US State Dept. third highest official was espionage suspect, says ex-FBI agent

September 30, 2009 by intelNews

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |

Marc Grossman, Under Secretary of State during the Bush Administration, was suspect in a lengthy counterespionage probe by the FBI, according to a former senior Bureau agent. John M. Cole, an 18-year FBI veteran who worked for the Counterintelligence Division of the Bureau’s National Security Branch, said the investigation into Grossman centered on activities by Turkish and Israeli intelligence in the United States. Cole was speaking to former CIA agent Philip Giraldi, currently of The American Conservative magazine, a paleoconservative publication, which was one of a handful of US media outlets that gave column space to recent revelations of Turkish intelligence activities by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds, a translator for the FBI, spent seven years trying to get a US court to hear her allegations that Turkish intelligence agents penetrated her unit, the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress. On August 8, she gave a public testimony at the Washington headquarters of the National Whistleblowers Association, in an attempt to keep her case alive in the public eye. Among other allegations, she said that Turkish intelligence agents bugged the apartment of a female member of Congress and then blackmailed her, threatening to expose her extra-marital affair. She also claimed that several Congress members were “paid off” to support legislation that Ankara deemed important for Turkey’s interests. Cole’s response is the first confirmation of Edmonds’ allegations. The retired FBI counterintelligence agent said that the Bureau investigated the case, but the investigation, which lasted ten years, was eventually “buried and covered up”. Grossman, now retired, rose to the State Department’s third most senior post after serving as US Ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997.