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   snap them up when breaking news hits, and have little reason to   
   question their credentials. "If you want to play Talented Mr.   
   Ripley, once you get inside, nobody's going to think twice about   
   whether you should be there," the ex-Fox producer says.   
      
   By 2004, Simmons was appearing on a sometimes-weekly basis,   
   often in prime-time, which caught the eye of the Pentagon's   
   public-affairs office. Two years earlier, in October 2002, it   
   had created the military-analysts program to help build support   
   for the War in Iraq. "It was really about giving people with on-   
   the-ground experience a chance to get more information," says   
   Allison Barber, who oversaw the program as deputy assistant   
   secretary of Defense. Critics, however, saw it as a way to   
   disperse talking points to ostensibly neutral officers with a   
   national television audience. Many also had undisclosed ties to   
   defense contractors.   
      
   When Simmons began talking with the Pentagon, in 2004, the war   
   was going poorly. An Iraqi insurgency had led to brutal   
   fighting, and the Abu Ghraib scandal had corroded support. The   
   Pentagon was in need of advocates, and the military analysts,   
   which the Pentagon referred to as "surrogates," had nearly   
   tripled to more than 50. Both former and current Pentagon   
   officials said there was little vetting of potential analysts,   
   on the presumption that the networks had done their due   
   diligence. Barber cited the fact that Simmons "was pretty   
   prolific on television" as his primary qualification, and said   
   credentials were less important than the ability to reach a   
   large audience. Simmons' response to a Pentagon official's   
   inquiry about the program didn't suggest he expected a stringent   
   process: "There is quite a bit of info under 'Wayne Simmons and   
   CIA' on a Google search."   
      
   Simmons jumped at the chance to join the program and was soon   
   invited on a trip to Guantanamo Bay after a 2005 Fox appearance   
   in which he defended the treatment of detainees there. "Doesn't   
   giving them a Koran simply add fuel to an ideological fire   
   already burning out of control?" Simmons asked a Guantanamo   
   officer at one point, according to a written report from a   
   retired Army officer on the trip.   
      
   Simmons became a regular at the program's roundtables and   
   conference calls, and he often e-mailed the group with his views   
   on the latest political news. "Wayne is one that we can turn to   
   and engage fully," a Pentagon official told his colleagues,   
   after Simmons e-mailed to say he "would love to backhand" some   
   retired generals who had criticized Secretary Rumsfeld. In 2006,   
   Simmons was present when President Bush signed the Military   
   Commissions Act, which gave the executive branch powers to   
   detain prisoners indefinitely, and the Pentagon listed him as   
   one of its "most prolific retired military analysts." One   
   official e-mailed a colleague to say, "Let's make sure we get   
   Wayne Simmons to Iraq."   
      
   If there was a reason to raise an eyebrow at Simmons' claims, it   
   may have been the fact that a low-level CIA operator wanted to   
   go on television at all. "Most operators don't want to go on   
   TV," one former Navy Seal tells me. "They want to get paid   
   $200,000 as a security contractor." While some members of the   
   military-analysts program had contracts that offered as much as   
   $1,000 per appearance, Simmons was never paid by Fox, and he   
   supported himself through a variety of businesses, including   
   launching Simmons Air, a commuter airline in Maryland. (Simmons   
   got a $20,000 rookie contract with the New Orleans Saints in the   
   summer of 1978, when he was supposedly five years into his CIA   
   career, but was cut that September.) Eventually, Simmons tried   
   to capitalize on his public profile, becoming a regular on the   
   local Republican speakers' circuit and landing a book deal.   
      
   He also tried to work for the government, according to   
   prosecutors. In 2008, after his airline collapsed, Simmons   
   secured work with BAE Systems, a government contractor that sent   
   him to Fort Leavenworth for training as a "Human Terrain System   
   Team leader," until he was forced to resign due to "performance   
   problems." A year later, he was rejected from another   
   contracting job after the State Department found his claims   
   about working for the CIA were false. In 2010, a third   
   contractor sent Simmons to Afghanistan as a "senior intelligence   
   adviser," but he was sent home after his interim security   
   clearance was revoked. (None of the contractors responded to   
   requests for comment.)   
      
   Yet even though the government was now aware of Simmons'   
   fabricated credentials, nobody told Fox, where he continued to   
   appear, often as a partisan advocate: In various appearances, he   
   called Barack Obama a "boy king" and Nancy Pelosi a   
   "pathological liar." Simmons' comments – along with those made   
   by other fringe military-analysts members who remained on air –   
   seeped into the mainstream; in 2013, he became a member of the   
   Citizens' Commission on Benghazi, which led the charge to keep   
   the attacks in the news. "A lot of his segments didn't just   
   contain misinformation about Benghazi – he repeated already-   
   debunked falsehoods," says Carusone of Media Matters.   
      
   But as Simmons' profile rose, some around him began to have   
   doubts. In 2010, he was introduced to Kent Clizbe, a former CIA   
   case officer. When they met, Clizbe said that Simmons bragged   
   about his work busting drug cartels, but he was short on   
   details. "Within a couple of minutes, I knew he was a fraud,"   
   Clizbe says. "You can't bullshit a bullshitter."   
      
   Clizbe says he relayed his concern to a number of people who   
   knew Simmons, and word made its way to a Washington Times   
   reporter who asked Simmons about the charges. "Some of my   
   colleagues are convinced that it is related to my outspoken   
   membership on the Citizens' Commission on Benghazi," Simmons   
   wrote to the reporter in late 2013, suggesting a smear campaign.   
   "It is angering and pathetic." (The Times decided against   
   publishing the story after being told that Simmons had been   
   granted security clearances and sent to Afghanistan.)   
      
   But as the FBI began looking into Simmons, he made little effort   
   to lower his profile. (The government declined to say what   
   prompted its investigation.) Last February, the same month in   
   which Simmons' lawyer says he and Simmons met with government   
   attorneys to discuss his client's alleged CIA past, Simmons   
   appeared on Fox three times. In one segment, he repeated a   
   spurious claim that there were "at least 19 paramilitary Muslim   
   training facilities in the United States."   
      
   "Wow," replied the host Neil Cavuto, without challenging Simmons.   
      
   "They're using paramilitary exercises to plan and execute these   
   types of operations all over the United States," Simmons said.   
   "And when it happens, it will just be you and I saying, 'We told   
   you so.'"   
      
   For now, Simmons lives in a large home, which is just another   
   facade shielding a murkier reality. None of his business   
   ventures panned out. Prosecutors say that he hasn't made a   
   mortgage payment since 2010, and that his car was recently   
   repossessed – not that it would do him much good anyway.   
   According to the terms of his bail, he is allowed to leave his   
   house to care for his horses and visit the doctor or his   
   attorney, but he is otherwise required to stay at home under the   
   supervision of his adult daughter. His request to join his   
   family at several Christmas gatherings was denied.   
      
   If Simmons is shown to have fabricated his CIA experience, he   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)