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FBI Investigated Former CIA Chief Michael Hayden in Secret-Spilling Case
[DailyBeast] The targeting of Michael Hayden drives home how aggressively the Obama administration pursued leaks—following a relatively thin lead to a former spy chief’s private email account.The search warrant application filed in November 2012, unsealed Monday, shows the bureau suspected Hayden of being a source for a June 1, 2012, New York Times article about the Stuxnet computer virus, a groundbreaking piece of nation-state malware crafted to sabotage one element of Iran’s nuclear program in 2010. The virus targeted equipment at Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. The article, written by reporter David Sanger, confirmed suspicions that the U.S. was partly responsible for the attack, which the story said was part of a top secret American-Israeli program called Olympic Games. Hayden was not cited as a source on the Olympic Games revelation in the Times article, but was quoted on the apparent significance of the Stuxnet virus, which was widely known. “This is the first attack of a major nature in which a cyberattack was used to effect physical destruction,” Hayden said in part. The search warrant affidavit was filed by special agent Craig Moringiello in the FBI’s counterintelligence division. It shows that the FBI first obtained transaction records for Hayden’s AOL email account. Those showed that he’d exchanged email messages with Sanger 10 times in the months before and after the story. The bureau then used that as evidence in a Nov. 15, 2012, application to obtain the entire contents of Hayden’s AOL account. The FBI found no evidence that Hayden did anything wrong. But using similar tactics, the FBI eventually tracked the story to retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright. In 2016 Cartwright acknowledged he was a source for the article and pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI. Cartwright’s prosecution was widely criticized by freedom-of-the-press groups and government insiders, and Obama pardoned Cartwright shortly before leaving office. Posted by: Skidmark 2018-04-17 |
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