Ex-CIA Official Pleads Not Guilty

Former top CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo pleaded not guilty to all of the charges contained in the grand jury indictment against him Thursday.

Foggo has been charged with a bushel of felony charges including conspiracy, money laundering, fraud.  Most of the charges stem from a series of deals he worked with his friend, defense contractor Brent Wilkes, worth many millions of dollars in CIA business.  As we reported yesterday, Foggo is also facing charges in connection with what federal prosecutors believe was an illicit effort to get his alleged mistress a job as an attorney for the CIA.

Foggo showed up in federal court in Virginia this morning with a five-lawyer defense team, featuring heavy hitters like Paul Butler, a former special assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — and sometime commentator for CNN, FOX and CNBC, according to his biography.

One side note: Among the deals Foggo allegedly worked for Wilkes, the most well-known may have been a savagely marked-up contract to fly in bottled water to CIA officers in Iraq (although water was available locally).  But the new indictment alleges Wilkes also supplied CIA officers overseas with, among other things, shuffleboard wax and rolls of velcro.

Just what are the nation’s spooks up to these days?