted today at the AmCon website by interviewer and former CIA agent Philip Giraldi.
Cole then went on to verify his knowledge of the espionage investigation which, he says, included Grossman. Edmonds has long alleged he had been a key target in the agency's counterintelligence probe of the Turkish lobby and their relationship to current and former members of Congress and high-ranking officials in the Bush State and Defense Departments.
Cole also charges, in his brief comment, that the investigation was ultimately quashed by still-unnamed officials.
"I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article, Marc Grossman, which ultimately was buried and covered up," Cole notes, adding his call to re-open the matter. "It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability."...
Grossman was specifically identified as a ring-leader in a very broad espionage scandal --- which includes the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology to the foreign black market --- in a series of front-page exclusives by the UK Sunday Times in early 2008 (the stories can be found here, here and here). At the time, though the paper clearly identified the official in question, they didn't name him outright due to British libel laws. One of the co-authors of the series, Joe Lauria, has since confirmed the official in question was, indeed, Grossman.
The 2008 Sunday Times series detailed Edmonds' allegations that Bush's Under Secretary of State Grossman --- the third-highest ranking official in the State Department, after Colin Powell and Richard Armitage --- worked closely with both the Turks and Israel in obtaining and selling U.S. nuclear weapons technology on the worldwide black market, and that he had even tipped off
Turkish diplomatic colleagues about the true identify of then-covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson's front company, Brewster Jennings, several years before the operation was named publicly by columnist Robert Novak.
Grossman, identified by the Times as "The senior official in the State Department [who] no longer works there," was quoted offering this non-denial denial of Edmonds' allegations in their report: "If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money that's outrageous. ... I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this."
So far, Grossman has yet to respond to The BRAD BLOG's requests for comment as sent to his lobbying firm, The Cohen Group, where he now serves as Vice Chairman.
Read on.
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