The Spy That Wasn't

White House Non-Scandal Gets Expected Headlines

Here we go again folks. I can’t decide who is worse—the idiots writing the headlines or the logic-deficient morons posing as news reporters at ABC news.

Last night ABC broke a story with this headline: "Espionage Case Breaches the White House."

Here is most of the story as published on the ABC internet site:

Officials tell ABC News the alleged spy worked undetected at the White House for almost three years. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was a U.S. Marine most recently assigned to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Federal investigators say Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, used his top secret clearance to steal classified intelligence documents from White House computers.

In 2000, Aragoncillo worked on the staff of then-Vice President Al Gore. When interviewed by Philippine television, he remarked how valued Philippine employees were at the White House…

Officials say the classified material, which Aragoncillo stole from the vice president's office, included damaging dossiers on the president of the Philippines. He then passed those on to opposition politicians planning a coup in the Pacific nation…

Last year, after leaving the Marines, Aragoncillo was caught by the FBI while he worked for the Bureau at an intelligence center at Fort Monmouth, N.J.

According to a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was arrested last month and accused of downloading more than 100 classified documents from FBI computers.

Since that arrest, officials say Aragoncillo has started to cooperate. He has admitted to spying while working on the staff of Vice President Cheney's office.

Aragoncillo began working at the White House in 1999. Officials are now trying to learn how he landed the job, when he started spying, and how he escaped detection for so long.

So if you read the story closely you'll see that ABC says two different things in the same news story. First they say that Aragoncillo stole the files while working for the hated VP DICK CHENEY. Then they say that the files that they know about were taken while he worked for the FBI.

Which is it?

I personally don't know for sure, but I do believe that this is yet another perfect example of a major media outlet using their headlines and the story's wording to stab at the Bush administration…AGAIN.

What I want to know is, what was he doing while working in “Ape Shit” AL GORE’S office in 1999 and 2000? Further, how can they claim that he worked in the white house for only 3-1/2 years when he was there from sometime in 1999 until last year (2004?) I count 5 years of service—why are they omitting his time in the White House working for “Ape Shit” Al?

Convenience? Lack of math skills? Partisan BS reporting?

I believe that the problem is most likely the latter.

Now sit down and hold onto your hat, because additional clarifying information comes out today from, of all places, the New York Times:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it had expanded a New Jersey espionage investigation in an effort to determine whether one of its own agents, charged last month with spying for the Philippines, might have also had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office several years ago.

The F.B.I. agent, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., an American citizen who was born in the Philippines, was charged Sept. 12 with passing classified information to government officials in Manila.

The charges filed against Mr. Aragoncillo relate only to classified information that officials say he took from F.B.I. computers after joining the agency in July 2004.

But the investigation is widening, officials said, in light of the fact that he had worked for several years prior to joining the agency as a marine in the vice president's office under both Al Gore and Mr. Cheney. Military aides usually hold security clearances.

ABC News reported Wednesday night that Mr. Aragoncillo was accused of stealing classified material from White House computers at the vice president's office, including information damaging to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

On Wednesday, government officials said they had no corroboration that any material had been taken from the vice president's office, but they acknowledged that investigators had been focusing on Mr. Aragoncillo's work at the White House.

I have to give the Times credit here for broadening the story beyond ABC’s implication that “Dick Cheney hired a spy to work in his office.”

IF Aragoncillo was spying during his tenure at the White House, shouldn’t ABC’s headline and story text state that “Al Gore hired a spy for his staff”?

The investigation is ongoing, but the NY Times story clearly says that there is no evidence at this time that Aragoncillo took anything from Dick Cheney’s computers.

On the other hand, ABC's latest story has yet to correct their earlier false assertions and it seems that they are insistent on continuing along their previous track:

Federal officials tell ABC News the recruitment of the alleged White House spy began in July 2000. At that time, Joseph Estrada, then president of the Philippines, came to the White House for a state visit with President Clinton.

Officials say Estrada and his aides used offers of small amounts of money and appeals to ethnic loyalties to recruit Leandro Aragoncillo, the alleged spy, who was half a million dollars in debt…

At the time of the recruitment, Aragoncillo was working as an intelligence analyst for Vice President Al Gore. He later told Philippine television that he was eager to stay in the White House and work for Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Because with the change of administration, everybody was asked if they wanted to stay and asked me, and I said, 'Well, I don't have to think twice. I will not think twice about staying here,'" he said.

Officials say even after Philippine President Estrada was forced out of office for corruption, Aragoncillo continued to feed him secret files in an apparent attempt to start a coup.

"The notion that classified documents would be transferred from the vice president's office into the hands of some political party challenging the regime of a foreign country is staggering," said Jane Harman, a Democratic congresswoman from California.

See, ABC just can’t help themselves.

They still don’t admit that the files found so far were taken from FBI computers, not Dick Cheney’s office. The FBI and CIA are still looking into that possibility, but why wait for things like facts and details when you can jump to conclusions and put them in print?

I also think that it is very disingenuous for them to add Congresswoman Jane Harman’s quote. What the heck does she know except what ABC has told her?

Can you say NOTHING?

Apparently neither Miss Harman nor any of the ABC news staff reads the NY times.

Imagine THAT...