Did Scandal Drive Goss Out?Over the weekend, the media had a field day speculating about Friday’s sudden, unannounced, unexplained resignation of former CIA Director Porter Goss. Was it because of a turf battle? Was his ouster somehow connected to Hookergate? Was Goss wrapped up in the FBI’s investigation of the Wilkes-Foggo-Cunningham poker/prostitute/bribe saga?
By this morning, the conventional wisdom had become: Yes, on the turf battle. Maybe, on Hookergate. And, No, Goss was not wrapped up in the probe. Hardly makes for a clear picture.
We can cut through some of the confusion by being clearer about the terms of discussion. Was Goss canned because of Hookergate? Probably so. At least in part. Is he personally guilty of wrongdoing? Not necessarily. Is the FBI interested in him? To be honest, we really don’t know.
The most specific statement on this questions comes in what an unnamed senior FBI source told Jeff Stein, national security editor for Congressional Quarterly:
An authoritative senior FBI official, speaking only without attribution, noted that the CIA had officially conceded that Foggo attended poker games with the contractors — but not Goss.Goss has not been interviewed by the FBI, the official said.
“We’re not at his door yet … not at his doorstep.”
The FBI’s not at his door yet? That’s not exactly a clean bill of health. Nor should we be surprised. Goss promoted to Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the CIA man directly implicated in the scandal, now under investigation by the FBI and the CIA’s own inspector general. Did Goss’s flat refusal to fire Dusty make his position atop the CIA unsustainable? It could well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, for Negroponte, or Goss — or both.
Few informed sources I speak with think Goss is personally guilty of wrong-doing. At worst, folks suspect he went to a couple of Wilkes’ card games, mainly to show his face.
But his involvement appears to have been enough to help drag him out of the director’s seat. And when you add the details up — hiring Foggo despite his past; refusing to take action when Foggo was clearly crossing boundaries; Cunningham carrying out misdeeds from Goss’ intelligence committee; and now a key committee staffer tied into the Wilkes’ party circuit — it’s clearly enough to warrant at least curiosity from the FBI. How could so much be going on around him — right underneath his nose — without his doing anything about it?