Passportgate – A History

The fallout

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services Ann Barrett  took the fall.  She resigned or was “moved.”  Take your pick.  That same story reports:

Meanwhile, a State Department employee who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after 24-year-old Leiutenant Quarles Harris Jr. told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.”

The investigation began after Metropolitan Police on March 25 pulled over Mr. Harris … on suspicion that the windows of his vehicle were tinted too darkly.

After searching Mr. Harris and his vehicle, police found marijuana and 21 credit cards that were not issued in his name or the name of a female passenger with him. Police also found eight printouts of State Department passport applications, and four of the names on the applications matched four of the credit cards.

Upon questioning by agents from the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Postal Service and State Department, Mr. Harris “admitted he obtained the passport information” from a State Department employee, court documents say.

Mr. Harris also said the fraud ring submitted credit-card applications using the names and “identifying information” of the persons listed on the passport applications, and that a postal service employee then would intercept the cards before they were delivered to the appropriate residences.

Mr. Harris may have lost his life over this incident; he was cooperating with authorities but was later found shot, execution style.  This link shows the charging document for Harris’s earlier arrest, when he was found with passport applications. It remains unclear whether he was connected to the Obama passport cauterization, whether his murder was ever solved, or whether his co-conspirators at the Dept. of State and the Postal Service were ever identified and punished.

Jack Cashill stated recently on a radio program that the individuals who broke into the passport files have never been identified. Some have been, although whether the cauterizer is among them is anyone’s guess:

Gerald R. Lueders, 65, of Woodbridge, Virginia, pleaded guilty in January to one count of unauthorized computer access, according to a statement from Lanny A. Breuer, the District of Columbia assistant attorney general. [Yes, THAT Lanny Breuer.]

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay sentenced Lueders to one year of probation and fined him $5,000 …

Two other State Department workers fired over the snooping were previously sentenced.

Dwayne [F.] Cross, 41, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, received a year of probation and an order to perform 100 hours of community service, while former foreign service officer and intelligence analyst Lawrence [C.] Yontz [48] was sentenced to one year of probation.

More about Lueders, who

worked as a full-time Foreign Service Officer beginning in 1974. Following his 2001 retirement, Lueders has continued working at State, first as a ‘contractor/retired annuitant’ and, most recently, as a Watch Officer in the agency’s Office of Consular Affairs. He admitted accessing the passport records over a two-and-a-half-year period beginning in July 2005 [to February, 2008].

Dwayne Cross (aka DeWayne)

worked from August 2001 to February 2008 as an administrative assistant in State’s Abduction Unit for Diplomatic Security, Counterintelligence division (from March 2008 to October 2008 Cross worked in the agency’s acquisitions office while employed by an outside contractor).

Cross accessed the passport files over a five-and-a-half year period ending in August 2007, according to another court filing …

Yontz seems to have been Brennan’s employee.  He’s described in news stories variously as a State Dept. employee or a former State Dept. employee.  The story linked above states that he also got 50 hours of community service.  In addition,

Yontz served as a foreign service officer at the State Department between September 1987 and April 1996, then returned to the agency in January 2004 for work as an intelligence officer. Yontz had access to official databases, including PIERS, the DOJ said.

Interesting timing.  2004.  Another story says Yontz cooperated in the investigation and was a contract employee. Yontz accessed the files between February 2005 and March 2008.  His firm was not mentioned in the court records, unlike for the other two, who worked for an unnamed Firm A (assumed to be Stanley, Inc.); another story said Yontz worked for TAC (The Analysis Corp.–Brennan’s firm).

This story names five others:

An employee of the U.S. Department of State was sentenced Wednesday to 12 months of probation. …

Kevin M. Young, 42, of Temple Hills, Maryland, was also ordered by Judge Alan Kay, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to perform 100 hours of community service. Young pleaded guilty on Aug. 17 to one count of unauthorized computer access. … Young has worked full-time for the State Department since February 1987. He has been a contact representative for the Passport Special Issuance Agency for the last eight years. … Young admitted that between March 11, 2003, and Dec. 21, 2005, he logged onto the PIERS database and viewed the passport applications of more than 125 celebrities, actors, comedians, professional athletes, musicians, models, a politician and other individuals identified in the press. …

 On July 10, 2009, William A. Celey, a file assistant, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 75 confidential passport files. Celey was sentenced on Oct. 23, 2009, to 12 months of probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.

On Aug. 26, 2009, Karal Busch, a former citizens services specialist, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 65 confidential passport files. Busch is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 15, 2009.

On Oct. 28, 2009, Yvette M. Burrison, a passport specialist, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing nearly 100 confidential passport files. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled for Burrison.

On Nov. 9, 2009, Susan Holloman, a file assistant, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing 70 confidential passport files. Holloman is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 21, 2010.

This story names yet another, the ninth so far:

A State Department employee was sentenced yesterday to 12 months of probation for illegally accessing more than 60 confidential passport application files, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Debra Sue Brown, 47, of Oxon Hill, Md., was also ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola in the District of Columbia to perform 50 hours of community service. … Brown has worked full-time for the State Department since September 1995 as a file clerk and a file assistant in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. … Brown admitted that between March 25, 2005, and Feb. 7, 2008, she logged onto the PIERS database and repeatedly searched for and viewed the passport applications of more than 60 celebrities and their families — actors, comedians, professional athletes, musicians, and other individuals identified in the press — as well as personal friends and acquaintances.

Again, it’s the timing

We are aware of another incident of potential cauterization prior to the election of 2008:  Obama’s Selective Service Records.  In November of 2008, Debbie Schlussel reported on the response from the government to a FOIA request for Obama’s Selective Service Registration, which had taken over a year to receive. Obama hadn’t shown up in a query of the online database, when citizen researchers tried to investigate his background.  Thus the FOIA request for the record, upon the advice of the Selective Service Administration.

I sent an email to the Selective Service (www.sss.gov) and got this
response:

“Dear Sir: You may write in to ask for his Registration Number under a Freedom of Information Act, and it will then be released. If there is an error in his file, if he registered without yet having a social security number, etc., any number of reasons could prevent his registration from being confirmed on-line.”

Because it’s a crime to not register for the draft, Obama would have disqualified himself from holding elective office, including the presidency, if he didn’t register.

Although Schlussel’s report was written in November 2008, the actual response from the government was generated in September 2008, within two days of  Obama mentioning to George Stephanopoulis that he had registered for the draft.  Did he have advance notice that it was now safe to make such a claim, just as it was now safe for him to mention the trip to Pakistan, because all files had been successfully cauterized?

Other potentially “cauterized” public records

Since 2008, we have become aware of other public records that are allegedly missing or destroyed:

Stanley Ann Dunham’s pre-1965 passport application is missing or destroyed.   The State Dept. did not release it in response to a FOIA request, but it is known to have existed, based upon what they did release.

All copies of the yearbook from Mercer Island High School for the year Stanley Ann Dunham allegedly graduated went missing from the school library.

One page from Stanley Ann Dunham’s divorce records is missing; speculation is that it was a copy of Obama’s birth certificate, although it could have been a paternity report, naturalization paperwork, proof of adoption, or some other “embarrassing information.”

The first week of August 1961 is missing from INS microfilms of passengers entering the US from overseas (port of entry records for flights into NYC and Hawaii).  They were stored at the National Archives, which has no explanation other than that in 1961, someone tasked with copying the originals must not have noticed that the microfilm machine jammed and did not copy that week’s worth of records.  Coincidentally, that is allegedly the very week during which Obama was born.  Somewhere.  We are to believe that the clerk destroyed the originals and did not first ensure that there were copies on the film, even though the clerk must have known about the jam.  Oddly, the microfilm roll ended at that missing week and a new roll began with the following week.

Obama’s public school kindergarten records from Hawaii are “missing.” 

Some of Obama’s school records from Indonesia were reportedly “eaten by bugs.”

The Selective Service Administration refused to give Sheriff Arpaio access to Obama’s original draft registration, a document that they claimed to have copied and sent to a citizen in response to a FOIA enquiry. Does the original exist?  Did it ever exist? Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse believes the image released to the citizen is forged.

No document recording a marriage license issued to Obama’s parents has ever been found.  No certificate of their marriage has ever been found.

Of course, we can’t forget those “original vital records on file” at the Hawaii Dept. of Health, which have never been produced to any court or citizen or member of the media.  Records that former HDOH employee Tim Adams swore he was told do not exist.  Records that current governor of Hawaii Neil Abercrombie could not find.  Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse believes there is probable cause to believe that the LFCOLB presented as a digital image on the White House blog is a forgery.

Gone.  Cauterized.

No transparency. No truth.

Update 03/31/2012: The Attorney’s Registration and Public Disciplinary Record for Barack Hussein Obama is no longer on the public search because he does not currently have an active law license.   After the record was found and it was pointed out that Obama did NOT list “Full Former Name(s)”, he did not renew his license and this record disappeared from public view.  It was saved at this link.  His former names include “Barry Obama”, “Barry  Soetoro”, and possibly “Soebarkah”.  This information is required to receive a law license.  The state of  IL would not supply any further information about Obama, when citizens requested it, because he no longer holds an active license.  Nor does his wife.

Update 04/02/2012:  jbjd has published three posts about the Obama birth certificates, here, here, and here.  A series well worth reading in its entirety.  jbjd explains how the SFCOLB is little more than a campaign advertisement.  What’s pertinent to this story about the passport breach is the connection to that SFCOLB and the TIMING.  jbjd and azgo, a commenter on jbjd’s blog, point out that Fight the Smears (FTS) campaign website was copyrighted in 2007, although it wasn’t on the Web until 2008, when the SFCOLB was introduced.  It also corresponds with the date that the SFCOLB was allegedly requested by the campaign from the HDOH.  According to Obama’s campaign staff, the campaign was gathering documents that summer.  The timing.   It’s the timing.

Update 04/08/2012:  FBI files for Stanley Armour Dunham may have been destroyed by the government on May 1, 1997.  It is unclear from the FBI’s response to a FOIA request whether index records showed that a file on him did exist but was destroyed, or whether it was the index records themselves that were destroyed, so the FBI is unable to say that there was a file for Stanley Armour Dunham.  The portions of the U.S. code cited by the FBI do not seem to address record retention (here and here) as implied.   Rather, they seem to define the type of records stored at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and how to identify them so that they can be loaned to someone for viewing.  Reading between the lines, it appears that the FBI’s index to their own files was destroyed, so they cannot provide citizens with enough identification to point to a location at the NARA.  (But I could be wrong in my interpretation; it’s no surprise that these letters are confusing and obfuscating.  That’s par for the course, so far.)  It is also unclear whether or not Kincaid pursued this further (e.g., by requesting the records from NARA or appealing the decision to OIP, as suggested by the FBI’s response).  Kincaid was provided a copy of the FBI File Fact Sheet, which seems to imply either that reponsive records must be properly described or that there’s no longer an index record that might describe them, should they exist.

Update 04/25/2012:  While technically perhaps not public records (although the university may receive funds from the government), Barack Hussein Obama Senior’s college transcripts from the University of Hawaii were made available to a friendly biographer by Syracuse University; and yet when other writers asked to see them, they were told that the records were “currently missing.”

Update 05/21/2012: The Obama administration changed the policy for retention of Selective Service records and microfilms, allowing Selective Service to refuse Sheriff Arpaio’s request for access to the original microfilm, by restricting access to federal investigators engaged in federal investigations. In addition, the new policy may have allowed the records to be destroyed.

Update 07/26/2012: The Chicago Star, the newspaper for which Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis wrote, is missing from the National Archives (copies and microfilm), even though the Archives claimed to have them.  This is according to Dr. Paul Kengor, who wrote the book The Communist.  Miraculously, a volunteer researcher found copies at a university archives, which allowed Kengor to show just how much Obama was influenced by Davis’s communist idealogy.

A second disappearance of public records, this time registrations of births to Barack Hussein Obama (the first) before 1963, as recorded in the British National Archives:

According to researchers, Obama’s line records were discovered in Series RG36, reference books.  Not surprisingly, when researchers specifically requested access to the relevant microfilm for the Obama birth registrations, they were told that the records were currently held under an outdated “privileged access” status, meaning researchers were denied access under Chapter 52, Sections 3 and 5 of the British Public Records Act of 1958. 

However, evidence shows these records were available for public access before August of 2009, the approximate date of arrival of Hillary Clinton in Great Britain during her trip to Africa that year.

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Some of our articles about the LFCOLB are here, here, and here.

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