CIA

Report: Goss Knew Foggo Shared A Girlfriend With Russian Spy, But Hired Him Anyway

Zachary Roth | February 26, 2009, 4:24PM

The Dusty Foggo story has never reflected well on Porter Goss -- the man who, as CIA director, gave Foggo the number 3 job at the agency. But it looks like we didn't know the half of it.

Congressional Quarterly has a juicy scoop:

Kyle "Dusty" Foggo's CIA dossier included allegations that he was sharing a woman with a suspected Russian mole, according to a top former spy agency official and other sources.

CIA Director Porter J. Goss knew about the allegation when he hired Foggo to be the agency's executive director, its third highest official, an aide said today.

But Merrell Moorhead, an aide to Goss at the CIA from 2004 to 2006, said CIA security officials later withdrew that and other serious allegations about Foggo's record and "gave him a clean bill of health."

One former senior CIA official told CQ:

Everybody knew about him and Felix," said a former senior CIA official, who talked about Foggo on condition of anonymity. "It's scandalous that Goss hired him.

This news jibes with a report yesterday by the national security reporter Laura Rozen that Goss was aware of problems in Foggo's counter-intelligence file when he hired him.

Dusty Foggo

Report: Goss Knew Of Foggo's Shady Past

Zachary Roth | February 25, 2009, 5:23PM

A great nugget from Laura Rozen...

Source said that Goss lied in his testimony, that he was not aware about the problems with Foggo when he hired him for executive director. He said that a major fight had broken out between Goss staffer Patrick Murray and then associate deputy director of operations Michael Sulick about the Foggo hiring. "Murray told ADDO/Counterintelligence Mary Margaret that if Dusty's background got out to the press, they would know who to come looking for. Mary Margaret tried to warn them that Dusty Foggo had a problematic counterintelligence file. Sulick defended Mary Margaret. Goss told deputy director of operations Steve] Kappes he had to fire Sulick." After that, Kappes and Sulick quit. "Goss bears major responsibility here," source says. It was finally the "White House tht demanded that Goss fire Dusty and he refused." So they both got fired.

It's not clear whether the fight that the source refers to occurred before or after Foggo's actual hiring. Though the context -- and the source's claim that Goss lied in his testimony -- suggest it was before.

Earlier, we posted Goss's explanation of the circumstances under which he hired Foggo, in which Goss gives the clear impression he believed Foggo to have a clean record when he hired him.

Porter Goss

Goss: Not My Fault -- Foggo Assured Me He Was Clean!

Zachary Roth | February 25, 2009, 3:31PM

Also in the appendix to the Dusty Foggo sentencing memo: former CIA director Porter Goss offers a pretty lame justification for how he came to appoint a crook like Foggo to the agency's number 3 post:

Says Goss:

Due to public criticism of the CIA after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and criticism of my office after the prior candidate for the Executive Director's position was withdrawn, it was imperative to me that the selection of the Executive Director position be someone whose personal and professional conduct was beyond reproach. When Mr. Foggo came to speak with me about the Executive Director position in late 2004, I conveyed this requirement to him. I asked him directly whether there was anything I needed to know about his candidacy that would reflect poorly upon the Director's office or upon the CIA. He denied that there was anything. In reliance upon Mr. Foggo's assurances, and upon his having cleared the inter-agency vetting process, I selected him to be my Executive Director in 2004.

Had I known at the time that I was considering Mr. Foggo to be my Executive Director that he had engaged in the conduct he has admitted in his Plea Agreement and Statement of Facts, I absolutely would not have selected him to be my Executive Director nor would I have approved him for the Employee Performance Award that he received in August 2005."