Mystery! Intrigue!

October 5, 2005 7:25 PM

[newsfilter]Espionage in the White House. First known W.H. spy in modern history.[/newsfilter]
posted by brittney (39 comments total)

When it rains it pours. Now, when are those Fitzgerald indictments coming down?
posted by stopgap at 7:28 PM on October 5, 2005

This one will get ugly. The dude started working in the White House under Clinton/Gore. Can you say "blame game?"
posted by mmahaffie at 7:32 PM on October 5, 2005

Finally, somebody closed the newsfilter tag. Now we won't have any more one link news posts.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:40 PM on October 5, 2005

Fitzgerald indictments by October 28th, or at least that's when the grand jury expires.

It's funny, I was goint to point out that this article never mentions that he was spying for Israel. But it turns out that's another guy. Too many spies for me!
posted by smackfu at 7:45 PM on October 5, 2005

Just to alleviate the inevitable cries of "THEY'RE SPYING ON US," note that the documents Aragoncillo downloaded and shared were dossiers on Philippine politicians, and his accomplice allegedly worked for an opponent of the current Philippine administration. The Philippines is currently being rocked by political instabilities due to the current president being implicated in election fraud and corruption charges, and the political opposition, many of them cronies of the late Ferdinand Marcos and deposed Joseph Estrada, are playing the situation to the hilt. I have some background here (self-link).
posted by brownpau at 7:47 PM on October 5, 2005

Finally, somebody closed the newsfilter tag. Now we won't have any more one link news posts.

Only three in. Excellent.
posted by brittney at 7:49 PM on October 5, 2005

Fitzgerald indictments by October 28th

That is my birthday. And I have been a good girl.
posted by brittney at 7:50 PM on October 5, 2005

Something about this smells funny. /tinfoil
posted by JeremyT at 7:52 PM on October 5, 2005

I think it's awesome that the picture is of him with Al Gore, even though he apparently was spying while working for Dick Cheney, too.

Let's spin!!
posted by bigbigdog at 7:57 PM on October 5, 2005

Whaddya know, a spy in the house of Rove.
posted by emelenjr at 8:12 PM on October 5, 2005

OMG, positively reeks to high heaven of Rove
posted by dhoyt at 8:16 PM on October 5, 2005

jinx!
posted by dhoyt at 8:16 PM on October 5, 2005

Look.....how badly do you WANT to expose the US Government as a bunch of robbing crooks?

If such were to happen and the citizens within the US were to 'rebel' either in open, deadly warfare or simple 'stop funding the government' tax-protest thing....how long would the REST of the world bother to keep US Dollars?

The resulting collapse might create a gravity well no one would escape.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:24 PM on October 5, 2005

White house secret leaks revealed! Water is rising. Bush II to use the ignorance defense, deploy monetary life raft of inflatable dollars stored during four "failed" oil ventures.
Halliburton inevitability contracts kick in with guaranteed profit margins. Cynical bastards too greedy?
posted by longsleeves at 8:27 PM on October 5, 2005

this is why we need cronyism. see, its good for america!
posted by goneill at 8:34 PM on October 5, 2005

There's a lot of strangeness about this story. The dailykos thread mentions the fact that this arrest actually occured on September 10th.

The actual complaint seems to take place in Monmouth Co, NJ. No occurance of "white house" in the document. It seems as if he used a yahoo account to email stuff from an FBI database -- not exactly the most sophisticated thing to do.

With the new articles in the Washington Post and NY Times, it seems as if they're cautiously echoing the fact that the investigation is focusing on his time at the White House. There doesn't appear to be any proof of anything happening in the White House -- yet.

So, we'll see.
posted by icosahedral at 8:37 PM on October 5, 2005

Word is Fitz to signal indictments (or not)..within days. Hubbabaloo around Washington is the magic number "22"...as in 22 indictments. No one knows for sure.

This "spy" story is incredibily timely, same goes for Bush's *just in time* speech tommorrow (10am EST) on global terrorism (or How Saddam backed 9/11!!!!) Great thing about this is, if Fitz has the goods, we're going to bust out of the GOP matrix...THERE IS NO SPIN!
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 8:40 PM on October 5, 2005

ABC news! Thanks Brittney!
posted by Dennis Murphy at 9:01 PM on October 5, 2005

This was reported in September by the Associated Press and the Army Times, neither of which mention Cheney's office.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:06 PM on October 5, 2005

I await the televised executions of everyone involved.
posted by Balisong at 9:16 PM on October 5, 2005

So is Michelle Malkin gonna demand that we throw all Filipinos into internment camps, for national security?
posted by HiveMind at 9:17 PM on October 5, 2005

Word is Fitz to signal indictments (or not)..within days.

-filter?

Sorry, they haven't made one of these with Libby's face... yet.
posted by clevershark at 9:21 PM on October 5, 2005

brittney writes "That is my birthday. And I have been a good girl."

I think I read in another thread, now closed, that Mr. Fitzgerald has personally called Matt to make known that he will take mefites birthdays and general goodness over the last twelve months when pondering the indictments.
posted by nkyad at 9:24 PM on October 5, 2005

That the case had expanded to the White House was an ABC News exclusive, on their national broadcast tonight. That's why no one else has stories out yet.
posted by smackfu at 9:38 PM on October 5, 2005

The Philippines is currently being rocked by political instabilities due to the current president being implicated in election fraud and corruption charges

So that's how the Philippines govt learned how to rig elections!
posted by squirrel at 10:19 PM on October 5, 2005

I guess we've already killed all the number 2 al Qaeda leaders, so it's time to start catching those White House spies.
posted by jefbla at 10:20 PM on October 5, 2005

We better fall for this misdirection or they'll have to nuke Iran in order to distract us from the Rove indictment. I wish this was a ludicrous statement but it's not like these bastards didn't start a war to distract Americans from the Enron scandal. You remember that one don't you? It's the one where GWB's top donor was and still is accused of running one of America's biggest companies into the ground by stealing all its cash. Hmmm I wonder if you can do that to an entire country?
posted by any major dude at 10:42 PM on October 5, 2005

Wait, are you telling me that they are all a bunch of corrupt slimeballs?

Why didn't anyone tell me about this?
posted by Balisong at 10:51 PM on October 5, 2005

In 1974, an assistant to Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt was discovered to have been spying for the East Germans.

It had nothing to do with Brandt, except that the guy had been working for him, and there was nothing in the world for Brandt to do but take responsibility for that.

So he resigned. I don't have the exact quote or etc. in front of me, but his resignation was built around the idea that it wasn't enough that he (Brandt) was "innocent" as regards his intentions or actions.

He said something like that the most important thing was that the citizens of Germany be able to trust their leaders, and that he had quite unintentionally betrayed their trust. Something about how no one was doing anyone any favors by continuing to lead in the absence of trust.

Sometimes it's helpful to be reminded that not every human who has ever taken responsibility for leadership has behaved like the lowest form of shit. And sometimes it's helpful to be reminded of what the options are when something like this happens, not because those options will be embraced, but because they won't even be mentioned.
posted by cloudscratcher at 10:55 PM on October 5, 2005

Damn, I was going to get a job at the White House and email FBI secrets out via my yahoo email! Now they'll be looking for it. Dammit, now I'm going to have to get a Gmail account. Damn you, Leandro Aragoncillo, damn you and your big fancy name.
posted by fenriq at 11:46 PM on October 5, 2005

Sorry, they haven't made one of these with Libby's face... yet.

Ah, jeez, quitcherbitchin'

posted by dhartung at 12:29 AM on October 6, 2005

You know, I wondered why BushCo suddenly decided that we need another Major Speech on Iraq and Terror.

Damn things are the most reliable barometer we have.
posted by eriko at 6:07 AM on October 6, 2005

This is just too cool. Here's a guy who turns to espionage to help over through the corrupt government of his native land. Here's hoping he doesn't disappear into some Gitmo like black hole.
posted by Mitheral at 6:56 AM on October 6, 2005

Here's hoping he doesn't disappear into some Gitmo like black hole.

You've got to be kidding. And besides, you should be hoping that he doesn't get electrocuted.
posted by gsteff at 7:11 AM on October 6, 2005

I can't see him being electrocuted, he wasn't passing on nuclear secrets or something. Besides weren't Ethel and Julius the last people to be put to death for spying?
posted by Mitheral at 7:36 AM on October 6, 2005

Ladies and gentlemen, I present your next Supreme Court justice!
posted by klangklangston at 7:51 AM on October 6, 2005

You know, I wondered why BushCo suddenly decided that we need another Major Speech on Iraq and Terror.

Considering that Blair already announced today that car bombs were coming from Iran, I imagine the speech is going to the be the starting point in the war against Iran.
posted by drezdn at 8:46 AM on October 6, 2005

Oops.
posted by drezdn at 8:48 AM on October 6, 2005

You don't have to put newsfilter tags on this post, all of it's news!
posted by taursir at 10:34 PM on October 6, 2005