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Various news outlets are reporting on the charges against former CIA employee John Kiriakou for leaking to the press and lying to the CIA about his endeavors involving terrorist Abu Zubaydah and the enhanced interrogation issue. He could go to jail for 30 years.  The Obama administration is setting records for charging people with leaking. 

So what's going on here?  Why is F. Patrick Fitzgerald of Libby/Plame fame suddenly back in the news?  Or is this a bona fide leak investigation?

For history go back to ABC News, who had the Kiriakau exclusive in 2007 where he claimed waterboarding was a necessary evil that worked great.  They even hired him as an analyst for awhile.  Not surprisingly ABC doesn't seem giddy about the airing of this laundry but they've been doing some shuffling since April 2009:

Kiriakou now says he too was stunned to learn how often Zubaydah was waterboarded, in what Kiriakou says was clearly torture.

That walk-back was included in another exclusive outing two CIA contractors who allegedly designed the waterboarding program.  Not clear whether one of those 'sources' was Kiriakou.  Ironically the 2009 feature was only a day after Obama first called Bush a torturer.  Weeks earlier he had given immunity to CIA employees involved who followed DoJ orders after the threat of prosecution, while also releasing memos detailing the enhanced procedures to the angst of Dick Cheney.  Holder held on to the investigation through mid 2011 before finally dropping it. 

Meanwhile about a month before the ABC 2009 story aired Kiriakou began working as a staffer with the Senate Foreign Relations Investigation Committee run by Democrat John Kerry.  The CIA's criminal referral was triggered by one of the unnamed journalists allegedly feeding the names of CIA employees involved in the waterboarding to ACLU lawyers working to free the Gitmo terrorists.  That particular flim-flam is receiving very little scorn in the media at the moment.   

And who can believe it--the Obama Justice folks actually had the temerity to investigate those ACLU lawyers for passing the clandestinely received information.  No worries though, we can all rest easier knowing they were cleared of any wrongdoing in passing this information to the various enemy scumballs who would just as soon kill them as the rest of us if they ever get the chance.  Focus is on the leaker.

And Kiriakou does seem like a bad guy here, discounting other interpretations. For instance, maybe the Obama gang is doing this to calm the Glenn Greenwald crowd since Kiriakou was initially billed as a defender of waterboarding.  And how about John Friggin Kerry or other Senators on the committee?  Will they be interviewed?  Surely they will say they can't comment, which will be enough for our watchdog press.

At any rate, Holder just announced he would be heralding the grand accomplishments of the Global Contingency Operation over the next few weeks, including rationale for one-offing Awlaki and Awlaki, Jr.  While some are saying bring it on (and it sounds fun) with these guys it's hard to tell what might be up their sleeves.