The Porter Goss story becomes even weirder

I have to thank Xymphora for directing our attention to the strangest Porter Goss tale of all: The unusual June 4, 2000 "suicide" -- if suicide it was -- of John Millis, the staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, which was chaired by then-congressman Goss.

Millis shot himself in a seedy Virginia motel, in a bathtub. A note was found elsewhere in the room, but the police refused to describe it and the press seemed remarkably unwilling to inquire. The circumstances of this death inevitably call to mind the faked suicide of Danny Casolaro and the questionable suicide of Raymond Lemme, who investigated the Clint Curtis allegations.

Although the Millis tale received little coverage at the time, a long article appeared in Insight on the News, a periodical owned by the Reverend Moon. On close reading, this piece seems almost as bewildering as the suicide itself; author Jamie Dettmer continually hints at wider ramifications which he never spells out.

For example, Dettmer takes care to point out that the room was hastily cleaned and rented out the very next day -- but the writer then pretends that this is standard practice when motels "host" a homicide. (I doubt it.) Passages of the article strongly hint that Porter Goss had some involvement in the man's death, yet the author never makes that claim directly.

Millis, like Goss, had a CIA background. At first, the two men got on well; eventually, they clashed over Millis' close relations with the press. According to Insight, Millis' widow claimed that her husband had an affair with another man -- an assertion which gains new resonance in light of the current "Fornigate" scandal.

But some congressional and CIA sources say Goss has personal reasons to want the circumstances surrounding the suicide to be kept under wraps. While acknowledging there was no harm done to national security, they argue that Millis' death is deserving of public analysis if for no other reason than it might have been avoided. They contend that the congressman mishandled Millis before the suicide and that Goss, who has ambitions to succeed Tenet at the CIA in a George W. Bush administration, has no wish for his poor management to be advertised.

More:

In the week leading up to his suicide, Millis remained in his Capitol Hill office and stayed in daily contact with committee members, aides and the press. Several administration officials, CIA officers and reporters, including one from Insight, who talked with him on the phone days before the suicide, have noted that he seemed tired but talked about upcoming committee work. "He didn't seem depressed or anything but he did appear to want to talk," says a former CIA agent. "In fact, in hindsight he struck me as a bit lonely. I couldn't get him off the phone and I had to be rude almost."

Millis appears to have angered Goss when the former gave a public speech in which he offered a scathing critique of the American intelligence community.

I know that many readers sigh and arch their eyebrows whenever the name Wayne Madsen comes up, but in this case, we really must mention his work, since he worked on a book about the Millis case. Madsen's take certainly deserves a reading -- but do keep that proverbial grain of salt handy:

On May 11, a few weeks prior to his death, Millis authored a report on the CIA alleged links to cocaine smuggling by Nicaraguan drug rings to gangs in Los Angeles. Although the HPSCI report, like previous reports by the CIA and Justice Department, cleared the CIA of any wrongdoing, some informed observers believe that Millis may have actually written a different version of the report that was more critical of the CIA involvement in drug trafficking and that he may have been silenced because he knew too much. Millis was considered by some CIA officials to be constantly wishing to re-invent the wheel on CIA intelligence activities.

Former White House counsel and Clinton confidant Charles Ruff was reportedly briefed on HPSCI findings by Millis. Ruff died on November 20, 2000. His body was found outside a shower in his home by his wife. Police ruled the death as resulting from natural causes and not foul play. It was later determined that Ruff suffered an apparent heart attack. HPSCI ranking member Representative Julian Dixon, who was also briefed on the HPSCI cocaine report, died suddenly from a heart attack on December 8, 2000, a few weeks after Ruff death.

There is also some reason to believe that Millis was unhappy with Goss reluctance to investigate the CIA handling or mishandling of alleged Mossad penetration of the White House communications system and its failure to investigate the identity of Israel alleged high-level U.S. government mole, the so-called Mega. Goss reportedly said he was concerned that Israel had penetrated White House communications but he did not want to pursue any investigation of the matter. Goss once remarked to a congressional colleague that if anyone took a look at his Florida district, his reluctance to criticize Israel would be totally understandable.

(Emphasis added; "HPSCI" refers to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.)

In the past, I've drawn attention to the fact that Mitchell Wade's MZM supplied "furniture" to the White House, and I've theorized that said furnishings came equipped with bugging equipment. Nobody has offered a better suggestion as to why a defense and intelligence contractor would get a gig like that.

Elsewhere we learn that Millis' CIA career included a stint in Pakistan to support the anti-Soviet mujahedeen. In that capacity, he must have worked with Osama Bin Laden. (He also must have turned a blind eye to a major heroin operation.)

So...what might have motivated the "suicide" of John Millis? Take your pick:

1. Perhaps he wanted to spill the beans about CIA drug smuggling.

2. Perhaps he caught wind of then-current American dealings with Osama Bin Laden.

3. Perhaps he wanted to blow the whistle on the White House bugs.

4. Perhaps he fell into a honeytrap. The Wilkes operation was in full swing in 2000.

Final questions: Did the Insight story -- which hints at a deeper scandal -- function as a "shot across the bow"? Was the Reverend Moon attempting to signal certain parties in Washington: "I know all about this..."? Is that how Moon is able to garner high-powered political endorsement for such dubious enterprises as "Take down the cross day"? Does blackmail explain how the Korean Messiah achieved his "crowning" in the Senate office building? And does this older scandal impact the current controversy over the Goss resignation?

(Note: I wrote the first draft of this piece in the wee small hours of the morning. I meant to save it as a draft, but -- being quite fatigued at the time -- I accidentally hit "publish" instead. Thus, the piece appeared with a greater-than-usual number of typos and errors; please forgive.)