Remember this one? (A CIA employee was terminated for leaking classified information.)
Now, there is more from AP:
According to Washington attorney Ty Cobb,
“She [Mary McCarthy] did not leak any classified information, and she did not have access to the information apparently attributed to her by some government officials.”
Cobb furhter stated,
“Her hope is to be able to pursue her planned retirement from two decades of distinguished public service to do community service law.”
The information about secret prisons was published in the Wapo, and the writer, Dana Priest, won a Pulitzer Prize for it.
continued
This statement concurs w/that of Larry Johnson, who wrote
“The case against the CIA Intelligence Officer, Mary McCarthy, fired for her alleged role in leaking information about secret prisons to the Washington Post’s Dana Priest smells a little fishy…”
“…[McCarthy’s position was that of an] academic/policy wonk position and, again, would not put her in a position to know anything first hand about secret prisons…”
“…this program did not come to Mary’s attention (if the allegations are true) because she worked on it as an ops officer. Instead, it appears an investigation of the practice had been proposed or was underway. That’s another story reporters probably ought to be tracking down.”
Yesterday, Rand Beers, a professional associate,who headed intelligence programs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration when McCarthy worked in the White House, stated,
“She was not the source for that story.”
McCarthy authorized him to state that.
It is the opinion of Stephen Kohn, of the National Whistleblower Center, that McCarthy could have a strong case to contest her firing. Kohn continued,
“If she was blowing the whistle on something that’s illegal, it’s our position you cannot classify the illegal conduct of government. You can’t say that’s a secret.”
OTHER CONCERNS WERE RAISED
- a polygraph cannot be used in criminal proceedings, and, that was the basis for the termination and the referral to the prosecutors for criminal charges.
- McCarthy may have been forced to make incriminating statements to other CIA investigators.
- any statements that were made may not be admissable in court.
When at the CIA, McCarthy served as an intelligence adviser to the White House’s National Security Council from 1996 to 2001. After President Bush took office, she left. Since leaving, she and her husband contributioned to Democratic candidates, namely, Sen. John Kerry’s Presidential campaign in 2004.
As Larry Johnson stated earlier,
she subsequently worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) from 2001 thru 2005.
And, AP has also stated
McCarthy then became a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a Washington think tank, and later returned to the CIA.
At the time of her termination, Mary McCarthy was 61 years old and was w/in days of retirement.