Nine Fingers Disclosed

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May 10, 2006

Here are Brant Bassett's (aka "Nine Fingers") financial disclosure forms from his tenure as a then Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) staffer on the House intelligence committee:

July 2000 (pdf)

April 2001 (pdf)

As you can see on page 2 on each form, Bassett was paid a $5000 consulting fee by Brent Wilkes' ADCS, Inc in May 2000 before beginning work for Goss in Congress.  Bassett was brought into the CIA by Goss, when Goss took leadership of the agency in late 2004.

Wilkes is co-conspirator #1 in the bribery case of former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) who has been sentenced to 8 years in Club Fed.  A swirl of related investigations are occuring around Washington, including a CIA Inspector General and FBI probe of Wilkes' lifelong friend K. "Dusty" Foggo who is resigning from the #3 position at CIA.  According to news reports, Foggo contracted Wilkes to supply the CIA with bottled water in Iraq.  There are questions regarding whether Wilkes has won other CIA contracts and whether or not those contracts were awarded properly or were the result of Wilkes' intricate web of personal connections.

As far as POGO knows, TPM Muckraker first reported the $5000 payment from Wilkes to Bassett.  And one more thing, Harper's Ken Silverstein says, "Bassett and Wilkes know each other and have ties that go beyond the merely social."

MORE: From TIME Magazine:

When Goss became CIA director in late 2004, he brought Bassett back for a second stint at the agency as a consultant in the directorate of operations, according to a person who spoke on behalf of Bassett. Bassett knew Foggo from the days when both served in the CIA's directorate of operations, according to one official.

The $5,000 Bassett accepted from Wilkes was for helping him with a business trip to a part of Europe where Bassett knew "the lay of the land from before" � presumably a reference to Bassett's earlier work for the CIA, said the person speaking for Bassett. Bassett "was not an employee of [ADCS]. It was a one-off consulting deal" this person said on Bassett's behalf. Wilkes' Washington attorney, Nancy Luque, said Wilkes has done nothing wrong and that Bassett was hired as a consultant "for his knowledge of the area they were working in and facility with the languages spoken there."

Authors: Nick Schwellenbach

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