A spy in the White House has been caught. Iranian? Cuban? NorKo?
Nope. Filipino.
Officials tell ABC News the alleged spy worked undetected at the White House for almost three years. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was a U.S. Marine most recently assigned to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.Hired in 1999, Mr. Aragoncillo also worked for former Vice President Al Gore. There is also a report of him working for the FBI at an intelligence center at Fort Monmouth, N.J (just great).
"I don't know of a case where the vetting broke down before and resulted in a spy being in the White House," said Richard Clarke, a former White House advisor who is now an ABC News consultant.It figures that your allegedly all-seeing self wouldn’t know of any other case, Mr. Clarke. Go sit down somewhere.
That this happened at all--in 2005—should sound quite a few alarms. The man in question is a naturalized US citizen, served in the Marines and was born in a country that has long been a US ally. (What is it with the Marines anyway? It seems that there are no neutral ones.) Mr. Aragoncillo’s alleged purpose in funneling informational material to his old country is an ominous one.
[ABC] quoted officials as saying Aragoncillo has confessed to stealing classified information from Cheney's office, including damaging dossiers on the president of the Philippines, which he allegedly passed on to opposition politicians planning a coup in the Philippines.
What kind of coup (and, yes, it matters)? Remember that the Philippines have a female president (Gloria Arroyo). Don’t the Filipinos have a Jihadi problem of their own? Why, yes they do.
This situation is most definitely President Bush’s fault. He keeps doing a certain something over and over again and it keeps biting him--and us--in the butt. It should by obvious by now that all personnel leftover from the previous administration merit serious scrutiny—down to the cooks in the White House kitchen. (See above example, Richard Clarke.)
(Thanks to my buddy Stinkerr, to LGF and to CountryWatch)
UPDATE: It appears as though Mr. Aragoncillo was working for former Phillipines President Joseph Estrada and has been passing him classified documents while the former was still a Marine.
Estrada told a Philippine newspaper last month that Aragoncillo had passed material while visiting him at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Manila, where the former president was receiving treatment while being held on corruption charges from 2001 through 2003. Part of that stay would coincide with Aragoncillo's time in Cheney's office. [SNIP]The Washington Post article also names an accomplice, a citizen of the Philippines who works for an opponent of President Arroyo.Aragoncillo retired in 2004 after 21 years in the Marines and began working for the FBI as an intelligence analyst.
Michael Ray Aquino, a former official with the Philippines National Police arrested in March for overstaying a tourist visa, was charged alongside Mr Aragoncillo with "acting as unregistered agents of a foreign official and passing classified information to that official and others in the Republic of the Philippines." Mr Aquino is a known protege of opposition leader Senator Panfilo Lacson, who has been active in opposition efforts to oust Ms Arroyo.This situation is maddening. However, I will stipulate that maybe, just maybe Aragoncillio and Aquino aren't working for Abu Sayyaf or some other enemy of civilization.
But what about the next one?
(Thanks to The Belmont Club; Wretchard thinks it might be a Filipino mafia story.)
UPDATE: Welcome LGF, Michelle Malkin and Daou Report readers! I suggest that you read my about page before you make assumptions about the author of this page. And a note to trolls: I will change your posts to something more to my liking and I will have an excellent time doing it. Just so you know.
UPDATE: Some of my readers are pointing out that the Johnny Chung issue--linked above--isn't a spy case, but a finance scandal case. Granted; with a 'but.'. See the comment section for more discussion on the matter.
