{"id":262,"date":"2012-06-03T06:57:30","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T06:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/65.110.86.41\/2\/?p=262"},"modified":"2017-02-20T15:47:52","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T22:47:52","slug":"1115-org-peter-lance-triple-cross-patrick-fitzgerld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"1115.org: Peter Lance TRIPLE CROSS &#038; Patrick Fitzgerld"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"1115.org%3A%20Peter%20Lance%20TRIPLE%20CROSS%20%26%20Patrick%20Fitzgerld\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<header role=\"banner\">\n<div>\n<h1><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/1115.org-logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-263\" title=\"1115.org logo\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/1115.org-logo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"576\" height=\"119\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/1115.org-logo.png 823w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/1115.org-logo-300x61.png 300w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/1115.org-logo-500x103.png 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/a><strong>Interview with Matt Cohen June 15th, 2009.<\/strong><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>We have been following the work of author\/investigative journalist\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/\"><strong>Peter Lance<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0since the spectacular\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/1000-Years-Revenge-International-Terrorism\/dp\/006054354X\" target=\"_blank\">1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE<\/a>\u00a0was released in 2003. If you haven\u2019t read it (or its follow up\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cover-Up-Government-Hiding-Terror\/dp\/0060543558\" target=\"_blank\">COVER UP<\/a>), we highly recommend that you catch up. We\u2019ve previously interviewed Lance upon the publication of 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.1115.org\/2004\/03\/15\/the-1115-interview-peter-lance\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>\u00a0and COVER UP\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.1115.org\/2004\/09\/21\/the-1115-interview-icover-upi-author-bpeter-lanceb\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Lance\u2019s latest book\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Triple-Cross-Ladens-Master-Penetrated\/dp\/0061189413\/ref=ed_oe_p\" target=\"_blank\">TRIPLE CROSS<\/a>: How bin Laden\u2019s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI \u2013 and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him is out in paperback tomorrow. As we\u2019ve come to expect from Lance, it is full of startling revelations and infuriating tales of incompetence, dereliction of duty, and willful cover-your-ass behavior by the very people charged with protecting this country. Fitzgerald, the US Attorney everyone wanted to deify for his prosecution of\u00a0<strong>Scooter Libby<\/strong>, has been actively trying to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/id\/200885\">suppress<\/a><em>Triple Cross<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Patrick Fitzgerald may be the most feared prosecutor in the country, but even as he\u2019s racked up headlines for big-name convictions (Scooter Libby) and indictments (Rod Blagojevich), the hard-charging U.S. attorney from Chicago has been waging a private crusade: trying to kill a book he believes maligns his reputation. In the past year and a half, Fitzgerald has written four letters to HarperCollins\u2014owned by Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News Corp.\u2014demanding it \u201ccease publication\u201d and \u201cwithdraw\u201d copies of Triple Cross, a 2006 book by ex\u2013TV newsman Peter Lance that criticizes Fitzgerald\u2019s handling of terror cases in New York in the 1990s. Fitzgerald raised the temperature even more last week, aiming to halt a paperback version. \u201cTo put it plain and simple,\u201d he wrote in a June 2 letter obtained by NEWSWEEK, \u201cif in fact you publish the book this month and it defames me or casts me in a false light, HarperCollins will be sued.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Triple-Cross-Small3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-264\" title=\"Triple Cross Small\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Triple-Cross-Small3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"327\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Triple-Cross-Small3.jpg 327w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Triple-Cross-Small3-210x300.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 327px) 100vw, 327px\" \/><\/a>Below, I\u2019m republishing an extended interview I did with Lance coinciding with the original publication of\u00a0<em>Triple Cross<\/em>\u00a0in 2006.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Matt Cohen<\/strong>: One phrase often heard since 9\/11 is \u201c9\/11 changed everything.\u201d The timeline in TRIPLE CROSS starts 20 years earlier with the assassination of Egyptian president\u00a0<strong>Anwar Sadat<\/strong>\u00a0in 1981, and continues through the killing of Rabbi\u00a0<strong>Meier Kahane<\/strong>\u00a0in New York in 1990.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The subject of the book,\u00a0<strong>Ali Mohamed<\/strong>\u00a0was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group that killed Sadat, and trained the men (man) who murdered Kahane, with some of the training even showing up on FBI surveillance photographs from a shooting range in Calverton, Long Island (as early as 1989).<\/p>\n<p><em>Was 9\/11 really necessary before it became a bad idea to let Ali Mohamed into the Army \u2013 and an elite and highly secure unit, at that \u2013 and allow him to operate as a CIA asset?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Peter Lance<\/strong>: In order to answer that question in depth, we need to track back a bit.<\/p>\n<p>TRIPLE CROSS is the last book in my 9\/11 investigative trilogy. All three books have sought to answer that question: was 9\/11 necessary? By focusing on the New York Office of the FBI (NYO) and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), the two bin Laden \u201coffices of origin.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that up until 9\/11 the U.S. conducted the war on terror\u009d almost entirely as a series of legal prosecutions investigated by the NYO through its Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and Foreign Counterintelligence (FCI) squads and prosecuted by the Assistant U.S. Attorneys of the SDNY.<\/p>\n<p>In 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE I documented gross negligence by the NYO and JTTF in failing to stop\u00a0<strong>Ramzi Yousef<\/strong>, the original WTC bomber who set the 1,500 pound urea-nitrate\/fuel oil device in 1993. I also proved that it was Yousef who set in motion the \u201cplanes as missiles\u201d\u009d plot in Manila in 1994 and that after his capture in 1995, the plot was merely executed by his uncle\u00a0<strong>Khalid Shaikh Mohamed<\/strong>\u00a0(KSM), the man the FBI calls the 9\/11 \u201cmastermind.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE I pointed out multiple opportunities for the JTTF and other NYO investigators to interdict al Qaeda\u2019s juggernaut from the murder of Kahane on Nov 5th, 1990 right up through September 11th.<\/p>\n<p>It was Ali Mohamed who trained the first WTC bombing cell for Yousef. It was Ali Mohamed who trained Egyptian\u00a0<strong>El Sayyid Nosair<\/strong>\u00a0who killed Rabbi Meier Kahane in 1990. He also trained\u00a0<strong>Clement Rodney Hampton El<\/strong>, an American Muslim who was convicted in 1995 in the Day of Terror\u009d plot to blow up the bridges and tunnels into Manhattan.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: In your two previous books you went beyond proof of gross negligence in the FBI and Justice Department and actually documented obstruction of justice. We cover negligence and obstruction every day, but most of that gets shrugged off as \u201cpolitics as usual.\u201d When it comes to the FBI\/Justice Department, the goal should be to keep the country safe, yet they are just as bad as the politicians who run the show.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: In COVER UP I proved that officials of the NYO and SDNY had actually buried a treasure trove of al Qaeda related evidence from Ramzi Yousef that they had obtained in 1996 from a mob informant who occupied the cell next to Yousef at the Metropolitan Correctional Center the MCC in Lower Manhattan. Much of that intel was contained on a series of FBI #302 memos that can be accessed on my\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They include a bomb recipe from Yousef which discusses the use of acetone peroxide as an explosive chemical. You will recall that acetone peroxide was the essential chemical that was to be used in the trans-Atlantic airliner bombing plot uncovered last August by MI-5 \u2013 a plot that both the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0reported was a mirror image of Ramzi Yousef\u2019s failed 1995 Bojinka plot. So I proved in COVER UP that ten year earlier the Feds in the FBI\u2019s NYO and the SDNY buried key intelligence that could have alerted counter terrorism officials worldwide of such a plot a decade before.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: That sounds like it has chilling relevance to the terror threat climate today?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Absolutely. When you have to take your shoes off before getting on an airline flight, it\u2019s not because of\u00a0<strong>Richard Reid<\/strong>, the so-called \u201cshoe bomber.\u201d\u009d It\u2019s because in a wet test\u009d for the Bojinka plot aboard Philippine Airlines Flight #434 on December 11th, 1994, Yousef had smuggled the 9 volt batteries for his Casio-nitro bomb trigger\u009d in the heels of his shoes.<\/p>\n<p>The reason there is now a restriction on carrying liquids and gels on flights is because of Yousef \u2013 the same restrictions were used for months in Asia in 1995 when his Bojinka plot to blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific was first exposed.<\/p>\n<p>Most of this (absent the August plot) was reported in COVER UP, published in 2004.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: But you still had a number of unanswered questions.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: That\u2019s right. And the 9\/11 Commission \u2013 before which I testified \u2013 told only a fragment of the full story, focusing on the years 1998 forward. In fact, a former SDNY prosecutor named\u00a0<strong>Dietrich Snell<\/strong>, \u2014 who had prosecuted Yousef for Bojinka in 1996 \u2014 became the senior counsel to the Commission in charge of determining the origin of the plot.\u009d<\/p>\n<p>This was the single most important determination the Commission could make because, if you can\u2019t pinpoint when the \u201cplanes as missiles\u201d\u009d plot began, you can\u2019t fairly hold U.S. counterterrorism officials accountable for failing to prevent it.<\/p>\n<p>Snell had prosecuted Yousef in the case where that 1996 treasure trove of intelligence was buried. So he was a walking conflict of interest. It was Snell, indeed, who took my testimony\u009d on March 15th, 2004 in a windowless conference room at 26 Federal Plaza, the HQ of the FBI\u2019s NYO where the Commission had offices.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Snell reduced the reams of once classified material I gave the Commission from the Philippines National Police to a footnote in the final report. And then he pushed the plot original forward two years from Manila to Afghanistan, claiming falsely that KSM had merely pitched\u009d the plot to bin Laden and that, at the time he wasn\u2019t even a member of al Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p>What was Snell\u2019s authority in the 9\/11 Commission Report \u2013 the last official report on the biggest mass murder in U.S. history? Khalid Shaikh Mohammed himself \u2013 his word alone \u2013 after having been tortured and water boarded following his capture in March 2003. To me this was like taking the word of\u00a0<strong>David Berkowitz<\/strong>\u00a0for when he did the first Son of Sam Murder. KSM was UTTERLY unreliable as a witness and yet Snell fixed the plot origin allegedly based on KSM\u2019s word.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: Why would he do that?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: I believe to remove KSM\u2019s nephew Ramzi from the plot and thus relieve the two \u00e2\u20ac\u0153offices of origin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from culpability for not stopping 9\/11. Because, as I prove definitively in 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE, the JTTF could have stopped Yousef in 1992 when\u00a0<strong>George H.W. Bush<\/strong>\u00a0was in the White House. And if they had, they would have stopped 9\/11 because Yousef was the criminal genius behind its origin.<\/p>\n<p>An outside the box thinker and engineer trained in Wales who went from building WMDs to be transported to a target by truck like the original WTC device, to these ingenious little \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bomb triggers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which, when planted above the fuel tank of a 747, would blow down, acting as \u2018blasting caps\u2019\u009d to turn the entire aircraft itself into a bomb.<\/p>\n<p>That was the intent of Bojinka. But for an Act of God \u2013 a fire in Yousef\u2019s Manila bomb factory \u2013 he might have pulled it off in 1995.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: But why would responsible FBI and DOJ officials bury evidence of Yousef\u2019s connection to the 9\/11 plot or this 1996 \u2018treasure trove?\u2019\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: The answers are in COVER UP. But I needed further proof to connect the dots and that\u2019s why I woke up one day and realized that Ali Mohamed was the real key.<\/p>\n<p>Mohamed, an ex-Egyptian Army Major and commando who spoke four languages including Hebrew and had two psychology degrees, was the chosen spy of\u00a0<strong>Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri<\/strong>\u00a0(head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad EIJ) as early as 1984. Mohamed penetrated the CIA in Hamburg in 1994, then al-Zawahiri vectored in toward the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>By 1989 after the EIJ had merged into al Qaeda, Ali Mohamed who had enlisted in the U.S. Army and gotten himself stationed at the JFK Special Warfare Center (SWC) at Fort Bragg, was stealing top secret documents and coming up weekends to New York where he trained, as noted: El Sayyid Nosair who murdered Kahane,\u00a0<strong>Mohammed Salameh<\/strong>\u00a0and<strong>Mahmoud Abouhalima<\/strong>, later convicted in Yousef\u2019s WTC bombing and Clement Rodney Hampton El, a U.S. Muslim later convicted by<strong>Patrick Fitzgerald<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Andrew C. McCarthy<\/strong>\u00a0in the 1995 Day of Terror\u009d case.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: So you\u2019re saying that Ali Mohamed by the mid 90\u2032s was on Patrick Fitzgerald\u2019s radar?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Mohamed had been named as an unindicted co-conspirator along with bin Laden, his brother in law\u00a0<strong>Mohammed Jamal Khalifa<\/strong>\u00a0and 168 others and yet, I was astonished to discover that Ali Mohamed has been working as an FBI informant from 1992, snookering the two \u2018offices of origin\u2019\u009d the way he\u2019s snookered the Green Berets.<\/p>\n<p>After taking a long time to answer your question, the reason, I concluded that the Feds allowed him to operate with such impunity is that they first thought they could turn him and later, they were terrified that his years of eating the FBI\u2019s lunch would come out if he ever got on the stand so they stuck their fingers in the leaking dike and hoped that it would hold. But it didn\u2019t, and the African Embassy bombings, which Mohamed had personally planned and helped to execute, were the immediate result.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: In your reporting, did you come across any theories as to what the government is doing with Mohamed now?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: After the Embassy bombings in early August 1998, the Feds took a month to arrest Mohamed. They then held him for 9 months in the MCC on a John Doe warrant, terrified that word of his years of duplicity would get out. They negotiated with him and his lawyers for almost 2 years and finally cut a plea deal in October 2000 which spared him the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>But as best as I could determine all they got in return was his silence. He\u2019s never seen the light of day in a courtroom, even though under the exception to the Rule Against Hearsay for co-conspirator testimony he would have been the best possible witness for Patrick Fitzgerald to put on the stand in February, 2001 when he commenced U.S. vs. bin Laden, the African Embassy bombing case.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Ali was never called to testify because as defense lawyers told me, the Feds didn\u2019t want defense counsel peeling back the layers and showing how from the 1984 CIA penetration to the 2 years at Fort Bragg and the six years from 1992 that Ali was interacting with the FBI and federal prosecutors, nobody seemed to realize that he was al Qaeda\u2019s perfect spy.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Despite the fact that as early as 1993 he\u2019d confessed to his west coast control Agent\u00a0<strong>John Zent<\/strong>\u00a0that he was working for somebody named bin Laden and an organization called al Qaeda that was bent on overthrowing the Saudi Government<\/li>\n<li>Despite the fact that Andrew McCarthy met face to face with Ali in December 1994 around the time he\u2019d named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Day of Terror case and Ali had told him that he was merely running a scuba diving business in Kenya.<\/li>\n<li>Despite the fact that from 1996 on Squad I-49, the bin Laden Squad in the NYO had a wiretap on the Nairobi phone of\u00a0<strong>Wadih El-Hage<\/strong>, one of the primary bombing plotters, whom Ali was staying with in Kenya.<\/li>\n<li>Despite the fact that in August 1997,\u00a0<strong>Dan Coleman<\/strong>, a key special agent in I-49, which Patrick Fitzgerald was directing, searched El-Hage\u2019s house and found Ali Mohamed\u2019s phone number and address in Sacramento, California where he was living.<\/li>\n<li>Despite the fact that in October, 1997 Fitzgerald and two I-49 agents including\u00a0<strong>Jack Cloonan<\/strong>\u00a0met Ali at a restaurant in Sacramento and tried, in vain, to turn him. At that meeting Ali said that he loved\u009d bin Laden and that he didn\u2019t need a fatwa or religious degree to attack the U.S. (his adopted country). He also said that he had multiple sleepers that he could make operational on a moment\u2019s notice and that he himself could disappear.<\/li>\n<li>Despite the fact that after that meeting Fitzgerald turned to Cloonan and declared Ali the most dangerous man he had ever met and vowed not to leave him on the street. And yet he did for another 10 months only to have the bombs go off in Kenya and Tanzania, a plot that was more Ali Mohamed\u2019s than any other single al Qaeda operative.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: What did the Feds get in return for cutting this deal with Mohamed?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Basically, they got Ali Mohamed\u2019s silence. In return for that Ali Mohamed exists today in a form of custodial witness protection. He has never been sentenced for his crimes and the Judge at his plea hearing in 2000 even raised the possibility that he would someday be released.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: Why did he get this special treatment?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Because as I wrote in TRIPLE CROSS in the poker game between the hunters and the hunted Ali held all the face cards.<\/p>\n<p>As soon as they locked him up he knew that he was in the cat bird\u2019s seat because the Feds would rather not bring him to justice than be embarrassed at how he\u2019d eaten their lunches for years.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: But as you suggest that decision had catastrophic consequences<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Clearly. First because if Ali\u2019s 14 year terror spree had been fully exposed in early 2001 that intelligence on al Qaeda\u2019s bench strength, taken together with all of the other intel that was bombarding U.S. agencies in the spring and summer of 2001 might have alerted the Feds to the 9\/11 plot.<\/p>\n<p>Second because Ali himself knew every detail of the plot and the Feds, in giving him a pass, failed to get it out of him.<\/p>\n<p>Worse, I prove in the book in the case of Sphinx Trading that Fitzgerald and McCarthy were onto a mailbox store in Jersey City (where El Sayyid Nosair \u2013 the Kahane killer had a mailbox)<br \/>\nas early as 1990.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: You write about Sphinx Trading as a sort of epicenter of terror. Yet either no one put the pieces together, or didn\u2019t want to.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Fitzgerald and McCarthy had named\u00a0<strong>Waleed al-Noor<\/strong>, the store\u2019s co-incorporator to that same unindicted co conspirators list that Ali and bin Laden were on in 1994\/1995.<\/p>\n<p>Where do you think two of the 9\/11 muscle hijackers (al-Midhar and al-Hazmi) got their fake IDs in July of 2001? Sphinx Trading.<\/p>\n<p>As I\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/peter-lance\/al-qaeda-and-the-mob-how_b_34336.html\" target=\"_blank\">detailed<\/a>\u00a0on the Huffington Post on November 17th, all the Feds had to do was treat Sphinx the way they\u2019d treated\u00a0<strong>John Gotti<\/strong>\u2018s Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street and they would have been right in the middle of the \u2018planes as missiles\u2019\u009d plot.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: At what point in your research of this book did you uncover Fitzgerald\u2019s links to Mohamed?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: As I noted in the story of Sphinx, Fitzgerald and McCarthy were onto Ali as early as 1994.<\/p>\n<p>In January, 1996, Fitzgerald began directing I-49 in the NYO as a dedicated \u2018bin Laden Squad\u2019\u009d.\u00a0<strong>Lawrence Wright<\/strong>\u00a0in THE LOOMING TOWER covers some of this ground, but he does zero critical analysis of these FBI agents. He just takes their word at face value.<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019ve done is analyzed their stories against a massive database that I\u2019ve been building for five years that includes dozens of books, more than 10,000 open source news articles, more than 45,000 pages of trial transcripts and dozens of interviews with sources inside and retired from the FBI and the DOJ.<\/p>\n<p>One of my most stunning findings \u2013 and there\u2019s a seven page Affirmation sworn to by Fitzgerald and dated June 25th, 1999 \u2013 it\u2019s an appendix in TRIPLE CROSS. In it he tried to explain why he buried that treasure trove of intel from Ramzi Yousef in 1996, including proof of an active al Qaeda cell in NYC by calling it a \u201choax\u201d\u009d and a \u201cscam.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Well I found the wiseguy,\u00a0<strong>John Napoli<\/strong>\u00a0whom Fitzgerald cites as the primary source for that \u201choax\u201d\u009d and \u201cscam\u201d\u009d story and he categorically denied it.<\/p>\n<p>There are some people who might consider Fitzgerald\u2019s suppression of that evidence as obstruction of justice. The problem is that it would take a federal prosecutor from the Justice Department to make that determination.<\/p>\n<p>Do you see how the dog starts to chase his tail here?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: To people who don\u2019t follow such things very closely, Fitzgerald\u2019s media coverage during the Plame investigation seemed to come out of nowhere. But it was always the same people vouching for his integrity and tenacity that drove the narrative. Shouldn\u2019t something as big as his cover up of Mohamed have come out when Fitzgerald was in the headlines every day?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: I was able to make these connections after five years of seven day weeks and fourteen hour days. I also had not only the capability, with a J.D. and classical training as an investigative reporter with\u00a0<em>ABC News<\/em>, but I had the will.<\/p>\n<p>I kept the mass card of\u00a0<strong>Ronnie Bucca<\/strong>\u00a0on the wall next to my desk each day as I worked. He was the incredibly heroic FDNY Fire Marshal whose story I told in 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE. Not only had he been predicting for years that al Qaeda and Yousef\u2019s people would return to hit The Towers, but on 9\/11 he died on the 78th floor of the South Tower trying to save lives and beat back the flames.<\/p>\n<p>I invite any of your readers to sample the detail that I put into this epic story. They can download a pdf of the 32 page color, illustrated time line in the middle of the book by going to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">peterlance.com<\/a>. They can also sample some of the heretofore classified DOJ documents in the book and download PDFs of some of the FBI 302s.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone that takes half an hour to read that time line will tell you that a daily deadline reporter \u2013 even one with the will \u2013 could never have uncovered the story of Fitzgerald\u2019s negligence and intent in the midst of the CIA leak coverage.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: In 1000 Years, and Cover Up you exposed a multitude of mistakes and acts of willful subterfuge on the part of FBI\/CIA agents and prosecutors, but with the exception of Special Agent in Charge\u00a0<strong>Carson Dunbar<\/strong>\u2018s disastrous intervention into the case of informant\u00a0<strong>Emad Salem<\/strong>, Triple Cross is the first time you\u2019ve really written about anyone in positions of real power.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><\/em><em>Deputy Attorney General\u00a0<strong>Jamie Gorelick<\/strong>, who has been under attack since 9\/11 for her infamous \u201cwall memo\u201d on investigations vs. intelligence gathering, comes under your microscope, but not for the reasons she has up to now. Others in the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney\u2019s office are called into question as well. Isn\u2019t it the job of supervisors and management to analyze the work product of their organizations and look for the kinds of conflict and incompetence you have illustrated in three successive books?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Sure it\u2019s their job, but even the best managers, as I found began covering up the incompetence and negligence years earlier. Sen.\u00a0<strong>Chuck Grassley<\/strong>\u00a0at a Judiciary Committee hearing in September, 2005 called it \u201cthe oldest excuse inside the Beltway, CYA.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019ve documented in my three books isn\u2019t some big\u00a0<strong>Oliver Stone<\/strong>conspiracy. It\u2019s the repeated failure of the best and the brightest in the FBI and the DOJ to do their jobs and then, when confronted with the consequences of the negligence, like the attacks on the WTC, the Embassies and the U.S.S. Cole, to prevent the American public from getting a true picture of just how at risk they really are from al Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: You tie the Pentagon\u2019s data-mining project \u201cAble Danger\u201d into the larger cover-up. When the story of Able Danger first broke in 2005, it was typically a very polarizing subject, due in no small part to its source, Pennsylvania Congressman\u00a0<strong>Curt Weldon<\/strong>. But even discounting Weldon\u2019s role, Army Lt Colonel\u00a0<strong>Anthony Shaffer<\/strong>\u00a0seems to be a very credible witness who has certainly suffered some serious retribution for his public statements. Not much remains of Able Danger\u2019s findings, but you include a link chart in Triple Cross that seems to prove they were onto something. How does Able Danger fit in with the rest of your reporting?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Able Danger was a data mining operation commenced in December, 1999 on the orders of Gen.\u00a0<strong>Hugh Shelton<\/strong>, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Gen.\u00a0<strong>Pete Schoomaker<\/strong>, head of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM).<\/p>\n<p>More than a year after the Embassy bombings, they realized that the U.S. military would eventually have \u2018boots on the ground\u2019\u009d against al Qaeda, so they commenced a massive \u2018data mining\u2019\u009d operation. Here\u2019s an excerpt from TRIPLE CROSS to give you an idea of how it worked citing an extensive interview I did with Col. Shaffer, whom I consider impeccably honest.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The operation\u2019s data-mining center was located at the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Known as \u2018spook central,\u2019 Fort Belvoir housed the Information Dominance Center, building full of army intelligence geeks,\u009d whose bullpen area was designed to look like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>The lead LIWA analyst running the data mine was\u00a0<strong>Dr. Eileen Priesser<\/strong>, a double Ph.D. The operations officer was a decorated U.S. Navy captain named\u00a0<strong>Scott Phillpott<\/strong>. Army Major\u00a0<strong>Eric Kleinsmith<\/strong>was LIWA\u2019s intelligence chief.\u00a0<strong>J.D. Smith<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Jacob L. Boesen<\/strong>, working as a contract analysts from Orion Scientific, designed many of the link charts in which the \u2018deep data points\u2019\u009d connecting the key al Qaeda players were represented graphically.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou would ask them, for example, to look at Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,\u201d says Shaffer, \u201cand these search engines would scour the internet 24\/7 looking at any number of open-source databases, from credit reporting agencies to court records and news stories to Lloyd\u2019s of London insurance records. You name it. Once a known associate of KSM was found, they would go through the same process for that individual.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>One IDC analyst I spoke to described it as \u201cSix Degrees of Kevin Bacon on steroids.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>Told to \u201cStart with the words \u2018Al Qaeda\u201d and go, the LIWA data crunchers began an initial harvest in December 1999. The data grew fast and exponentially, and before long it amounted to two terabytes equal to about 9 percent of the books in the Library of Congress. \u201cIt was a mile wide and an inch deep,\u201d\u009d says Kleinsmith. \u201cNaturally only a small percentage of the data related to terrorism,\u201d\u009d says Tony, \u201cSo we would have to neck it down \u2013 cull it \u2013 until we had some substantive hits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Within months, Operation Able Danger had uncovered some astonishing intelligence.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We found active an al Qaeda cell in the U.S linked to radical\u00a0<strong>Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman<\/strong>, says Shaffer, now a lieutenant colonel. That was most frightening that as late as early 2000 we detected that kind of al Qaeda presence here.<\/li>\n<li>Examining Sheikh Rahman\u2019s Brooklyn cell which operated out of Ali Mohamed\u2019s old stomping grounds, the al Farooq mosque, the LIWA analysts made another alarming discovery.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe identified lead 9\/11 hijacker\u00a0<strong>Mohammed Atta<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Marwan al-Shehhi<\/strong>, who flew UA 175 into the South Tower of the Trade Center, and two of the muscle hijackers aboard AA 77, which hit the Pentagon,\u201d says Shaffer. That linkage was made months before any of the other Big Five intelligence agencies would trip to their presence.Coming as it did in early 2000, the identification of\u00a0<strong>Khalid al-Midhar<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Nawaf al-Hazmi<\/strong>\u00a0was a crucial find for the SOCOM operation.<\/li>\n<li>Of all the 9\/11 hijackers, these two Saudis had the longest records of al Qaeda involvement, and beginning in January 2000, they soon became the most visible of the 19 operatives. In fact, the two failed pilots appeared on the radar of the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI so many times in the eighteen months before 9\/11 that the U.S. intelligence community had multiple opportunities to thwart the plot.<\/li>\n<li>Al-Midhar and Al-Hazmi were the poster boys who came to symbolize the \u2018stove piping\u2019\u009d between U.S. agencies in their failure to share intelligence before 9\/11.<\/li>\n<li>Until now, most of the blame for failure to track the two Saudis has been leveled at the Central Intelligence Agency. As recently as August 2006, in his 9\/11 book THE LOOMING TOWER,\u00a0<em>New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0writer Lawrence Wright charged that the CIA\u2019s hoarding of intelligence on al Midhar, al Hazmi, and another key al Qaeda operative may, in effect, have allowed the September 11 plot to proceed.<\/li>\n<li>But even if the FBI had received no help from any other agency, we\u2019ve uncovered compelling evidence that the agents of Squad I-49 should have tripped to the presence of the two hijackers in the U.S. months before they flew AA Flight 77 into the Pentagon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Atta himself came into the U.S. on or about June 3rd, 2000, and we know that the Able Danger unit swept INS lists, so it is entirely conceivable that they I.D.\u2019d him as Shaffer and Phillpott claimed they did. In fact, Atta rented a room in Brooklyn using his own name. He wasn\u2019t as highly visible as al Midhar and al Hazmi were in San Diego, but his presence could have easily been detected given the kind of sweep Able Danger was doing.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: With the reports over the last few years of the government listening to domestic calls without even easily obtainable (and retroactive) warrants, tracing money via the SWIFT bank transfer system in contravention of the laws in Europe, and other quasi-legal intelligence gathering methods, do you have any doubt that a program identical to Able Danger is up and running? And if so, how do you balance privacy with the government\u2019s need to know? Wouldn\u2019t a good example of the conundrum a situation like the FBI going after the Times reporters who broke the domestic spying story or even\u00a0<strong>Judy Miller<\/strong>\u2018s time in prison for defying Fitzgerald?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: In my opinion there is a huge difference between doing data mining sweeps of open source data, as was done by Able Danger and then honing down the links related to known terrorists such as declared members of al Qaeda and spying on U.S. citizens via wiretaps, or chilling reporters with subpoenas, both of which undermine the constitutional underpinnings of this nation.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the difference: there is no harm in the detection of raw intelligence with a potential connection to terrorism, especially if the intel is collected from open source data bases where an individual would have no reasonable expectation of privacy.<\/p>\n<p>The harm is in the long term storage of data on what are known as U.S. persons \u2013 a term defined by Executive Order 12333, an intelligence directive signed in 1981 by President\u00a0<strong>Ronald Reagan<\/strong>\u00a0after the Senate and House hearings into CIA domestic spying abuses in the late 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The EO,\u2019\u009d as it\u2019s known, was designed to prevent the Pentagon from storing data indefinitely on \u2018U.S. persons,\u2019\u009d a term defined to include American citizens, U.S. corporations; even permanent resident aliens.<\/p>\n<p>That kind of storage can produce Gestapo-like files on American citizens, and legal aliens and that is something I would fight tooth and nail against.<\/p>\n<p>But making connections on known terrorists using open source data is not only legal but necessary to thwart the al Qaeda threat. And, in fact, there are two enormous exceptions in EO 12333 for data collected from open sources and terrorism related intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>What we have to fear \u2013 and I think Patrick Fitzgerald\u2019s conduct in the CIA leak case represents this problem at its extreme \u2013 is the Government interfering with the press in pursuit of an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that Fitzgerald put Judith Miller away for 85 days is shocking, no matter how you might feel about her flawed reporting on Iraqi intel in the lead up to war. She\u2019s still a reporter and needs to be able to protect her confidential sources.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly we need a federal shield law that protects not only daily deadline print and electronic media journalists, but historians and writers like me who report on the internet and in book form on matters of public interest.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: What is your opinion of Fitzgerald\u2019s conduct of the CIA leak case?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: Consider this excerpt from TRIPLE CROSS on my sense of how Fitzgerald has already chilled the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>, arguably the greatest paper in America:<\/p>\n<p>The determination of whether or not the Bush White House used its media influence to spank a critic who accused the administration of cooking the intelligence books in the lead-up to the war, and put a CIA employee (of any status) at risk, is a question worthy of investigation. If Patrick Fitzgerald botched it through negligence or intent, he ought to be held accountable. There seems to be bipartisan dissatisfaction about the way he\u2019s run the leak probe.<br \/>\nBut until he issues other indictments, or backs out of the Libby case and shuts down the grand jury, he deserves the benefit of the doubt on whether his investigation will ever yield the full truth on the Plame-Wilson outing.<br \/>\nHaving said that, one thing is very clear: whether he\u2019s uncovered a convictable crime in the leak, Fitzgerald has chilled the press, and that may well be his most damaging legacy.<br \/>\nAs recently as September 18, writing in the\u00a0<em>New York Observer<\/em>,<strong>Michael Calderone<\/strong>\u00a0noted that a number of\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reporters have had to adopt the techniques of drug dealers, literally resorting to disposable cell phones and erasable notes in their efforts to avoid subpoenas and \u2018shake\u2019\u009d the Feds.<br \/>\nIn a 2006 memo,\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0executive editor\u00a0<strong>Bill Keller<\/strong>\u00a0reportedly cited \u201cthe persistent legal perils that confront us.\u201d\u009d On September 18, 2006 Keller found himself on the cover of\u00a0<em>New York<\/em>\u00a0magazine in a story headlined \u201cTimes Under Siege.\u201d\u009d It detailed a December 2005 meeting at the White House in which Keller was confronted by the president, former counsel\u00a0<strong>Harriet Miers<\/strong>, National Security Advisor\u00a0<strong>Stephen Hadley<\/strong>, and former National Security Agency director (now CIA director)\u00a0<strong>Michael Hayden<\/strong>. For a year, the Times had delayed publication of a story that the NSA had been monitoring the phone calls of U.S. citizens without court authorized warrants.<br \/>\nThe December meeting in the Oval Office signaled a showdown over the possible publication of the piece. At one point in the meeting, according to reporter\u00a0<strong>Joe Hagen<\/strong>, \u201cBush issued an emphatic warning: If [the Times] revealed the secret program to the public and there was another terrorist attack on American soil, the Paper of Record would be implicated.\u201d \u201cThe basic message,\u201d recalls Keller, \u201cwas \u2018You\u2019ll have blood on your hands.\u2019\u201d<br \/>\nEleven days after that meeting on December 16, the\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0ran a story at the top left of its front page headlined \u201cBush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts.\u201d\u009d It was written by reporters\u00a0<strong>James Risen<\/strong>, who had done such seminal work on Ali Mohamed, and\u00a0<strong>Eric Lichtblau<\/strong>, who was among the first reporters to reveal the failure of the Trilogy project at the FBI. That first piece, and their ongoing coverage of the NSA wiretap story, earned Risen and Litchblau the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. It also locked the Grey Lady,\u009d as the\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0is known, in a war with the White House that only escalated after the publication on June 23, 2006, of another piece by Lichtblau and Risen (with reporter<strong>Barclay Walsh<\/strong>) revealing a secret Bush administration program to examine the bank records of thousands of Americans.<br \/>\nThe White House campaign against the Times has led to a grand jury probe of the NSA wiretap leak, and calls by conservative columnists to charge Keller and other\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0editors under the Espionage Act.<br \/>\n\u201cThe main worry these days is not libel, proving that you actually quoted something accurately,\u201d\u009d said\u00a0<strong>Craig Witney<\/strong>, the standard\u2019s editor for the<em>Times<\/em>, \u201cIt\u2019s being subpoenaed.\u201d\u009d<br \/>\nIndeed, on August 12, 2006, in researching the Able Danger issue for this book, I placed a call to\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reporter\u00a0<strong>Phil Shenon<\/strong>, who (with\u00a0<strong>Douglas Jehl<\/strong>) was among the first to break the data-mining story a year earlier. There was a Fitzgerald-related angle that I wanted to pursue.<br \/>\nShenon\u2019s response? \u201cPeter, I\u2019m sorry but I can\u2019t discuss anything that might even remotely involve [Patrick] Fitzgerald. He\u2019s subpoenaed my records.\u201d<br \/>\nLast month, in another case involving former\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0reporter Judith Miller, a New York appeals court ruled that Fitzgerald could seize her phone records, as well as Shenon\u2019s, in connection with their reporting on Islamic charities.<br \/>\nAs an author, I can only wonder whether hypersensitivity to Fitzgerald\u2019s tactics will cause the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0or other major media outlets to avoid coverage of the findings in this book. Time will tell.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: When the British government broke up a terror cell last summer based on the \u201cbojinka\u201d plot (smuggling liquid explosives and crude digital watch timers onto airlines) originally conceived by Ramzi Yousef in 1994 and live-tested on Philippines Air Lines flight in December of that year, what did it say about our security that government officials expressed surprise and the TSA immediately banned liquids on planes despite the method being 12 years old?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: The trans-Atlantic airliner plot was a mirror image of Ramzi Yousef\u2019s Bojinka plot. The primary explosive was to have been manufactured using acetone peroxide. Go to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">peterlance.com<\/a>\u00a0and click #302s and scroll to the bottom of the right hand column to a note from Yousef to Scarpa Jr. in 1996 entitled \u201cHow to Smuggle Explosives Into An Airplane.\u201d\u009d He cites the use of acetone peroxide.<\/p>\n<p>This was part of the treasure trove of intel from Yousef buried by Patrick Fitzgerald and other Feds in that ends\/means decision to save those six mob cases in 1996. Ask yourself which is the greatest worry: that al Qaeda would seek to resurrect a failed plot or that it took MI-5 to detect it because our own FBI and Justice Department are in denial over the Bojinka Yousef-Scarpa Jr. intel.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: Also in the area of things I learned first from reading your books is the case of\u00a0<strong>Lindley DeVecchio<\/strong>, the former FBI agent who has figured prominently in your books as corrupt, even providing names and locations to one of his assets knowing that the information would lead to murder. How satisfying was it to have your work lead in part to DeVecchio\u2019s arrest on murder charges? What do you know about the status of that case given the conflict of interest inherent if the Justice Department takes over the prosecution?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: \u201cAllegedly corrupt,\u201d\u009d since he has not yet been tried on those murder charges stemming in some part from my research in COVER UP. It is satisfying to me as a journalist to know that I\u2019m capable of uncovering truths, long buried and that there are some government officials that will respond to the truth. But it\u2019s sad that it took the Brooklyn D.A. to open this investigation vs. the Feds themselves. It\u2019s another measure of how the FBI and DOJ routinely circles the wagons in defense of their errors vs. admitting them and attempting to change the system.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: After writing about cover-ups, what was it like to become the victim of one when Justice Department officials convinced the\u00a0<\/em><em>National Geographic Channel<\/em>\u00a0to withhold interview transcripts that they were contractually obligated to share with you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: In answer to that question I would like to refer your readers to the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/peter-lance\/triple-cross-nat-geo-cha_b_28270.html\" target=\"_blank\">Huffington Post<\/a>\u00a0that I did on the subject.<\/p>\n<p>In effect, the\u00a0<em>National Geographic Channel<\/em>\u00a0acquiesced to a hijacking of my research, but worse, they whitewashed virtually all of my critical findings about how the FBI failed to stop Ali Mohamed. They told half the story, only the fascinating Ali Mohamed part, not the second and most important part of the story about how Patrick Fitzgerald and some key Feds in Squad I-49 failed to stop Ali Mohamed. One of those Feds was Jack Cloonan, who the\u00a0<em>National Geographic Channel<\/em>\u00a0and the producer Towers Productions effective used to replace me as the narrative voice of a documentary they had contracted with me (via Towers Productions Inc.) to be based ENTIRELY on my enterprise reporting.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately I\u2019ve got the COMPLETE story in TRIPLE CROSS available online and at bookstores everywhere.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>MC<\/strong>: In the preface of Triple Cross, you explain that is was your son\u2019s (then in high school) proximity to the World Trade Center and the loss of FDNY marshal Ronnie Bucca on 9\/11 that pulled you back into investigative journalism to explore how that day came to pass. How have the last five years affected your outlook, do you feel that this time was well spent, and what would you do differently if you had the chance?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>PL<\/strong>: I don\u2019t have a single regret. I feel privileged to be able to use the skills I\u2019ve developed over 30+ years as an investigative reporter to cover the most important story of our era and to cover it in the kind of depth any daily deadline reporter can only dream of.<\/p>\n<p>My hope is that people will find TRIPLE CROSS and then go back and access my first two books (1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE and COVER UP) books, that I hope won\u2019t only educate them to the al Qaeda threat but make them smart about how utterly the FBI and Justice Department played catch up all of those years, from the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in February, 1989 up through 9\/11 and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>The only change will come when the public is sufficiently informed, then angered and finally motivated to act. The first step is getting the intelligence to the people and TRIPLE CROSS does that, naming names and focusing the laser beam of accountability like no other book relating to the greatest mass murder in U.S. history \u2013 the ultimate \u2018cold case,\u2019 9\/11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"1115.org%3A%20Peter%20Lance%20TRIPLE%20CROSS%20%26%20Patrick%20Fitzgerld\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>&nbsp; Interview with Matt Cohen June 15th, 2009. We have been following the work of author\/investigative journalist\u00a0Peter Lance\u00a0since the spectacular\u00a01000 YEARS FOR REVENGE\u00a0was released in 2003. If you haven\u2019t read it (or its follow up\u00a0COVER UP), we highly recommend that you catch up. We\u2019ve previously interviewed Lance upon the publication of 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE\u00a0here\u00a0and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1184],"tags":[125,301,144,123,122,1223,277,279,278,165,124,227,224,229,114,223,304,226,160,109,234,110,119,113,225,303,108,222,305,162,296,299,228,163,111,115,298,276,118,167,161,370,300,143,126,230,170,231,233,1219,302,1220,158,306,297,232,307,121,112,1214,117,120,166,164],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10356,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/10356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}