Susan Lindauer

Last updated

Susan Lindauer
Susan Lindauer on RT America.jpg
Lindauer on RT America in 2011
Born (1963-07-17) July 17, 1963 (age 61)
Occupation(s)Author, journalist, activist, former U.S. Congressional staffer
Parent(s) John Howard Lindauer
Jackie Lindauer (1932–1992)

Susan Lindauer (born July 17, 1963) is an American journalist and former U.S. Congressional staffer who was charged with "acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government" and violating U.S. financial sanctions during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She was incarcerated in 2005 and released the next year after two judges ruled her mentally unfit to stand trial. The government dropped the prosecution in 2009. In 2010, Lindauer published a book about her experiences. Since 2011 Lindauer has appeared frequently on television and in print as a U.S. government critic.

Contents

Early life and education

Lindauer is the daughter of John Howard Lindauer II, a newspaper publisher and former Republican nominee for Governor of Alaska. Her mother, Jacquelyn "Jackie" Lindauer nee Shelly, died of cancer in 1992. In 1995, her father married Dorothy Oremus, a Chicago attorney. [1]

Lindauer attended East Anchorage High School in Anchorage, Alaska, where she was an honor student and was in school plays. [2] She graduated from Smith College in 1985 and then earned a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics. [3]

Career

Lindauer began in journalism working as a temporary reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1987, and as an editorial writer at The Everett Herald in Everett, Washington until 1989. She later worked as a reporter and researcher at U.S. News & World Report in 1990 and 1991. [1] [2] [4] [5]

Lindauer worked as a Congressional staffer for Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR, 1993) and then Representative Ron Wyden (D-OR, 1994) before joining the office of Senator Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL), where she worked as a press secretary and speech writer. [1] [4] She served as Press Secretary for Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) from March 11, 2002 to May 14, 2002. [6] [7]

Interest in the Middle East

In November 1993, a friend of Lindauer's father introduced her to former Vietnam War combat pilot Paul Hoven at a restaurant next to The Heritage Foundation. She began socializing in an informal circle of conservatives interested in counterterrorism, including Capitol Hill staff and intelligence community members, including Dr. Richard Fuisz [3] and, according to an article posted on New Zealand website Scoop, senior Congressional staffer Kelly O'Meara. [8]

Lindauer has described Fuisz as her Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "contact" and "handler". At the time of Lindauer's first meeting with Fuisz, theories of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 were divided between blaming the Libyan government under Moammar Gaddafi (which took responsibility in 2003) and the Syrian Ahmed Jabril. Lindauer said that Fuisz had shared with her his belief that the US government had falsely pinned the blame on Libya. Lindauer and Fuisz said they met an average of once per week from 1994 to 2001. [3] [9] In 2000, the Sunday Herald in Scotland reported that US sources told them Fuisz had been an operative for the CIA in Damascus during the 1980s. Fuisz did not confirm or deny this, saying he was not permitted to speak about it. [10] [ better source needed ]

Lindauer said she began making visits to the Libyan mission at the United Nations (UN) in 1995 [4] and with Iraqis at the UN in 1996. [3] In 2000, she told Middle East Intelligence Bulletin that she had been subject to surveillance, threats, and was attacked after meeting Libyan officials in 1995 to discuss what she had learned about the Flight 103 bombing. [4] [11]

On November 26, 2000, then President-elect George W. Bush appointed Lindauer's second cousin once removed, [12] [13] Andrew Card, as White House Chief of Staff upon his inauguration. Card had previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Secretary of Transportation for George H. W. Bush, and had been selected by George W. Bush to run the 2000 Republican National Convention. [14] Starting in 2000, Lindauer delivered multiple letters to Card, leaving them on the doorstep of his home in Northern Virginia. In her letters, she urged Card to intercede with President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq, and offered to act as a back channel in negotiations. [3] According to Scoop, over approximately two years, Lindauer wrote Card a total of eleven letters, the last on January 6, 2003, two months before the invasion of Iraq. [15] Card later told the FBI that Lindauer had tried to contact him several times, but according to a statement by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, Card did not recall seeing or talking to Lindauer after the January 2001 inauguration. [12]

According to Scoop, in a 2008 hearing, one of Lindauer's associates testified that she had mentioned an imminent attack on Manhattan with airplanes in 2001. [8] Lindauer, in her book, claims that she was asked by Fuisz to ask the Iraqi diplomats if they knew about an imminent attack. According to Lindauer, pre-9/11 information was part of her work with Fuisz.[ citation needed ]

According to Scoop, Fuisz's interactions with Lindauer ended in 2001, i.e. he had a falling out with Lindauer after the September 11th attacks in 2001, no longer welcoming her to his office. He said that before the attacks she was "Arabist, but Arabist from the standpoint of trying to lift sanctions, so that children would do better, and trying to get medicines into countries -- principally I'm talking about Iraq and Libya." Lindauer described her falling out with Fuisz in a 2009 interview, saying that it had been in regard to the approach taken in reacting to the possibility of an imminent attack. [16] He said that after September 11, "Susan, in her discussions, went from benign, in my opinion, to malignant... These discussions changed and now involved a very strong seditious bent." [3]

Arrest, incarceration and release

On March 11, 2004, Lindauer was arrested in Takoma Park, Maryland by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). [3] [17] [18] She was taken to the FBI office in Baltimore. Outside of this office, she told WBAL-TV: "I'm an antiwar activist and I'm innocent. I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else. I have done good things for this country. I worked to get weapons inspectors back to Iraq when everybody else said it was impossible." [19] [20]

Lindauer was indicted by a grand jury for "acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government", [21] an accusation usually made against foreign spies. [22] [23]

In an interview with Scoop, Lindauer stated she was charged (and held in detention) under the USA PATRIOT Act. [24] She said that this was to silence her from revealing what she knew about 9/11, which was that the “airplane hijackings were used as a public cover for a controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7” and that the perpetrator Mohammed Atta was a highly trained CIA asset. [9]

The indictment against Lindauer alleged that she accepted US$10,000 from the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 2002. [3] [21] Lindauer denied receiving the money, but confirmed taking a trip to Baghdad. [3] Lindauer was also accused of meeting with an FBI agent posing as a Libyan, with whom she spoke about the "need for plans and foreign resources to support resistance groups operating in Iraq." [6] Lindauer said she went to the meeting because of her interest in filing a war crimes suit against the U.S. and U.K. governments. [3]

Pursuant to Lindauer's arrest, Congresswoman Lofgren released a statement saying she was "shocked" by the arrest, that she had no evidence of illicit activities by Lindauer, and that she would cooperate with the investigation. [6] [7] Robert Precht, an Assistant Dean of the University of Michigan Law School, said the charges were "weak" and that Lindauer was more likely a "misguided peacenik". [25]

Lindauer was released on bond on March 13, 2004 to attend an arraignment the following week. [26] Sanford Talkin of New York was appointed by the court as her lawyer. [27]

Lindauer claimed she was conducting peace negotiations with representatives of several Muslim countries (including Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, and Yemen) in New York. According to transcripts Lindauer presented to the New York Times in 2004, these included meetings with Iraqi Muthanna al-Hanooti, a peace activist later accused of spying. Lindauer also said that the U.S. intelligence community was aware of these meetings and was monitoring her. [3] [27]

President George W. Bush listens to remarks by Mukasey after announcing his nomination to be Attorney General. 20070917 Bush and Mukasey.jpg
President George W. Bush listens to remarks by Mukasey after announcing his nomination to be Attorney General.

In 2005, Lindauer was incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, for psychological evaluation. She was then moved to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. [28] In 2006, she was released after judge Michael B. Mukasey ruled that Lindauer was unfit to stand trial. [29] [28] He noted that the severity of Lindauer's mental illness, which he described as a "lengthy delusional history", weakened the prosecution's case. In his decision he wrote, "Lindauer ... could not act successfully as an agent of the Iraqi government without in some way influencing normal people .... There is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone, or could have. The indictment charges only what it describes as an unsuccessful attempt to influence an unnamed government official, and the record shows that even lay people recognize that she is seriously disturbed." [28]

During Lindauer's incarceration she refused antipsychotic medication which the United States Department of Justice claimed would render her competent to stand trial. Judge Mukasey would not allow her to be forcibly medicated, as requested by the prosecution. [30] [31] [32] [33]

At a hearing in June 2008, Lindauer told reporters that she had been a CIA asset [34] and said she had "been hung out to dry and scapegoated". [34] In 2008, Justice Loretta A. Preska of the Federal District Court in New York City reaffirmed that Lindauer was mentally unfit to stand trial, despite Lindauer's insistence to the contrary. [1] [35] Testifying before Loretta Preska, The New York Times reported that Lindauer, "... angrily contested an accusation in her indictment that she had illegally lunched with Iraqi intelligence operatives." [36]

On January 16, 2009, the government decided to not continue with the prosecution saying, "prosecuting Lindauer would no longer be in the interests of justice." [29] [37]

Book and subsequent claims

In 2010, Lindauer self-published a book about her experience titled Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover-Ups of 9/11 and Iraq. [38] Lindauer wrote that for a number of years she had worked for the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency undertaking communications with the Iraqi government and serving as a back-channel in U.S. government negotiations.

In October 2012 she denied being the author of the Markovian Parallax Denigrate Usenet postings of August 5, 1996, which have been described as "the Internet’s oldest and weirdest mystery"; a different Susan Lindauer had been a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point at the time of the posts, and her email was the one spoofed in the message. In a Daily Dot piece about the story, Lindauer was described as "a purveyor of sundry conspiracy theories, from a Lockerbie bombing cover-up to 9/11 trutherism" and " a full-blown celebrity among certain members of the paranoid class". [9]

Related Research Articles

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was interrogated by American and Egyptian forces. The information he gave under torture to Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush administration in the months preceding its 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush administration, although reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldrich Ames</span> CIA analyst and Soviet spy (born 1941)

Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American former CIA counterintelligence officer who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. Ames was known to have compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other officer until Robert Hanssen, who was arrested seven years later in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valerie Plame</span> American writer, spy novelist and former CIA officer (born 1963)

Valerie Elise Plame is an American writer, spy, novelist, and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. As the subject of the 2003 Plame affair, also known as the CIA leak scandal, Plame's identity as a CIA officer was leaked to and subsequently published by Robert Novak of The Washington Post. She described this period and the media firestorm that ensued as "mortifying, and I think I was in shock for a couple years".

The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which existed from September 2002 to June 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, as charged by then–United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq. A similar unit, called the Iranian Directorate, was created several years later, in 2006, to deal with intelligence on Iran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Miller</span> American journalist and commentator

Judith Miller is an American journalist and commentator who is known for writing about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, but her writings were later discovered to have been based on fabricated intelligence. She worked in the Washington bureau of The New York Times before joining Fox News in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph C. Wilson</span> American diplomat (1949–2019)

Joseph Charles Wilson IV was an American diplomat who was best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent leaking by the Bush/Cheney administration of information pertaining to the identity of his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. He also served as the CEO of a consulting firm he founded, JC Wilson International Ventures, and as the vice chairman of Jarch Capital, LLC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special Activities Center</span> Covert and paramilitary unit of the American Central Intelligence Agency

The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within SAC there are two separate groups: SAC/SOG for tactical paramilitary operations and SAC/PAG for covert political action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niger uranium forgeries</span> Forged documents in the Iraq disarmament crisis

The Niger uranium forgeries were forged documents initially released in 2001 by SISMI, which seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis. On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq violated United Nations sanctions against Iraq by attempting to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating weapons of mass destruction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iraqi National Intelligence Service</span> Government Agency

The Iraqi National Intelligence Service is the chief intelligence agency of Iraq. It was created with the help of the CIA to replace the Mukhabarat, after the latter was dissolved.

Edwin Paul Wilson was a former CIA and Office of Naval Intelligence officer who was convicted in 1983 of illegally selling weapons to Libya. It was later found that the United States Department of Justice had relied on a false affidavit when prosecuting Wilson; as a result, Wilson's convictions were overturned in 2003 and he was freed the following year.

The Plame affair erupted in July 2003, when journalist Robert Novak revealed that Valerie Plame worked as covert employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, although the seeds of the scandal had been laid during 2001 and 2002 as the Bush administration investigated allegations that Iraq had purchased Nigerien uranium.

The Plame affair was a political scandal that revolved around journalist Robert Novak's public identification of Valerie Plame as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Risen</span> American journalist

James Risen is an American journalist for The Intercept. He previously worked for The New York Times and before that for Los Angeles Times. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government activities and is the author or co-author of two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a book about the American public debate about abortion. Risen is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Spying on the United Nations refers to acts of espionage committed by state against the United Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Intelligence Agency</span> National intelligence agency of the United States

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), known informally as the Agency, metonymously as Langley and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abu Omar case</span> Abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

The Abu Omar Case was the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. The case was picked by the international media as one of the better-documented cases of extraordinary rendition carried out in a joint operation by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) in the context of the global war on terrorism declared by the George W. Bush administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Fuisz</span> American physician, inventor, and entrepreneur

Richard Carl Fuisz is an American physician, inventor, and entrepreneur, with connections to the United States military and intelligence community. He holds more than two hundred patents worldwide, in such diverse fields as drug delivery, interactive media, and cryptography, and has lectured on these topics internationally. Fuisz is a member of the Board of Regents of Georgetown University, where he and his brother created an annual scholarship honoring their deceased elder sibling, and established the first endowed professorship at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Kiriakou</span> American counter-terrorism consultant

John Chris Kiriakou is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio.

Various conspiracy theories allege that certain institutions or individuals had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. Some of the primary debates include whether the Bush administration or the United States Armed Forces had awareness of the planned attack methods, the precise volume of intelligence that American agencies had regarding al-Qaeda activities inside the United States, whether the put options placed on United Airlines and American Airlines and other trades indicated foreknowledge, and why the identities of the traders have never been made public.

The American media referred to 1985 as the Year of the Spy because law enforcement arrested many foreign spies operating on American soil. However, the preceding year, 1984, actually had more arrests for espionage in the United States.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Ex-journalist in spy case unfit for trial". Seattle Post-Intelligencer . September 16, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
  2. 1 2 Ruskin, Liz (March 13, 2004). "Suspect is remembered as worldly: Former classmates say she was smart, craved attention". Anchorage Daily News . Archived from the original on April 4, 2004. Retrieved January 26, 2009.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 David Samuels (August 29, 2004). "Susan Lindauer's Mission To Baghdad". New York Times . Retrieved November 7, 2008.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Dao, James (March 12, 2004). "An Antiwar Activist Known for Being Committed Yet Erratic". New York Times . Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  5. ↑ "Neighbor Seemed Activist, Not Agent". Washington Post . March 12, 2004. Archived from the original on February 24, 2011. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 Amy Keller, "Hill Aide Subpoenaed in Spy Case", Roll Call, March 29, 2004; accessed via ProQuest [ permanent dead link ].
  7. 1 2 "Statement of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on Ms. Susan Lindauer". March 11, 2004. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  8. 1 2 Michael Collins (June 19, 2008). "911 Prediction Revealed at Lindauer Hearing in NYC". Scoop.
  9. 1 2 3 Morris, Kevin (November 2, 2012). "Markovian Parallax Denigrate". The Daily Dot.
  10. ↑ "Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US government". Sunday Herald. May 28, 2000. Archived from the original on April 1, 2010.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  11. ↑ "Lockerbie Trial Document: Susan Lindauer Deposition". Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. December 4, 1998.
  12. 1 2 "Ex-Senate aide charged with giving Iraq secrets". NBC News. March 11, 2004.
  13. ↑ "Accused Iraqi Agent: I've Done Nothing Wrong". Fox News. Associated Press. March 17, 2004.
  14. ↑ "Bush Plays Convention Card". CBS News. May 3, 2000.
  15. ↑ Michael Collins (October 17, 2007). "American Cassandra - Susan Lindauer's Story". Scoop.
  16. ↑ Michael Collins (March 3, 2009). "Susan Lindauer Reveals Facts about 9/11 Warning". Scoop.
  17. ↑ US charges woman 'spy for Saddam', BBC, March 12, 2004
  18. ↑ "Washington publicist held as Iraqi agent", The Guardian, David Teather, March 12, 2004
  19. ↑ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (March 12, 2004). "Ex-Aide Accused of Being an Agent for Iraq: Federal indictment alleges the woman spied for Baghdad on Iraqis living in the U.S. during the run-up to the war. She claims innocence". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  20. ↑ "American indicted as Iraqi agent". edition.cnn.com. March 12, 2004. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
  21. 1 2 United States Attorney, Southern District of New York (March 11, 2004). "U.S. charges Susan Lindauer, American citizen, with working in New York and abroad as an agent of Iraqi intelligence and related terrorism offenses" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 1, 2015.
  22. ↑ Leader of Cuban Spy Ring Given Life in Prison, New York Times, December 13, 2001
  23. ↑ How the F.B.I. Cracked a Chinese Spy Ring, By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, New Yorker, May 12, 2014
  24. ↑ "Susan Lindauer Interviewed by Michael Collins", Scoop, March 10, 2009.
  25. ↑ Melissa Block and Allison Aubrey, "Analysis: Federal prosecutors charge a Maryland woman with spying for Iraq", All Things Considered, National Public Radio , March 11, 2004; accessed via ProQuest.
  26. ↑ "Suspect in Iraq Spy Case Released. Lindauer, a Takoma Park Antiwar Activist, to Be Arraigned Monday". Washington Post . March 13, 2004. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
  27. 1 2 Rick Anderson (February 15, 2006). "From 'Spy' to Psychotic: The latest on the very strange story of former Seattle journalist Susan Lindauer". Seattle Post-Intelligencer . Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  28. 1 2 3 Hartocollis, Anemona (September 9, 2006). "Ex-Congress Aide Accused in Spy Case Is Free on Bail". New York Times . Retrieved January 26, 2009.
  29. 1 2 "Case Dropped Against Md. Woman". Washington Post . January 17, 2009. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
  30. ↑ Overriding Mental Health Treatment Refusals: How Much Process is Due; Brakel, Samuel Jan; Davis, John M. 52 St. Louis U. L.J. 501 (2007–2008).
  31. ↑ Unreasonable: Involuntary Medications, Incompetent Criminal Defendants, and the Fourth Amendment; Klein, Dora W. 46 San Diego L. Rev. 161 (2009)
  32. ↑ "The Law Of Mental Illness" (PDF). Harvard Law Review . 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 1, 2015. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  33. ↑ "Judge refuses to order drugging of defendant in Iraq spy case in New York". International Herald Tribune . 2008. Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved September 6, 2006. Associated Press{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  34. 1 2 Alan Feuer (June 18, 2008). "Antiwar Activist Returns To Court for Iraq Spy Case". New York Times . Retrieved January 1, 2013. 'I was an asset – I was supervised by people with ties to intelligence,' Ms. Lindauer told a group of reporters in a hallway after the hearing ended. 'I had a long-term relationship with these people, and I am horrified I have been hung out to dry and scapegoated.'
  35. ↑ Weiser, Benjamin (September 16, 2008). "Woman Accused of Iraq Ties Is Ruled Unfit for Trial Again". New York Times . Retrieved February 6, 2009.
  36. ↑ "Antiwar Activist Returns to Court for Iraq Spy Case", New York Times, June 2008
  37. ↑ Neumeister, Larry (January 16, 2009). "Case dropped against aide accused of helping Iraq". Associated Press . Retrieved December 29, 2010.
  38. ↑ Lindauer, Susan. "Extreme Prejudice" . Retrieved December 1, 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.