Since learning that Rep. Katherine Harris drinks Starbucks lattes, we've put the word out to our network of Washington informants: if you see anyone important ordering coffee, we want to know.

The Muckphone rang a little after nine this morning: Recently deposed CIA chief Porter Goss was just in a Starbucks on Capitol Hill, a reliable tipster told me. I saw him order a grande latte.

Fascinating. The former GOP House intelligence committee chairman, hand-picked by Bush to bring the CIA to heel, sips Starbucks?

Interesting trivia, to be sure. But with two prominent GOP partisans quaffing Starbucks brew -- and big ones, at that -- let me put this question out there: isn't it about time to put to rest this canard that only liberals sip lattes?

A bipartisan panel of House Intelligence Committee members has found fault with the Bush administration's efforts to improve intelligence collection, analysis and sharing, according to an unreleased report that CQ's Tim Starks somehow got his mitts on a day before its scheduled release:

According to a source who would discuss the subcommittee’s findings, the report faults the administration’s progress in most areas, including its workings with Congress; the establishment of a civil liberties board; and its processing of security clearances to hire new human intelligence officers.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence gets the blame for many of the delays and is faulted for a scattershot approach to its mission rather than focusing in on top priorities such as information sharing.

Starks gently points out that the intelligence committee chair, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), has clashed with Bush's ODNI over the contentious departure of his pal, former Congressman Porter Goss (R-FL), from the top CIA spot a few months ago.

Deep in the Post's story on Friday's raid of Dusty Foggo's home and office, there was this:

Intelligence officials close to [Porter Goss] said yesterday that Goss had asked Foggo to resign early last week, several days before the White House announced that it was replacing Goss.

"Porter asked him to step down because of his concerns that the allegations against Foggo had become a distraction for the employees and had the potential to damage the agency's reputation," an intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official said Goss had no knowledge that federal agents were preparing to issue search warrants at the time or even that his own resignation was only days away from being announced by President Bush.

The Times reports this too, attributing it to "intelligence officials." Whether you believe it or not, it makes it that much harder to believe that Foggo had "nothing whatsoever" with Goss's decision to step down.

More on Nine Fingers.

Yesterday, we reported that Brent Wilkes had paid Brant "Nine Fingers" Bassett $5,000 while Bassett was a staffer with the House Intelligence Committee under Porter Goss.

Well, now we know what it was for. Bassett had been Wilkes' tour guide:

The $5,000 Bassett accepted from Wilkes was for helping him with a business trip to a part of Europe where Bassett knew "the lay of the land from before" -- presumably a reference to Bassett's earlier work for the CIA, said the person speaking for Bassett. Bassett "was not an employee of [ADCS]. It was a one-off consulting deal" this person said on Bassett's behalf. Wilkes' Washington attorney, Nancy Luque, said Wilkes has done nothing wrong and that Bassett was hired as a consultant "for his knowledge of the area they were working in and facility with the languages spoken there."

And there is another choice detail. Bassett didn't just work under Goss at the House Intelligence Committee. When Goss rose to CIA director, he tapped Bassett for "a second stint at the agency as a consultant in the directorate of operations." Brent Wilkes did indeed have some friends there.

One of them, his close acquaintance Kyle "Dusty" Foggo is finally communicating with the media, albeit through his lawyer:

Bill Hundley, an attorney for Foggo, who told colleagues this week that he will step down from the agency's number three position as Goss leaves, says Foggo denies wrongdoing and is "really more of a victim here." Hundley added that he has not had any inquiries from either the Justice Department or the CIA inspector general, who is investigating whether Wilkes' business received any special treatment from Foggo.

"To him this guy was his friend and he obviously knew he was in the defense contracting business," Hundley says of the relationship between Wilkes and Foggo. But Foggo "is just shocked, really, that he would -- if he did -- have given that amount of money to Cunningham." Hundley added that Foggo may have attended widely reported poker parties that Wilkes threw in a hospitality suite in Washington, "but there was no hanky panky" at these events, he said.

We've found another curious link between an old Goss staffer and the expanding Wilkes/Cunningham/Foggo scandal.

We've been hearing a lot about this guy "Nine Fingers," a CIA veteran who was a regular at Brent Wilkes' poker parties. On Sunday, Newsweek identified him as Brant Bassett, who had a career at the CIA before he went to work as a staffer for then-chairman Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) at the House Intelligence Committee in 2000.

Well, now here's another weird thing about Bassett: Just before he went to work for Goss at the committee, Brent Wilkes cut him a check for $5000. It's right there on his financial disclosure forms. In fact, his forms actually show two payments -- but it seems he may have reported the same check twice.

What was the money for? Even Brant didn't seem completely sure. First he called it an "honorarium," then he crossed that out on the disclosure form and wrote "consulting fee."

Our calls to Bassett, Wilkes' lawyer and to the committee weren't immediately returned.

Update: Harper's blog has more on Nine Fingers and Wilkes. "Bassett and Wilkes know each other and have ties that go beyond the merely social," Ken Silverstein writes.

Salon's Tim Grieve delivers a side order of irony this morning. Observing the return of Stephen Kappes to the CIA, Grieve notes that his untimely departure from the agency was a direct result of "Dusty" Foggo's appointment to be CIA Executive Director a year and a half ago:

Stephen Kappes, the CIA's deputy director for operations, resigned from the agency in November 2004 after Patrick Murray -- a former Hill staffer who was serving as Goss' chief of staff at the CIA -- ordered him to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Murray's order to Kappes came after Sulick had confronted Murray about a threat Murray had made to another agency official.

The threat? That the agency official would be held responsible if anything from the personnel file of the "newly appointed executive director" made it into the media. And the "newly appointed executive director"? He wasn't identified in the Post's account back in 2004, but we all know his name now: Dusty Foggo, who resigned from the CIA yesterday amid a corruption probe.

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.

ABC News reports:

Dusty Foggo, the executive director of the CIA linked to a bribery investigation, is expected to resign soon, according to CIA officials and his associates.

Outgoing CIA Director Porter Goss had refused to remove Foggo from his powerful post after Foggo came under investigation by the FBI and the CIA Inspector General.

A lot of folks, including us, noticed a strange detail in one of the first articles about Brent Wilkes' poker-and-more parties.

"Another player was a CIA agent known as 'Nine Fingers,' so named because he lost one of his digits while on assignment," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported over a week ago in what appeared to be an almost throwaway bit of color.

The Mafia-esque moniker has attracted attention and jokes -- but little new information, until now: Newsweek magazine is the first to identify Nine Fingers as Brant Bassett, whom they also say is "a former Goss aide."

He may be a more central character in our story than the SDUT made him out to be.

Bassett is reported to have been a case officer with the CIA's Directorate of Operations, where Foggo worked. Their paths crossed a number of times over the years and they became friendly, I'm told, which isn't a stretch, given that two publications now put Bassett in poker games with Foggo and Wilkes.

An enduring mystery to this fiasco is why Porter Goss promoted "Dusty" Foggo to the very top of the CIA. Now, informed sources are speculating that Bassett may be the link that explains that mystery, at least in part. Bassett, a counsel and staff director for the Human Intelligence panel of Goss' House Intelligence Committee, had ample opportunity to introduce Goss and his close aide Patrick Murray to Foggo. Did he?

I gave Mr. Bassett a call a few days ago in the hopes he'd be willing to discuss the matter, but he didn't call me back. Newsweek reported that he didn't return their call, either.

CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo has told friends he'll resign his post next week, the Washington Post reports. Meanwhile, former NSA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden is widely rumored to be the White House's pick to replace Goss as CIA director. Time magazine has a profile. The Wall Street Journal confirms that Foggo is under "federal criminal investigation" for improperly awarding agency contracts. Meanwhile, no one seems to have an answer for why Goss resigned so abruptly -- without warning or explanation.

At TPMCafe, Larry Johnson adds his own insights to the fiasco.

The New Republic's Spencer Ackerman reporting:

According to a CIA spokesperson (who spoke on background: "we're not doing names today") Goss's resignation is "totally separate" from the controversy surrounding CIA Executive Director/former procurement official Dusty Foggo's longtime friendship with defense/intelligence contractor Brent Wilkes. . .

[A]s to what that has to do with Goss, "do not connect those," the spokesperson said. Is Foggo leaving CIA as well? "I have nothing for you on that.... Nothing for anybody. I mean, today's topic is Porter."

More rumors:

Foggo was a problem for Goss, sure, but he wasn't the only problem, I'm told. There were a few, and they got to be too much.

There's been a drumbeat for the past few weeks that Goss would be leaving -- and it was louder than the Goss-is-leaving drumbeat folks have heard for the past year, two sources said. The crescendo came in part because several of his close aides have found ways to leave the director's office in the last few weeks, or put out feelers to find something new. "The whole group was out fishing" for new jobs, a former CIA official told me, "and the whole world knew it."

Other problems added to his trouble: Two sources told me that the President's discreet and influential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has been interviewing CIA officials and others over the past several weeks, as part of a larger investigation. My sources didn't know or wouldn't tell me what the panel was examining, only that "a lot" of the people it talked to "were unloading on the director."

Lotta words. Little information:

Statement by CIA Director Porter Goss

This morning, I notified the President that I will be stepping aside as Director of CIA. It has been my distinct honor to serve the President, the people of the United States, and the very able men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency. I am grateful to President Bush for the trust and responsibility he placed in me, and for allowing me the privilege of serving him, and the people of the United States.

When the President asked me to become the last DCI, I fully recognized and embraced the challenge of leading this Agency through historic change, not just for the CIA, but the entire Intelligence Community. It was my desire to lead the CIA -- this is where I started my career, and where I always wanted to return.

Here come the rumors.

Over at Warandpiece.com, Laura Rozen says she's hearing that Negroponte, or possibly the White House, gave Goss the boot, and it was sudden. That fits with what I'm hearing: that Goss didn't jump, or at least not without a nudge.

Rozen says she's been told Goss' departure "may have to do with how Goss handled a management issue concerning Foggo."

I've heard it a bit more bluntly: Goss was told to fire Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, his troublesome Executive Director, and Goss refused. That's what we're hearing now from knowledgeable sources. But there's a lot of contradictory information. We'll bring you more as the picture becomes clearer.

CIA says they're putting out a statement soon on Goss' resignation. My guess: it won't tell us the real reason he's stepping down. For that, Rozen speculates, we may need to look into the pages tomorrow's paper.

As we mentioned before, former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) was the first on CNN to mention a connection to Brent Wilkes' prostitution ring as the reason behind Porter Goss' sudden resignation. Here's the transcript:

Reporter: So why is President Bush accepting Porter Goss's resignation? What do you make of the timing of it?

Bob Barr: I think there's going to be more coming out. We don't know the whole story...

Reporter: But Congressman, there's something that doesn't make sense here, you know? There's something... I am wondering whether this resignation is something to come, Porter Goss wanted to get out of the way. Do you have any sense of that on Capitol Hill or from your sources in Washington?

Bobb Barr: We've seen brewing out of the congressman Duke Cunningham scandal, probably now for several months. It's starting to reach into the CIA and that come very... well... like a sore that's been festering, that could very well burst out and maybe that's a reach into the top levels of the agency.

Reporter: Are you saying the director himself, congressman?

Bobb Barr: I can't imagine that. I know Porter, I've known him for many years and I can't imagine him part of that. But if you've got the top two or three people at an agency working under him and he's going to put them in there and place the faith and the trust of the government in these people and then he becomes tainted by this, it certainly reflects on the leadership.

Bob Barr, thank you very much.

Various pundits now out and hypothesizing on the reason for Goss' sudden departure -- without warning, without a stated reason, without a timeline, without a successor.

Was he upset for not being tapped to be Director of National Intelligence? Couldn't take the pressure?

CNN: "There's something. It's an indication fo something to come, Porter Goss wants to get out of the way."

Former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) gets first mention of possible link to Cunningham scandal, 2:18 PM Eastern on CNN.

We have the same suspicions, based on our earlier reporting. For more background, read our coverage here and here.

Goss out, apparently effective immediately. . . No successor named. . . No word on the fate of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, Goss' #3 at the agency, whose name has been repeatedly mentioned in the developing Cunningham-Wilkes-Wade hooker scandal. We've got a call in to the agency to find out.

CNN, not looking in the right places: "Taking a look at what's out on the Internet -- not much controversy involving the director himself."

From joint Oval Office announcement of Porter Goss' resignation as CIA director:

Bush: "I appreciate his integrity. I appreciate the honor he brought to the job."
Goss: "It has been a very distinct honor and privilege to serve you."

breaking. . .

Update: MSNBC confirms. . .

Late Update: Here's the transcript of Bush's and Goss's remarks.

What do we know about Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the highest-ranking CIA official to admit he attended poker parties thrown by crooked contractor Brent Wilkes? Thanks to a handful of enterprising journos, we know a surprising amount about the guy, whom the CIA insisted was undercover until late last year. Those facts help draw a line through history that leads Foggo -- and others -- from the jungles of Central America to the posh hotel suites where Wilkes did his questionable entertaining.

(A quick shout out to the San Diego Union Tribune, Laura Rozen and Jason Vest, whose work forms the basis for this post.)

In November 2004, newly-installed CIA chief Porter Goss reached down into the ranks of long-serving middle managers at the CIA to make Foggo the Executive Director of the agency. Thus the lifelong friend of Cunningham briber Wilkes found himself in charge of running day-to-day operations for the $5 billion spy outfit.

I called the CIA this morning to get their reaction to Ken Silverstein's piece in Harper's that seems to put Goss in the poker-and-more parties thrown by Brent Wilkes. The parties were held in the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels -- and a third hotel, I'm hearing, which hasn't been reported yet -- as well as at the house of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a longtime friend of Wilkes' who is now #3 at the CIA.

After a long series of off-the-record phone calls with CIA spokespeople, I was finally given an on-the-record comment -- about Goss. Speaking on behalf of the director, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck said, "This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn't even been to the Watergate in decades."

When I asked if Goss had attended Wilkes' parties at the Westin or other locations, Millerwise Dyck repeated the denial. "It's horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue."

She declined to answer questions about Foggo, but promised another spokesperson would call me and take my questions.

Over at WarandPiece.com, Laura Rozen puts her excellent sources to work explaining how Wilkes' poker/hooker parties may have put Wilkes' longtime pal Kyle "Dusty" Foggo on Porter Goss' radar, and eventually landed Foggo the #3 spot at the CIA when Goss became its head:

I'm told these poker parties may have indirectly helped put Dusty Foggo on Porter Goss's radar through the person of Goss's deputy Patrick Murray. . . Writes one source, "...Wilkes and Foggo played cards together in washington in the late 1990s and early 2000s. . . It is apparently through this connection that Foggo came to the attention of Goss when Goss' first choice for executive director, Michael Kostiw, was nixed..."

Ken Silverstein reports at Harper's blog on the spreading Cunningham-Wade-Wilkes prostitute scandal. He says more lawmakers, past and present, are being investigated. Sounds like he thinks House Intel Chair-turned-CIA Director Porter Goss is one of them:

I've learned from a highly-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. [emphasis added]

Yowzah.

Actually, make that a double-yowzah: Remember that Goss is the one who plucked one of Wilkes' old San Diego friends, the unusual and colorful Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, out of CIA middle-management obscurity to be his #3 at the agency. At the time of Foggo's appointment, no one could figure out where he came from, or how Goss knew him.

But if Goss was at the "parties," I wonder, was Foggo there too? Did they see each other? Is this where Goss had an opportunity to gauge Foggo's abilities, and determine he was qualified for the CIA executive director post?