A 21 year veteran of the CIA, Robert Baer is billed as “one of America’s most elite intelligence case officers.” Having worked field assignments in Lebanon, Sudan, Morocco, Iraq and other international hotspots, he was praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh as “perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East.”

He has written multiple books based on his experiences with the agency. He has worked as a consultant on documentary and television projects. He regularly appears as a commentator on CNN and other news outlets, and he writes a regular column on intelligence matters for Time. George Clooney’s character in Syriana, Bob Barnes, is based on Baer and his experiences with the CIA.

“… and 90% of what’s left is in the Middle East. This is fight to the death.” “I think we’ve got something that utilizes your … specific skills set. “His moneys in a lot of dark corners.” CLOONEY: “I want you to take him from his hotel, drug him, put him in the front of a car and run a truck into him at 50 miles an hour.” “It’s good to have you back in town, Bob.” (Source: ‘Syriana’ Trailer)

Robert Baer retired from the CIA in 1997 and received the agency’s Career Intelligence Medal the following year.

In short, he is a serious and well-respected career intelligence official.

All of this makes it particularly stunning that in 2008 he told a team of citizen journalists in Los Angeles that he knew a man who “cashed out” the day before 9/11.

JEREMY ROTHE-KUSHEL: …the last thing I want to leave you with is the National Reconnaissance Office was running a drill of a plane crashing into their building and you know they’re staffed by DoD and CIA… ROBERT BAER: I know the guy that went into his broker in San Diego and said ‘cash me out, it’s going down tomorrow.’ JEREMY ROTHE-KUSHEL: Really? ROBERT BAER: Yeah. STEWART HOWE: That tells us something. ROBERT BAER: What? STEWART HOWE: That tells us something. ROBERT BAER: Well his brother worked at the White House. (SOURCE: WeAreChangeLA debriefs CIA Case Officer Robert Baer about apparent Mossad and White House 9/11 foreknowledge)

Given Robert Baer’s experience and training, it is difficult to comprehend just how significant the information that he just casually admits here really is. We are left with only two possibilities: either Baer is lying, or he has direct knowledge of someone “whose brother worked at the White House” who had foreknowledge of the 9/11 plot. There is no middle ground here.

The man Robert Baer claims to know is at least an accessory before the fact to the crimes of 9/11, if not an actual accomplice or co-conspirator in those crimes. By failing to report this information to the investigative authorities, Baer leaves himself open to being an accessory after the fact to those same crimes.

Title 18 Section 3 of the US Code defines the criteria for an “Accessory After the Fact” to a crime committed against the United States:

“Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.”

Given the exceptionally grave nature of this admission and its repercussions, one would suppose that Baer has been questioned by other media and/or the FBI and made to discuss in detail precisely who it was who cashed out and how he knew about the 9/11 plot in advance. But one would be wrong. Since making this stunning admission to the cameras of We Are Change Los Angeles, no one has ever asked Baer for more information about the case.

So what does Robert Baer say about the possibility of a 9/11 inside job?

In 2007, writing about the CIA’s admission that they illegally destroyed the videotaped interrogations of high profile terror suspects, Baer said:

“I myself have felt the pull of the conspiracy theorists — who believe that 9/11 was an inside job, somehow pulled off by the U.S. government. For the record, I don’t believe that the World Trade Center was brought down by our own explosives, or that a rocket, rather than an airliner, hit the Pentagon. I spent a career in the CIA trying to orchestrate plots, wasn’t all that good at it, and certainly couldn’t carry off 9/11. Nor could the real pros I had the pleasure to work with.”

But just one year before he gave a very different answer to Thomas Hartmann on his radio show.

THOMAS HARTMANN: So are you personally of the opinion, obviously you can’t speak for the CIA or your previous activities with the agency, but are you of the opinion that there was an aspect of “inside job” to 9/11 within the U.S. Government? ROBERT BAER: There’s that possibility. The evidence points at it. HARTMANN: And why is not being investigated? BAER: Why isn’t the WMD story being investigated? Why hasn’t anybody been held accountable for 9/11? I mean, we held people accountable after Pearl Harbor. So why has there been no change of command, why have there been no political repercussions? Why has there not been any sort of exposure on this? It really makes you wonder. (Source: Robert Baer on 9/11)

So why is Robert Baer hiding the identity of a 9/11 accomplice or co-conspirator? And will the FBI be asking him for details of this story any time soon? Until the American public show some interest in this shocking admission, it is unlikely that anything will happen.