XPost: alt.impeach.clinton, or.politics, seattle.politics   
   XPost: can.politics   
   From: felonies@hillaryclinton.com   
      
   By the time Wayne Simmons went on Fox News last March for what   
   would end up being his final appearance, viewers knew what to   
   expect. "This president clearly has absolutely no idea what he   
   is talking about," Simmons said of President Obama's handling of   
   ISIS. Simmons had made guest appearances on Fox more than a   
   hundred times as a "former CIA operative," and certainly looked   
   the part: white mustache, neck bulging out of his dress shirt, a   
   handshake "so hard, he can crush you with it," as one Fox host   
   put it. Beyond offering his expertise as an intelligence   
   officer, he had become particularly adept at serving up hawkish   
   red meat to the network's audience. "We could end this in a   
   week," he went on, suggesting that the United States run   
   "thousands of sorties" against ISIS. "They would all be dead."   
      
   Simmons was largely anonymous when he first appeared on Fox, in   
   2002, but he soon became a regular face on the network,   
   alongside a cast of retired military officers who, like Simmons,   
   had been recruited into the Pentagon's "military-analysts   
   program." The initiative invited retired officers who had made   
   names for themselves as television-news commentators to attend   
   regular briefings from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and   
   to make trips to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. In 2009, The New York   
   Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its report on how the Pentagon   
   used the analysts to build public support for the war in Iraq.   
   The program disbanded, and many of those involved tried to   
   distance themselves from it. But Simmons boasted of his   
   connection as a way to bolster his bona fides, even mentioning   
   it in his Amazon author biography. In 2012, Simmons co-wrote The   
   Natanz Directive, a novel about a retired CIA agent called back   
   for one last op. When the book was published, Rumsfeld   
   contributed a blurb: "Wayne Simmons doesn't just write it. He's   
   lived it."   
      
   But according to prosecutors, Simmons was living a lie. Last   
   October, the government charged him with multiple counts of   
   fraud, saying he had never worked for the CIA at all.   
   Prosecutors alleged that Simmons used his supposed intelligence   
   experience not only to secure time on Fox and an audience with   
   Rumsfeld, but also to obtain work with defense contractors,   
   including deployment to a military base in Afghanistan. He was   
   also charged with bilking $125,000 from a woman, with whom   
   prosecutors say he was romantically involved, in a real-estate   
   investment that did not exist. He has pleaded not guilty to the   
   charges, and his trial is scheduled to begin February 23rd. If   
   convicted, he will likely face several years in prison.   
      
   Simmons claimed to have spent 27 years with the CIA, but Paul   
   Nathanson, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case,   
   said in a court filing that Simmons "never had any association   
   whatsoever with the CIA." (The CIA declined to comment – as a   
   rule, it never confirms or denies agents – but said it is   
   "working closely with the Justice Department on this matter.")   
   Instead, prosecutors say Simmons spent those 27 years doing just   
   about everything else: He ran a limousine service, a gambling   
   operation and an AIDS-testing clinic; worked for a hot-tub   
   business, a carpeting company and a nightclub; and briefly   
   played defensive back for the New Orleans Saints. Along the way,   
   he accrued criminal convictions, including multiple DUIs, plus   
   charges for weapons possession and assault, and an arrest for   
   attacking a cabdriver in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2007. "Fuck   
   you, you can't do shit to me – do you know who I am?" Simmons   
   told a cop, according to a police report, before insisting that   
   he was CIA, and that the cabbie, who was Pakistani, had a bomb.   
   A police dog found no explosives, and a CIA representative told   
   the cops to take whatever actions they deemed necessary.   
      
   All the while, Simmons continued to get himself guest slots on   
   Fox. The Pentagon's military-analysts program had helped boost   
   his profile, along with that of others who made extreme   
   proclamations on air: Last year, retired Adm. James Lyons said   
   the Muslim Brotherhood had "carte-blanche entry into the White   
   House," and retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney supported Donald   
   Trump's freeze on Muslim immigrants. All three men helped push   
   right-wing theories about Benghazi into the mainstream. "If you   
   have two generals and a former CIA officer saying these things,   
   they give legitimacy and heft to what would have been a partisan   
   attack," says Angelo Carusone of Media Matters for America, a   
   progressive media watchdog. "It has an effect on the way voters   
   behave."   
      
   And yet, for years, Simmons' radical positions, his allegedly   
   fabricated credentials and his off-camera behavior never got him   
   thrown off the air. Just a week after the incident with the   
   cabbie, Simmons received a note of congratulations from the   
   Pentagon ("Saw you on Fox yesterday. Impressive, as always") and   
   was invited to join a conference call with Gen. David Petraeus.   
   "He's always using this supposed CIA affiliation as a trump   
   card," Nathanson said. "Frankly, it often works."   
      
   Wayne Simmons has lived almost his entire life in Maryland,   
   where he and his wife, who passed away in 2012, raised two   
   children. Around Annapolis, he was known as both a good neighbor   
   and someone prone to the occasional barroom dispute over   
   politics. "He was always a gentleman, even if he seemed a little   
   intense or on edge," says William Cooke, an Annapolis attorney.   
   "I took the guy at his word." (Simmons declined to comment on   
   the record for this story.)   
      
   Simmons was certainly a likely candidate for service. His mother   
   worked as an FBI fingerprint specialist, and his father served   
   in the Navy with enough distinction that in 1996 his death was   
   marked with a tribute on the Senate floor. Simmons' sister   
   became a senior official in the Defense Department during the   
   second Bush administration, and his son is in the Secret Service.   
      
   Simmons claims that his own service began in 1973, when he   
   briefly enlisted in the Navy, before spending nearly three   
   decades with the CIA. He has said he "spearheaded deep-cover   
   intel ops against some of the world's most dangerous drug   
   cartels and arms smugglers" before he retired in 2000.   
      
   After 9/11, Fox, like every news outlet, was desperate for   
   analysts capable of talking knowledgably about the War on   
   Terror, so the chance to put a former CIA officer on the air   
   would have been alluring. (Fox declined to participate for this   
   article.) The network has not explained how Simmons first   
   appeared on the channel, or how he passed their vetting process,   
   but one possible explanation lies in the fact that his early   
   appearances were almost all on Saturday nights. "With weekends,   
   the vetting goes away, and the pre-interview goes away, and just   
   general thought of any kind goes away, other than 'Who can I get   
   in front of a camera?'" claims a former Fox producer. Once a   
   guest proves capable, bookers for prominent time slots often   
      
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