More on the FBI's Own Falafel

by emptywheel

There's a bit of a squabble over how important Nada Nadim Prouty, the FBI/CIA agent who got unauthorized access to Hezbollah information at the CIA, was to the agency. Via Laura, NBC reports that she was very important.

Current and former intelligence officials tell NBC News that Nada Nadim Prouty had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees.

A former colleague called Prouty “among the best and the brightest” CIA officers in Baghdad. She was so exceptional, agree officials of both agencies, the CIA recruited her from the FBI to work for the agency’s clandestine service at Langley, Va., in June 2003. She then went to Iraq for the agency to work with the U.S. military on the debriefings.

“Early on, she was an active agent in the debriefings,” said one former intelligence official. “It was more than translation.”

But the same story has a senior official reporting that she wasn't that important.

A senior U.S. official familiar with the case says there is no evidence she was a spy and noted that the CIA and FBI have a good record in prosecuting spies, particularly in their own agencies.

He says her role was limited.“This is not John Dillinger or Reilly Ace of Spies,” said the official.

All of which got me looking at some details of her plea agreement. First, she pled guilty to three crimes, with a combined maximum sentence 16 years and $600,000 in fines. But her recommended sentence (it requires her cooperation with the CIA) is just 6 months to 1 year.

It's the last crime she plead to, though, which is most interesting. She plead guilty to Naturalization Fraud. The statute of limitations had run out on that crime for her, so she had to agree to waive the statute of limitations so they could charge her with it. Which is how they got the following language into her plea:

The defendant admits that she is a native of Lebanon, that her U.S. citizenship will be automatically revoked as a result of her guilty plea to count 3, and that she is removable from the United States ... as a result of her guilty pleas in this case. The defendant further waives any right that she may have to receive notice of intent to request judicial removal and a charge containing factual allegations regarding the removal. The defendant understands and knowingly waives her right to a hearing before an immigration judge or any other authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act, on the question of her removability from the United States. The defendant further understands the rights she would possess in a contested administrative proceeding and waives these rights, including her right to examine the evidence against her, to present evidence on her behalf, and to cross-examine witnesses presented by the government.

The defendant further waives any rights that she may have to apply for relief from removal and requests that an order be issued by this court for her removal to Lebanon. The defendant agrees to accept a written order of removal as a final disposition of these proceedings and waives any rights she may have to appeal the order issued.

The order of removal shall also include a grant of withholding of removal to the country of Lebanon ... Defendant hereby agrees to make both the judicial order or removal and the grant of withholding of removal to Lebanon a public document, waiving her privacy rights.... At the request of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will provide its concurrence to the government's request for a judicial order of removal coupled with a grant of withholding of removal to Lebanon as set forth above at sentencing. [my emphasis]

She has waived the statute of limitations so they could charge her with Naturalization Fraud, which they promptly used to take away any all legal immigration status she has. So obviously, she has agreed to be very--very--cooperative. Presumably not just with the CIA, in explaining how much information she disseminated to whom. But also more generally, to get those sentences (and whatever larger sentence got her to agree to waive the statute of limitations on the Naturalization crime instead).

Not only that, she's completely at the mercy of whomever she's cooperating with. She's got no US citizenship; plus she's got an order of removal hanging over her head, with that order being withheld courtesy of the US government. On their say so, she gets kicked out of the country.

And not only is she in this legal limbo--but the US government required her to allow them to make it public. Now who--or what group--do you suppose the government would want to know that Prouty was going to be sticking around in the US at the sole discretion of the US government?

One detail I find really tantalizing about this, though, is the possibility that her cooperation may be nothing more than silence (aside from clarifying what info she stole from the CIA). After all, she apparently witnessed--if not participated in--interrogations of high level Al Qaeda detainees, as early as 2003. There's a whole range of people the government would like to keep information she knows secret from--most of all the American people. So it's possible she's going to be very cooperative with the CIA in telling what she knows; it's equally possible she's going to be very cooperative in other ways, perhaps most of all, her silence.

Or perhaps they're going to turn her into a super-interrogator, with no legal rights in this country, and lots of incentives to continue doing as they say.

Comments

[earlofhuntingdon]

The silence will be deafening.

[prostratedragon]

See what you can come up with by thinking?

[darms]

I checked your links, EW, but there's not much there. Did the Bushies in their haste to invade & torture hire a mole and thus did commit treason against these United States?

[Rod]

When you say, " There's a whole range of people the government would like to keep information she knows secret from--most of all the American people. ", I guess you mean the stuff they never told the public about what really happened on 9/11.

[Steve Elliott]

I can`t get over how astute you are Mrs Emptywheel. Fantastic analysis!

[emptywheel]

Rod

No, I'm talking about her being a witness to the methods they're using to interrogate top Al Qaeda detainees.

[Mary]

EW - A witness and perhaps a participant and almost certainly briefed in on aspects not being witnessed directly so she could work them into her interrogation plan. The tenor of saying she was not "just" a translator and referring to how active she was indicates pretty much just that.

You almost wonder, given some of the no-love-lost aspects of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda and our original detente with Syria, if someone knew her Hezbollah connections and didn't care that much, but then things changed. In any event, when I read that active agent, more than tranlation part the first thing I thought is that they won't want her talking about what was done.

[Mad Dogs]

Yes EW, that "witholding of the removal order" is mighty interesting. And the publicity, not at all SOP at the DOJ.

This is certainly something deliberately orchestrated by folks who work for the US Government, but not in any corner of the Justice Department.

Think of dark, foggy graveyards where bodies are quietly buried, and some are even un-buried. Folks who hang about there never give you their real names.

If she was a "planted mole", then she has been "turned" by the US Government, and as you state, they want that publicly known.

Message to Hezbollah? Message to other Islamic Jihadi parties? We know all your secrets, so you're going to have to do a massive re-org of stuff like communications, strategies, tactics, your other undercover personnel in many other countries, etc.?

And as all the other undercovers run for safe-houses and exit routes, we be watching each one every step of the way, so that stuff is gonna be blown too?

Or perhaps "watching" isn't enough, and we be scooping up all the critters who run from the daylight?

Just imagining stuff off the top of my head, doncha know? *g*

[radiofreewill]

What effect would her plea deal status have if she were named as 'an active participant' in a detainee abuse lawsuit overseas?

[Jodi]

Well, I am still miffed about the whole thing.

It is just like at the Airport, when they are bending over backwards not to "profile" people.
They take the tall blonde all American girl out and subject her to the extra touch and feel test.

And now I find out the same blonde who was born in America, with at least 3 generations of American born forebears, who plays basketball, and does well in Science and Math has her father, a military doctor, asked personally whether "this picture is your daughter" and likewise her brother another military officer asked the same, and what her interests in school, out of school, and internationally are.
And school teachers and professors asked "do you remember this girl."
... and what kind of people does she hang out with?

And they let a foreign born spy with a fake identity and marriage into the proverbial hen house.

Is it because I had a great great great grand father who was a wheelwright in the Confederate Army? Surely not because of my great great uncle who in WWII was the tail gunner on a flying fortress that wasn't such a fortress and surely didn't always fly?

[Lukery]

EW - on every page of the worksheet of the plea agreement, bottom right hand corner, it says "(rev. 06/99)"

Any idea what that means? Is it pro-forma? I'm tempted to think that it might stand for "Revised, 2006 Sept 9" or something similar which would be interesting. (The FBI learned of the Hezbollah connection Dec 2005 - it'd be interesting if they've been, ummm, negotiating all this time)

[freepatriot]

hey, I just saw geragos discussing the bonds indictment on ESPN

doesn't barry know about geragos and the guilty ???

[ab initio]

What did Ms. Nada Prouty do and how red-handed was she caught that she would agree to become a "stateless" person?

[hauksdottir]

If she talked with detainees and informants and innocents being swept up and tortured until they admitted something, anything, she can't possibly be a trusting American. She must know what our forces are capable of doing to another human.

Stripped Stateless and sent packing back to the land of her birth has to sound better to her than rendition to a CIA black site where our President's buddies will allow her to be tortured to death as a double or triple crossing spy. If returned to Lebanon, will Hezbollah, a perfectly legal political party there, regard her as a collaborator or enabler of the infidel occupiers and impose their own brand of justice upon her? What if they were to send her packing as well? (I remember a story of a man cursed to live shunned by all nations, always traveling... early 1800s?)

Extortion is just another form of torture and this plea deal smells of extortion to me.

The withholding of deportation as long as she maintains silence (thus guaranteeing her life, if not liberty) is almost certainly the meat of the matter.

I have no sympathy for her, what she has done or witnessed. However, I'd rather that she be compelled to talk rather than be compelled to keep quiet. Secrecy is like darkness: you need some dark in order to sleep, but too much darkness allows criminals and predators to operate.

[tin foil]

So who was Nada's husband? CIA...FBI or some State/Pentagon employee.

[semiot]

Now we know jodi's pedegree! She's the gweat, gweat niece of Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy! Wow. I am shocked and awed now.

[bmaz]

Lukery - That is undoubtedly when the basic form was last officially updated.

EW- This is a way bizarre plea provision. I have no idea if this is the intent, or part of the intent, or not, but it appears to me that the removal provision trumps the incarceration provision. It is possible this is some method of insuring that she does not have to actually ever Scoot off to prison; i.e. if for any reason the government can't prevail on the judge/court to keep her out of the clink, the government simply removes her so she never has to be incarcerated. I can't figure this deal out clearly enough to really know, but I put the thought out for whatever it's worth.

[freepatriot]

sorry folks, but I gotta go off-topic here, just to ask one smartaleck question, then I'll crawl back into my hole ...

it's about barry, again, or baaaaarrrrrrlllleeyyyy, as we haters call him

there's a diary over at DKOS called "Barry meet Scooter", which appealed to my eye because it drew attention to similarities between barry's charges and those charges successfully prosecuted against one I. Lewis Libby (some of you might remember that case)

so I was wondering if there might be any persons around here who might be able to assist a legal team prepare to face those type charges, somebody who might just be an expert ...

yo, ew, any plans to consult with any defense teams in the near future ???

(if you do, overcharge the bastards by a WHOLE LOT, Okay ???)

now back to your regularly scheduled ... what the fuck were we talking about ???

[bmaz]

freepatriot - Barry may indeed be guilty, I dunno but the evidence looks fairly compelling; but the way the prosecution has handled this case is so outrageous that THEY ought to be sent to prison. And the way the already disgraced Kevin "Nifong" Ryan was parading his puffy ass around the cable channels yesterday was beyond belief. I gotta say that, if I had to pick Bonds or the prosecutors who have ginned this case from the beginning, I would probably pick Bonds.

[MayBee]

One detail I find really tantalizing about this, though, is the possibility that her cooperation may be nothing more than silence

She chose to plea. There must be something in it for her.

[phred]

Hmm, you're a blonde Jodi??? I'm guessing that makes your ancestry EUROPEAN! OMG, no WONDER you're being profiled... Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist, too!

Holy cow, the Feds have updated their racial profiling to match ACTUAL terrorists, who knew?!?

[Slothrop]

Or maybe the whole story is fabricated for reasons we can't fathom. Not too many folks in U.S. intelligence who speak Farsi -- those who do are likely to know each other and could provide details about what the real story is here.

[Shit Stain Remover]

Well, I am still miffed about the whole thing.It is just like at the Airport, when they are bending over backwards not to "profile" people. They take the tall blonde all American girl out and subject her to the extra touch and feel test.

And now I find out the same blonde who was born in America, with at least 3 generations of American born forebears, who plays basketball, and does well in Science and Math has her father, a military doctor, asked personally whether "this picture is your daughter" and likewise her brother another military officer asked the same, and what her interests in school, out of school, and internationally are.

And schoolteachers and professors asked "do you remember this girl."... and what kind of people does she hang out with? And they let a foreign born spy with a fake identity and marriage into the proverbial hen house.

Is it because I had a great great great grand father who was a wheelwright in the Confederate Army? Surely not because of my great uncle who in WWII was the tail gunner on a flying fortress that wasn't such a fortress and surely didn't always fly?

Posted by: Jodi | November 16, 2007 at 01:11

I never thought I’d see the day Jodi bitch about being felt up, a small inconvenience as opposed the importance of guarding an expensive jet airplane and the safety of lives of its innocent travelers.

If I were al Qaeda, I’d recruit a blond American basketball player who is dissatisfied with her government. You see in this America, everyone is a suspect and no one is secure in their papers, person and possessions. No one gets a pass, not even the blond, basketball-playing authoritarian, who is good in science and math. You think al Qaeda does not need such skills? (The science and math, I mean.) Who’s to say your complaints are not an attempt to create the cover you need to operate as a covert terrorist?

A third generation warrior (well actually her bother is), Jodi’s family has found itself on the justifiable side of the conflict exactly once. The south was prepared to destroy the union over economic considerations and Bush initiated a pre-emptive aggressive war on Iraq that had nothing to do with al Qaeda or 9/11. (Perhaps, We should stop giving southerners war powers.)

Jodi’s military family background may explain her deference to authority, the ease with which she makes new friends, the “compelling” arguments she makes about use of force to resolve political conflicts and how jaded the me generation has become with regard to the rule of law.

[emptywheel]

To piggyback on what Mary and Mad Dogs have added. My GUESS about what's going on is this.

1) She did a whole lot more than just look. Otherwise why waive the statute and become a stateless person?

2) The government wants, presumably, Hezbollah to know she is now cooperating. And also to know that if she shows up in Lebanon, she's fair game. If Hezbollah believes she is now cooperating--particularly if they believe she's cooperating beyond just discussing what she saw about Hezbollah--then I imagine she would not live long in Lebanon.

3) All of which makes me think about what kind of future she has. If I were her, I'd want to stick pretty close to the govt, because if she flipped on Hezbollah, she's probably not safe in the US. So how might she spend her time? She's perfectly fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable in the culture, a stateless person, and possibly trained in our most aggressive interrogation methods.

[phred]

EW, why would the govt want Hezbollah to know she flipped? Presumably they could have used her as a double agent. Unless of course they feared she would blab on torture, in which case I see your point that they have to give her proper incentive to keep her mouth shut. Still, it seems like a waste of a potential asset.

[bmaz]

"So how might she spend her time? She's perfectly fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable in the culture, a stateless person, and possibly trained in our most aggressive interrogation methods."

Right. And in retrospect, I didn't explain myself very well with my thought @09:57. No way given our current paucity of facts to know exactly what Government is up to with Ms. Prouty; but they are up to something. Whatever it is, I doubt that it contemplates her being a prison mole/snitch (you never know, but that wouldn't require the unusual removal provisions). So, if they are going to work her, they need a way to immediately have her either not be incarcerated in the first place and/or be un-incarcerated (released) immediately when they need her. The immediate removal provision accomplishes exactly that. Again, random thoughts for whatever they are worth....

[emptywheel]

phred

I'm not sure, but that's the first basis of my thinking here: make her stateless, make it clear she's in the direct control of the USG, and then publicize it. It might just be a pissing contest, "You guys thought you could break through our defenses, but we caught you!" which would be very typical of the Bush Administration. It might be just to make sure that she has every incentive to stay in the US, quietly (and this is the nicest possibility I can think of, on teh part of the govt). I'm not sure, really.

[Jodi]

I feel like I got run over by a stampede.

I will have to get back tonight to answer all that.

[Shit Stain Remover]

I was just kidding.

[Jay]

Well well well. This is the deal: she was probably caught dead to rights trafficking in information. She may also have signalled to her handler--whoever that may be; don't assume we or the authorities know--that she had been compromised.

Now if this were an ordinary US citizen, an analyst say at the CIA, they'd prosecute and put her in Leavenworth. But analysts receive compartmentalized information. She was at FBI first (the ultimate authority in our government for counterintelligence, i.e. spycatchers) and later at the CIA. So she wasn't some rinkydink analyst, she was a player in forward positions, as confirmed by her stay in Baghdad. She wasn't getting compartmentalized information, she was getting it straight from the horses' mouths.

That Hamas would be interested in our interrogation techniques is absurd. They don't care--they've made up a few we probably still don't know about. She was letting primo milk over the fence, other stuff.

Now what do you do when you discover or suspect that you have a spy in your midst? The standard procedure is to reassign them, sometimes upward, to an innocuous position where they can solve some novel problem. They have no (or few) staff, no budget, and no access to information. Then you feed them bullshit and observe them; see where the information you feed them goes. By this time they may already be suspicious and signal that they've been compromised. If they get that signal through, you can't turn them, that is, make them a double agent. Meanwhile you've already done more background checks and look for any legal means to detain that person.

Espionage is treason, and treason is a capital crime. But you can't kill spies; you might have to ask them a question later (yes there have been exceptions). So what do you do with them? You put them on ice. Suspend them in limbo. Put them in a position where you're in control of every aspect of their lives and whether they get deported, etc. The best position to have them in is in a safe house where they can just chill out and you can debrief and interrogate them. You don't torture them, because it doesn't work! And if what I suspect is true, they won't torture her, especially given the public nature of her "nab."

But catching her up in an immigration loophole suits their purposes perfectly. They did that all the time with Soviet defectors. The usual FBI counterintelligence incompetence aside, it's a good bet that she was up to some pretty bad stuff.

[Jodi]

The penalty for spying in wartime is death. Fairly good threat to get her to sign up for less than a year's sentence.

I didn't know Sen Joe McCarthy was called tailgunner Joe. I read in Wikipedia that he didn't fly at all, but was an Intelligence offier for a dive bomber squadron.

My Uncle did fly in the back of those big planes. Dad and another Uncle said he was a good marksman before the war, and a great marksman after the war, because he learned to shoot so well.
He went into service when he was about 17, and died before he was 30, but he had one of those lives that people talk about generation to generation.
I have a lot of stories about him, but that is for another time and another place.

[semiot]

The Next Hurrah needs a tailgunner, Jodi - like a fish needs a bicycle.

[MayBee]

She has a husband and a 2 year old daughter here.

[Jodi]

That explains it MayBee.

A two year old daughter would bring trememdous pressure on her to do anything in order to protect the child, and allow her as quickly as possible to reunite with her.

[shutter]

I somewhat agree with phred. If she was as important and brilliant as some of her fellow officials said she was then it would be a waste to let her go. By the way, phred, she is not an asset, she is a Case Officer. Now she could become an asset to other CIA officers. That would make more sense. Or they could make her a NOC. A NOC has no diplomatic immunity whatsoever, though this would make her more vulnerable to become a double agent. I don't believe that the agency would let her flip completely even if she did access unauthorized intelligence; she knows entirely too much. And, another point, the information that the government wants to keep from the American people is not the true happenings on 9/11. That's a joke that someone would even think that. The information that was to not be leaked are possibly the different interrogation techniques that are illegal, bogus threats and leads, and renditions that followed 9/11. A rendition is stated as illegal by the United States, it is when suspected terrorist are listed under arrest but never return back to the U.S. Instead, government officers, such as CIA,FBI,DSS or any other agency, flies them to a neutral ground and holds them for interrogation or torture.

In conclusion, I would put money on the fact that the CIA is not completely finished with Nada Prouty.