The DC Madam case: Honeytrap?

I just received a rather interesting missive from Montgomery Sibley, the lawyer for Jeane Palfrey, the accused "DC Madam":

...Jeane has filed pro se this morning a pleading of note. That pleading explains the factual basis for invoking the "Classified Information Procedures Act" and is entitled "Memorandum of Fact In Support of Motion for Pretrial Conference to Consider Matters Relating to Classified Information". That Memo details Jeane's basis for raising the "Honey Pot" defense in which she alleges that the United States Government has been directly or indirectly benefiting from the operation of her service by monitoring her customers and is thus equitably barred from prosecuting her. In that Memo, Jeane identifies not only already-known customers of the escort service -- Senator Vitter, Randall Tobias of USAID and Harland Ullman -- but also confirms for the first time that another individual with very high government security clearance -- Ronald Roughead of SAIC -- was also a customer. This nexus of CIA backed USAID, Senator Vitter on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and two beltway bandits appears to be more than a coincidence.

Emphasis added. When I spoke with Palfrey, she emphasized the oddity of her prosecution. Washington hosts quite a few "escort" services, all more-or-less tolerated. Why target Palfrey?

Wendy Ellis, the prostitute who claims to have serviced Vitter, has passed a lie detector test and will, at some point later in this day, provide details of a four-month affair with the senator.

This fine piece by Bill Keisling reminds us that...

Sen. Vitter serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has oversight responsibilities of U.S. foreign policy agencies, including Tobias's former office at USAID.

Vitter is also currently the ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights, which oversees, among other things, the State Department, the U.S. Foreign Service (i.e. the diplomatic corps), and U.S. participation in the United Nations.

The "Tobias" mentioned above is the appropriately-named Randy Tobias, former head of USAID (the United States Agency for International Development). As Keisling notes -- and as I emphasized in a previous piece published in April -- USAID has a long history of providing cover for CIA operations.

Both Tobias and Vitter probably had access to very sensitive information, such as the names of agents using USAID cover. Any unfriendly intelligence service had motive to compromise these men sexually.

(This is, of course, but one scenario; you may be able to conceive of other possibilities.)

SAIC possesses close ties to the American intelligence community. Over 80 percent of its revenue comes from government contracts, and its directors have included former NSA head Bobby Inman, former CIA Director John Deutch, Secretary of Defense and former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates, and former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. The company has been mentioned in stories about computerized voting, data-mining, spy satellites, and the not-terribly-successful training of Iraq's army.

Roughead -- another amusingly-named player in this drama -- is said to have expert knowledge of terrorist use of the internet. A short bio can be found here (pdf file), and a longer one (very unofficial) is here. We learn that Roughead...

...briefed the House Intelligence Committee on the dangers and uses of the internet and video games allegedly modified (for recruiting purposes) by Al-Qaida, amongst other things on May 4th, 2006, cagily representing SAIC. A video game--probably a fraud authored by Pentagon disinfo campaigns that were created by Donald Rumsfeld--is ostensibly called "Sonic Jihad." The dialog and voice-overs are in English.

Ronald Roughead is the director of something called the Iraq Media Network, or IMN, which one blogger has labeled a "psyop" group. I can't confirm that assessment.

Were women employed by the DC Madam's escort service used in a "honeytrap" operation? The present state of evidence is suggestive, but hardly conclusive.

Tobias. Vitter. Roughead. "Three times is enemy action," as Ian Fleming used to remind us.