Judge accuses CIA of fraud

WASHINGTON – A federal district judge ruled Monday the CIA repeatedly misled him in asserting state secrets were involved in a 15-year-old lawsuit involving allegedly illegal wiretapping.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also ordered former CIA Director George Tenet and five other CIA officials to explain their actions or face potential sanctions.

Lamberth also questioned the credibility of current CIA Director Leon Panetta, saying Panetta’s testimony in the case contained significant discrepancies, and rejected an Obama administration request that the case continue to be kept secret. He released hundreds of previously secret filings.

The documents released Monday reveal a number of instances where Lamberth said the CIA misrepresented facts in the case, which was filed in 1994 by a former Drug Enforcement Agency officer who said his phone calls had been illegally intercepted while he was on duty in Burma.

The suit – under seal since it was filed in 1994 – named a U.S. diplomat, Franklin Huddle Jr., and a CIA officer, Arthur Brown, as defendants.

Lamberth said the spy agency refused to make the “basic acknowledgement” it possesses eavesdropping equipment, even though this is information quickly available through a “public online encyclopedia.”

The issue that angered him most, however, was the CIA’s failure to reveal that Brown, once undercover, had had his cover lifted in 2002. That fact wasn’t revealed until 2008.

Lamberth concluded the CIA’s attorneys engaged in a “fraud on the court” by not revealing Brown’s name no longer needed to be kept secret. In fact, Lambert had dismissed the case in 2004, citing Brown’s undercover status. An appeals court overturned that decision.

“The CIA was well-aware that the assertion of the state secrets privilege as to Brown was a key strategy in getting the case dismissed,” Lamberth stated in a previously sealed Feb. 6 ruling, adding the “misconduct by the government … (raises) very serious implications.”