This is Robert Hanssen. A movie entitled “Breach” was just released this past February, detailing part of Hanssen’s story, and everyone should take note. Hanssen was in charge of Jack Idema’s wire fraud case, and was responsible for his indictment and handled his imprisonment, along with Aldrich Ames and Earl Edwin Pitts. Robert Hanssen and his comrades wanted to know who Idema’s sources were when he’d been working with the Lithuanian special police after the fall of Communism.
The Lithuanians told Idema that the Russian Mafia was smuggling nuclear materials out of the Russian military arsenal and selling it to potential enemies of the United States. The Lithuanians warned Idema that if he disclosed their identities, they would be killed, since the FBI and CIA were infiltrated by Communist spies.
Young FBI trainee Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is lectured on becoming a godly man by renowned operative and suspected spy Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) in “Breach.”
One has to wonder if Hollywood didn’t intertwine the Christian bashing into this movie as just another means to bash Christians and whether or not that was really an aspect of this story remains a pestering question in my mind. The selection of Chris Cooper as the actor to portray Hanssen was a good one, as they didn’t have to do much to manipulate his appearance to resemble Hanssen.
In a 1992 Pentagon briefing to the Assistant Secretary of Defense SO/LIC [fn], Jack told the story of the Russians selling suitcase nukes to America’s enemies. In 1994, Idema was convicted as an ‘accessory’ in the wire fraud charges, for signing a document for a letter of credit for some associates who then stole the material and didn’t pay. The principles in the case, after Idema was indicted, were let go and allowed to keep the material.
In December 1996, Senior FBI Special Agent Earl Edwin Pitts was arrested for espionage, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for spying on behalf of the KGB. Pitts had been at Jack’s Pentagon briefing, and was involved in Jack’s case later. In March 1998, Robert Phillip Hanssen (FBI Director of the FBI National Security Division – which oversaw Jack’s case) was arrested for espionage. Hanssen was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for his KGB spying. One more “coincidence” – the FBI Lab testified at Jack’s second trial (he was acquitted in a hung jury with a 11 to 1 vote in his favor in the first trial). From jail Jack sued the government’s main witness and won. (Idema vs. Hambrick, EDNC).
Idema, in fact, was still in prison when Robert Hanssen’s story appeared on television. No one could get him away from the television at that point, even though it was ‘lights out’. Idema’s hell went on for 4 years, from being set up by guys like Hanssen and Pitts, and underwent ‘diesel therapy’-transported from one locale to another-every time journalists turned attention to his plight.
In 1997, Alexander Lebed, who was a former Russian National Security Advisor, was interviewed on 60 minutes.
the Russian military had lost track of more than 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, any one of which could kill up to 100,000 people.
The Pentagon had known of this back in 1992, during Idema’s debriefing, but instead of doing what you and I would consider to be the rational thing, and trying to figure out a strategy to deal with it, they responded by going after him and his family. I understand a journalist received an award for telling the nukes story, although Idema was never named as the source.
Today, we can look back and clearly see that Hanssen wasn’t someone that should have been in charge of Idema’s case, and it shouldn’t have been prosecuted. The principles were let go and weren’t forced to make good on the money/material they took, but Jack was declared guilty as an ‘accessory’ for vouching for people and served time. Leftists seem to take some kind of sick pleasure in the fact that he was a convicted felon without delving any deeper. That’s a crying shame, considering what really happened.
It leaves a person to wonder how communists in key intelligence roles played a part in the wall between the intelligence agencies, and the precursors for 9/11 in New York City.
[...] and the FBI have put themselves to to keep them imprisoned? (update 03/07/07: great post over at Casual Nexus wherein are detailed that Mark David Hansen and other known traitors who were working with Communist Russia were in charge of Jack’s general persecution and [...]