Wayne Madsen & Me

Where to begin with this guy? OK, I'm not going to, but at some point this well known crank got involved with the DC Madam case doing--I have no idea what the hell he did for Jeane, frankly, but it couldn't have been much since he wasn't hired by her to do general research for her defense. For several months I did this work for Jeane at her request (I had a co-researcher who had also been tapped for this work). 

Initially, we looked into what was then known as the "Poway Mafia," that is, former-and-convicted California congressman Randy Cunningham, convicted-and-former defense contractor Brent Wilkes, the convicted-and-former "number three" guy at the CIA, Kyle Foggo, and a few other players who Jeane felt were related to he case. There was a lot smoke there, but we were only able to go so far with limited resources and time. At the end of the project, we, that is me and my co-researcher, made reports as to the aforementioned--how these players related to her and the escort service and why she was being prosecuted in such a manner. Also, we looked deeply into subpoenaed Verizon phone records that went far deeper than the scanned copies that were and still are online, basically who had a specific phone number, and when, numbers that were in her records as potential client-callers. I was paid by the federal defender's office, normal for indigent defendants, then did the rest pro bono.

Jump to two weeks ago: the UK's paper the Guardian/Globe, without vetting his wacky, rumpled self mistakenly quoted Wayner in an article about an EU deal with the NSA allowing them to conduct massive surveillance. I don't even care about the details, because, yes, he was an NSA analyst at once time, ages ago, claims to still have "sources" inside, or in the intelligence community, writes crappy, baseless articles about it, and is generally ignored as a nut in DC and the rest of the sane, civilized world, and for good reason. If you're a normal, well-balanced human being, go read his writing and tell me he's not nutty as hell. I don't see it happening.

The Globe had to pull a front page article quoting Wayner. Of course, it being the UK, the rest of the press there swarmed around the publication and wrote about it, gleefully. I was a little shocked, but unsurprised, when Damian Thomspon wrote a pretty scathing blog piece at the Telegraph about Madsen and the Globe. I won't recount it and leave it to the reader to check it out and decide for themselves, but in my humble opinion, it's spot-on. 

I left this comment two weeks ago after reading it: 

Madsen tried to attach himself to the DC Madam case for a time as well. Where do I think he got the "Obama is gay" theory? From Larry Sinclair. Ironic that you have Moynihan's Twitter quote on here since he quoted me out of context in one of his inane editorials back in 2008 when Ms. Palfrey was still a name in the news.

I did general research for her on the case & was told by a few sources about a "big party" that Larry Flynt was holding for Jeane, to assist her in some way, and who was there but Wayne Madsen. One of my sources (author Bill Keisling) remarked at how slovenly & disheveled he was, wearing a rumpled suit and sounding like the nut described in this story. He also said it kept him awake at night thinking that someone like Madsen had been working for the NSA, ostensibly competent people hired to "protect" the security of the United States, scary.

Indeed, Mr. Madsen once wrote an article claiming that a "shadowy source (it's almost always that way, hence why no one credible listens to him) that the DC Madam had a CIA controller, something of that nature, but so inane and absurd it doesn't warrant further mention.

Then there's Montgomery Blair Sibley, who, as is generally known in DC, is an unhinged scion of old Beltway aristocracy, the Blairs & the Sibleys--they once owned and inhabited the Blair House before Truman's renovation of the White House, it was expropriated. That, I think, created some long-term crusade by Sibley and his late father to be a thorn in the side of the US Courts, one reason why he's currently disbarred.

But just over five years ago, he was representing the DC Madam, who abruptly fired him in January 2008. Not long after that, he was representing Larry Sinclair, the Obama accuser who claims that he & the now-president had sex and imbibed in cocaine in the back of a limo in Chicago in 1999, all a patent lie by a career-liar of another stripe.

I assume that Sibley and Madsen struck up a relationship during the DC Madam proceedings and that the connection between Sinclair probably emanates from that relationship, however, Sinclair got a lot of ink back in 2008 and is still trotted out by uninformed GOP occasionally to smear the current president, to no avail. 

And there it is, my opinion.Whatever this guy gets involved with loses its credibility. He has a negative-Midas touch--everything he touches turns to shit.
 Luckily, none of this wiped-off onto Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden.

And so, here we are, two weeks later, and the Wayner responds with a predictably feeble "I know you are, but what am I?":

It would seem that it was Mr Janovic, who lives in Indiana far from the DC environs, who interjected himself on the Palfrey story and my investigation. The late Palfrey contacted me and this guy Janovic, who apparently blogs from a basement, decided to involve himself from afar and tried to obtain my sources and records as the following email will attest:

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Janovic [mailto:myboigie@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 6:56 PM
To: jeanepalfrey@sprynet.com
Subject: RE: Today's piece

Jeane:

They would have to tell us this, definitely, but that's about all they would tell us. Perhaps I can just ask them ourselves? Perhaps Mr. Madsen could direct me to the resources, links, directories. There are those who would know, it could accelerate this particular research.

warm regards, Matt Janovic

The email is real, by the way. His take on it is not. His take on my life is also inaccurate and childish, but that's Wayner for you.

I responded, and this piece will be my final one on this:

Mr. Madsen's reputation speaks for itself, however, besides his poor grammar, he's wrong: the late Ms. Palfrey approached me and the email there--which is one I sent to her--is being re-contextualized. This is how he works normally, to take information and to recast it as something else. He's a laughingstock in DC and rarely, if ever, reveals his sources because they're as bogus as he is.

As for me "trying to obtain" his sources, read the last sentence, I wouldn't want them. Also, I assume that Montgomery Blair Sibley supplied him with the email, fine, but Google his name for what he's been up to recently and you'll understand the sheer nuttiness I experienced having just nominal contact with these people. Right now, the disbarred Mr. Sibley is still trying to wrong-headedly obtain another fifteen minutes of fame doing more pointless court filings to "prove" that President Obama's birth certificate is fake. I wish I could make this up. Mr. Madsen is a conspiracy nut's conspiracy nut, I doubt he was especially good at his NSA analysis job, and what he writes is paranoiac drivel.

The fact is, Jeane approached me first, not the opposite, a week earlier. The above email wasn't an especially relevant one and I believe it was about her prosecutors--doesn't matter, it was a minor issue and isn't even remotely what he's saying it is. I would never want his research materials because he's not good at it, not good at analysis, and as this article makes plain, he has a roundly bad reputation as a crank.

Again, his contention that I "interjected" myself into the case is a bald misrepresentation of fact. His inaccurate personal attack is also a misrepresentation of what really happened, something he's well known for as this article makes plain. Most of his audience is mentally unwell. Frankly, this guy is making me laugh at such an incompetent response, but that's Wayner for you. 

I could go on about what a pain in the ass he's been over the years. In one case, he poisoned the well with Siegelman case in Alabama and maybe even sent other cranks my way to cause me problems, like Andrew Krieg, but it's not worth my or your time, rest assured.

Where it all ends:  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100224022/guardianobserver-pulls-front-page-nsa-story-after-source-turns-out-to-be-a-fruitloop-who-thinks-obama-is-gay/#comment-966678938