Committee Insiders: Graham and Goss

Three of the insiders on the JCI with influence and/or conflicts of interest were its two chairmen -- Senator Bob Graham and Congressman Porter Goss -- and its staff director, L. Britt Snider.


Former Senator Bob Graham

Graham is a native of Florida. One of his four siblings is Phil Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post. Graham has a BS from the University of Florida in Political Science and an LLB degree from Harvard Law School (1962). He served in the Florida State Senate and house and then Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987. He was a US Senator from 1987 until he retired in 2005.

He served 10 years on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Other investigative committees he's served on:

  • The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
  • The Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee
  • The Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism (chairman)

In 2009 he agreed to serve on the new CIA External Advisory Board started by CIA Director Leon Panetta. [1]

Members include:

Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State
Dan Glickman, former Representative
Bob Graham, former Senator
Lee Hamilton, former Representative
Vernon Jordan, senior managing director at Lazard Frères
Arnold Kanter, principal and founding member of The Scowcroft Group
Jeong Kim, president of Bell Labs
General Richard B. Myers, USAF (Ret.)
Thomas Pickering, former Undersecretary of State
Warren Rudman, former Senator
Harold "Hal" C. Smith, vice president of Computer Sciences Corporation
Jeffrey H. Smith, partner at Arnold & Porter and former CIA general counsel
H. Patrick Swygert, president emeritus of Howard University
Fran Townsend, former Presidential Advisor for Homeland Security


Former Representative Porter Goss

Porter Goss, from Waterbury, CT attended Yale and belonged to the Book and Snake secret society. At Yale he joined ROTC. In 1961, his junior year, he was recruited by the CIA. He was stationed in Miami and participated in Operation Mongoose, a covert project to overthrow Castro. He was also involved in the Bay of Pigs operation, and eventually spent 10 years working in the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations.

While there, he recruited and ran foreign agents [2], was a member of a team called Operation 40, which was accused of conducting assassinations, and worked as a covert operative in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Western Europe, among other activities infiltrating trade unions in the fight against the perceived threat of communism.

He retired to Sanibel Island in Florida in 1971, and eventually spent 8 years in city government there, until then-Governor Bob Graham appointed him to the Lee County Board of Commissioners. In 1988 he was elected to Congress (R), where from 1997 until his 2004 departure he held the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. While there, he was a staunch defender of the CIA and its budget, was a primary author of the USA Patriot Act, and strenuously resisted any investigation into 9/11 [3], and was considered to have played a significant part in the JCI's failure to investigate the Bush Administration's role.

In September of 2004, after nomination by Bush and Senate approval, he assumed the Directorship of the CIA, where he remained amid increasing internal turmoil until his resignation in May, 2006. While there, he impeded the release of the agency's reports on their abduction of suspected terrorists, telling the world "we don't torture" [4].

He subsequently went on the lecture circuit, and in April, 2015 he registered as a lobbyist representing Turkey, a country well known for its connections to Gladio terrorism.

Questionable Qualifications as Investigators

In August of 2001 Senator Bob Graham, Rep. Porter Goss, and Rep. Jon Kyl flew to Islamabad, Pakistan to meet with Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf and General Mahmoud Ahmed, Director of the ISI. Ahmed, with whom Graham and Goss were at a breakfast meeting in Washington as 9/11 happened, had ordered $100,000 be sent to Al Queda ringleader Mohamed Atta. This links the JCI leaders to both a major funder of the alleged hijackers and also to the president of a country that had long condoned Islamic terrorism. [5]) (It should be noted that Peter Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense and a member of PNAC also hosted a meeting with the ISI leader just days before 9/11 [6].)

Porter Goss is from Waterbury, CT and attended Yale and belonged to the Book and Snake secret society. At Yale he joined ROTC. In 1961, his junior year, he was recruited by the CIA. He was stationed in Miami and participated in Operation Mongoose, a covert project to overthrow Castro. He was involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

Graham appointed Porter Goss to his house seat in Florida, representing the district that included Venice, Hollywood, where the alleged hijackers resided and received their flight training at Huffman Aviation.

So both Graham and Goss, the two chairs of the JCI, represented the area where some of the alleged hijackers lived and trained to fly. The flight school, Huffman Aviation, was also a known drug smuggling operation with CIA connections.

Porter Goss was a former CIA agent, a 10-year veteran of the agency's clandestine operations division. He was a primary author of the USA Patriot Act and had strenuously resisted any investigation into 9/11.

He had recruited and run foreign agents.

He worked as a covert operative in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Western Europe. He infiltrated trade unions in the fight against the perceived threat of communism. He was a member of a team called Operation 40 which was accused of conducting assassinations.

He spent 8 years in Sanibel Island city government until 1983, when then-Governor Bob Graham appointed him to the Board of Commissioners of Lee County, Florida. In 1988 he was elected to the US Congress (R) from the 13th District which included Venice where Huffman Aviation was located.

In 2004 Goss was appointed by Bush as Director of the CIA, where Goss impeded both release of the spy agency's reports on CIA abduction of suspected terrorists. He told the world "we don't torture". [4]

In August of 2001 Senator Bob Graham, Rep. Porter Goss, and Rep. Jon Kyl flew to Islamabad, Pakistan to meet with Pakistan's president Pervez Musharrad and general Mahmoud Ahmed, Director of the ISI. Ahmed ordered $100,000 be sent to Al Queda ringleader Mohamed Atta. This links the JCI leaders to both a major funder for the alleged hijackers and also to the president of a country that had long condoned Islamic terrorism. [5]

Graham and Goss were at a breakfast meeting in Washington on the morning of 9/11 with General Ahmed when the attacks began.

Peter Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense and a member of PNAC also hosted a meeting with the ISI leader just days before 9/11. [6]

Senator Graham never mentions these meetings and claims surprise at the evidence of foreign government involvement in facilitating some of the activities of some of the terrorists.

Porter Goss retired in 2006 from the CIA. He is an active speaker on the lecture circuit and registered in April 2015 as a lobbyist representing Turkey.


Staff Director L. Britt Snider

A clear sign of the rigged character of the investigation was the selection of L. Britt Snider as staff director. Snider was appointed inspector general of the CIA in 1997 by Director George Tenet and served in that role until August 2001. Since any serious and impartial investigation would have to evaluate Tenet's performance, Snider as JCI Staff Director was in a clear conflict-of-interest position.


Sources:

  1. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/new-external-advisory-board.html
  2. Ryan
  3. Mounting Evidence: Why We Need A New Investigation Into 9/11, Paul Rea, p.117
  4. Ibid, Rea, p.117
  5. Ibid, Rea,
  6. Ibid, Rea,


Page updated: 5 June 2016