Oh, Porter! Say it isn’t so!
I’ve learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I’ve also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I’ve learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.
It gets even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petit larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more. Curiously—or perhaps not so curiously given the company’s connections—Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support. (I tried to contact Shirlington but was unable to get past their answering service.)
As to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a “frat party” scene—real bacchanals. Apparently photographs were taken, and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster in fevered anticipation.
Also on the case: TPM and Billmon:
On the other hand, the Journal doesn’t mention Goss, only convicted bribetaker and all-around dirtbag Duke Cunningham. Nor does Harper’s mention the CIA director by name — identifying him only as “one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” Justin Rood at TPM is the one who connects the dots and decides they spell G-O-S-S.
It’s only an educated guess — but also a reasonable one, given that Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, the two contractors involved, were manuevering to stick their dicks in the intelligence community’s contracting honeypot as well as the Pentagon’s. Goss’s previous jobs as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and vice chairman of the low-key but powerful House Rules Committee (which controls the flow of legislation to the floor) obviously would have made him an extremely attractive piece of bowel material to a couple of intestinal parasites like Wilkes and Wade.
On the other hand, Goss has a lot of enemies, including just about the entire career staff at the CIA, which he has been industriously purging of suspected Democrats at the behest of his White House masters. (If Porter ever turns up dead, the suspect list is going to include half of the McLean, Va. phone book and most of the world’s professional assassins.) So who knows? Maybe it’s just ex-spook disinformation — like the bit about the couple of dozen senior White House aides who were supposed to be indicted in the Plame case last October.
But, if it turns out to be true, the implications really will take us into Clancy and Ludlum territory. The blackmail potential alone is worth a chapter in anyone’s paranoid conspiracy thriller.
Who else might have known about Porter’s semi-alleged extracurricular activities, and what price would they have been in a position to charge for that information? And how would that price have been paid? The Cheneyites obviously put Goss at the agency because they believed he would be their loyal henchman (and he’s certainly proved them right) but did they have the added security of knowing where, and with whom, their boy was spending his Saturday nights?
UPDATE: Digby has even more.
