More than Poker. Must-read David Ignatius column about how the Gosslings' elevation of Foggo to be the CIA's Executive Director was emblematic of the problems central to the tenure and fall of Porter Goss at the Agency. More from Mark Hosenball about how Foggo literally was the tip of the spear in terms of Agency friction with Negroponte's Office of the Director of National Intelligence over intelligence reforms and restructuring.

More on Foggo also from the New York Times. You'll notice in it that Foggo's new attorney claims Foggo didn't have any idea that a company awarded a CIA contract was linked to Wilkes. Well, let me push back on that. I believe I was the first to report, back in December, based on a tip, that the vehicle for CIA contracts to Wilkes was a company called Archer Logistics, which is ostensibly owned by Wilkes' nephew Joel G. Combs (who is also a lobbyist with Wilkes' lobbying firm, Group W Advisors and was a former senior executive of Wilkes' main defense contractor firm, ADCS). Archer Logistics is co-located at ADCS' Chantilly Virginia offices. And Archer Logistics' name is close to Archer Defense, another overt Wilkes' property. In other words, I find it hard to believe someone like Foggo, who was so close to Wilkes since junior high that he named his son after him, shared a wine locker with him, played poker with him, vacationed with him, and had an office in Wilkes' ADCS headquarters, didn't know that a CIA contract to Archer Logistics would benefit Brent Wilkes. What a coincidence! Come on. Go read the piece. And don't forget that the source on Archer Logistics later pointed me to something else potentially far more explosive: that Wilkes was in discussions to get a huge contract -- a few hundred million dollars -- from the CIA to set up an off the books plane network for the Agency, that was only scuttled pretty deep into the Cunningham revelations.

"I Imagine that since their whole flying operation has been outed, it makes it tough to operate clandestine flights," the source explained. "I bet it would cost a bundle to set up a whole new operation that no one knew about ... How do they operate a secret fleet of aircraft now that everyone knows about the planes we have? If I were high up in the CIA, this would be a big priority for me, and I would need a solution outside the normal range of solutions."

Why was Wilkes coming around the Agency this past year? My guess, it wasn't a purely social visit.

Posted by Laura at May 12, 2006 12:47 AM