But this is not the first time we've seen Newt play this role. In 1995, then-Democratic Representative Robert G. Torricelli received information from a State Department whistleblower, Richard Nuccio, that a long-time Guatemalan CIA agent, Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, was responsible for the controversial killing of an American innkeeper living in Guatemala, as well as the murder of a leftist guerrilla leader married to an American citizen, Jennifer Harbury. The guerrilla leader, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, was ordered killed at the end of his interrogation by Alpirez, who also was a Guatemalan military intelligence officer. Both the State Department and the National Security Council knew the identity of the killer, but withheld the information, even as Harbury was conducting hunger strikes to get the government to pursue what then appeared to be her husband's disappearance.

Torricelli, who was a member of the House Intelligence Committee, released the name of the CIA agent and announced in a letter to President Clinton:

The direct involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the murder of these individuals leads me to the extraordinary conclusion that the agency is simply out of control and that it contains what can only be called a criminal element..."

The stage was set for Speaker Newt to spring into action. He called Torricelli's disclosures "explicitly inappropriate," and called for the House Intelligence Committee to expel the New Jersey congressman. "I think he just decided it was better to go ahead and cause a public embarrassment to the United States," Gingrich said



http://firedoglake.com/2009/05/18/newt-gingrich-cia-bully-boy-since-1995/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa

Another frequent visitor was Newt Gingrich, the former Republican party leader who resurfaced after September 11 as a Pentagon "consultant" and a member of its unpaid defence advisory board, with influence far beyond his official title.

Mr Gingrich visited Langley three times before the war, and according to accounts, the political veteran sought to browbeat analysts into toughening up their assessments of Saddam's menace.

Mr Gingrich gained access to the CIA headquarters and was listened to because he was seen as a personal emissary of the Pentagon and, in particular, of the OSP.

The OSP had access to a huge amount of raw intelligence. It came in part from "report officers" in the CIA's directorate of operations whose job is to sift through reports from agents around the world, filtering out the unsubstantiated and the incredible. Under pressure from the hawks such as Mr Cheney and Mr Gingrich, those officers became reluctant to discard anything, no matter how far-fetched. The OSP also sucked in countless tips from the Iraqi National Congress and other opposition groups, which were viewed with far more scepticism by the CIA and the state department.

"mistakes were made" :banghead:

there will be--of Pelosi!!!