The MSNBC headline in the story is “Ex-Senate aide charged with giving Iraq secrets.” But the body of the story says that
[Susan Lindauer] was charged with being a paid Iraqi intelligence agent and trying to contact her distant cousin — the White House chief of staff — to alter U.S. policy. . . .
She was charged with conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial transactions with the Iraqi government. The indictment makes no mention of her congressional staff work. She was not directly charged with espionage. . . .
The indictment said she accepted $10,000 for working for the intelligence service from 1999 to 2002, including payments for lodging at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad and expenses during meetings in New York City with Iraqi agents. According to the indictment, Lindauer delivered a letter “to the home of a United States government official” on Jan. 8, 2003, in which she described her access to members of dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime “in an unsuccessful attempt to influence United States policy.” . . .
According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Lindauer made multiple visits from October 1999 through March 2002 to Iraq’s U.N. mission in Manhattan. The government said she accepted payments from the Iraqis for her services and expenses. . . .
She may well have committed various crimes, and being a covert agent of the Iraqi government is hardly good behavior in my book. But is there really any charge that she gave the Iraqis secrets, or even that she had any secrets to give them?
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline likewise calls her an “[a]ccused spy,” but likewise lacks any mention of any charges of actual spying. Am I missing some important details here?
Comments are closed.