In a recent disclosure to the Huffington Post, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said the media have been “misled” by associates of his father, attorney and lobbyist Bruce Fein and his wife Mattie Fein who have been circulating “false” claims about his situation.
“It has come to my attention that news organizations seeking information regarding my current situation have, due to the difficulty in contacting me directly, been misled by individuals associated with my father into printing false claims about my situation,” read the text of the message purportedly sent by the younger Snowden.
“Neither my father, his lawyer Bruce Fein, nor his wife Mattie Fein represent me in any way,” the message stated. “None of them have been or are involved in my current situation, and this will not change in the future.”
Bruce Fein has been representing Edward Snowden’s father, Lon Snowden, while his infamous wife, Mattie Fein, has been a constantly present information (or misinformation) source for the media on Lon Snowden’s status, plans, and supposed communications with his son.
Additionally, there seems to be a competitive conflict surfacing between Lon Snowden’s attorney Bruce Fein and Glenn Greenwald, who was among the first to publicize Edward Snowden’s leaks:
Mattie Fein told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the father’s legal team “doesn’t trust the intentions” of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald who broke the first of the stories on the NSA surveillance programs following contacts with Edward Snowden.
A source close to the case told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the conversation earlier this week on an encrypted Internet chat service between Lon Snowden and his son had been carried out against the wishes and advice of Lon Snowden’s lawyers.
Fein claims Greenwald has been trying to shop around an exclusive interview with Snowden for seven figures (read: a deal over a million dollars). Greenwald hasn’t been exactly denying this allegation but characterizing it as “defamatory.”
Since the surfacing of these recent developments the entire mainstream media and the alternative blogs have been focusing on what is being claimed or denied, and the back and forth he-said-she-said reportage. However, no one is looking at who really are these new actors who have recently surfaced as players in the ongoing NSA whistleblower’s saga. No one is investigating the backgrounds of two rats who have long been members of Washington’s Rat-Pack.
Let’s begin with Bruce Fein. Who is he? An initial surface search would produce the following titles: A lobbyist, A Foreign Agent, An Active Neocon Member of the American Enterprise Institute, A Presidential Campaign Advisor to a Libertarian Candidate, An Attorney, A Civil-Rights Advocate, A Darling of the New York Times and Washington Post, A Known and ever-present Figure within the Israel Lobby . . . and now, mysteriously connected to the biggest US whistleblower case of our time.
Okay. That’s only the surface- more than enough to raise eyebrows but far less than what is needed to introduce a crusty Washington rat.
You see I began writing and reporting about Bruce Fein and Mattie Fein a while ago—while it was highly unpopular to expose and criticize the couple as members of Washington’s Rat-Pack. At the time Bruce Fein was posing as a Civil-Liberties advocate and had aligned himself with the Ron Paul campaign as a legal advisor.
Don’t take me wrong. In my multi-part exposé I did not get into massive FBI investigative files on Bruce Fein and his associates involved with one of the biggest foreign criminal networks in the United States. If I had done that I’d either be in a cell next to John Kiriakou, or in hiding somewhere in Venezuela awaiting a new citizenship.
No. I did not do that. Not that doing so would have made any difference in a nation now so inflicted with a severe case of indifference.
What I did was to write a series on Bruce Fein based on facts—nothing but well-established facts. I also urged the Ron Paul 2012 Campaign to distance itself from the crusty weasel tasked with penetrating and corrupting his campaign from within. Short of begging I did my best.
I encourage you to visit the series to know the real Bruce Fein: Click Here and read about this multi-hat Washington Rat with all the supporting links and documents that go with it. Allow me to provide you with a bit of an appetizer sampler—this from August 2011 (exactly two years ago):
Who ‘Really’ Is this Bruce Fein?
He has been a crusty foreign lobbyist making millions of dollars peddling his foreign bosses’ interests and influence in Congress and government agencies. For Fein it has never mattered who the foreign client or what their agenda. He does not care whether his foreign clients are criminals or terrorists or dictators. As long as they pay him handsomely he’ll sell their agenda and interest no matter what they may be. The words ‘principle’ or ‘taking a stand’ have never entered this foreign lobbyist’s dictionary or comprehension: One minute, on behalf of one set of his foreign designated ‘terrorist’ bosses, Bruce Fein is busy selling the need for a genocide declaration by the US Congress against one nation . . .
The next minute, on behalf of another well-known foreign mob boss, Bruce Fein is busy peddling influence and selling Congress his foreign bosses’ anti-genocide agenda:
“In 2007, Ayasli transferred $30 million in stock to fund a new endeavor, the nonprofit Turkish Coalition of America. The organization is headquartered in a Washington suite that has also been listed as the address for the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, the lobbying firm of Lydia Borland (who has represented the Turkish government), and the law firm of Bruce Fein and Associates (Fein comprises half of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund) . . .”
Bruce Fein sees no problem with representing foreign groups like this: Fein hit the jackpot in 1991 when he signed on to represent Mozambique’s notorious guerrilla army, RENAMO, which was seeking to overthrow its country’s leftist government. When Fein came on board, RENAMO’s reputation has hit bottom. . . . . . Even the Reagan and Bush administrations kept their distance from RENAMO, despite their anti-Communist rhetoric . . .
Fein, however, eagerly signed up to flack for Dhlakama’s terror army. Like most foreign lobbyists, he bilked his client for huge sums of money while performing virtually no work.
Here is another on-the-spot description of Real Bruce Fein as a crusty “Beltway Prostitute”: “Well, well, well. Wasn’t Bruce Fein just recently condemning the Government of Sri Lanka for trying to put an end to the LTTE? But this time he’s defending a sovereign government for protecting itself—rather than slandering it using falsehoods. Now you see what I mean when I earlier referred to Mr. Fein as a “Beltway prostitute.” He will accept money from anyone who can pay the price—regardless of where that money came from, or who his legal and public relations services might unjustly hurt. What an embarrassment to the US legal profession.”
To read further on Bruce Fein as a Foreign Agent lobbyist for Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, Tamil and several others, to read about Fein’s overt Neocon Ties & Covert Israel Pedigree, and to find out about his ethical violations as an attorney who represented disgraced congresswoman Jean Schmidt Read: Who ‘Really’ Is this Bruce Fein?
To get a flavor of Bruce Fein the Lobbyist and his past clients read this brief article: Conflict of Interest? Compatible Interests? You Tell Me!
Check this out to know a bit more about Bruce Fein the attorney with ethics problems: BFP Breaking News: Court to Order Bruce Fein Removed from Schmidt vs. Krikorian Case
Edward Snowden has his eyes open enough to see and figure out some of the traps and a few of implanted Washington Rats in action. He is smart enough to go on record and disassociate himself from the Washington-Crafted scheme and operatives. I certainly hope that he not only keeps his eyes open enough, but opens them wider and bigger. Because the Fein couple is not the only pit dug for his potential fall. There are others as we speak. Washington’s Rat-Pack does not operate with only one or two rat breeds. Their rats come in many forms, size and breeds- from attorneys to whistleblower NGOs, from journalists to civil-liberties advocates, from pseudo whistleblowers to phony congressmen . . .
As for Bruce Fein, for the last 12 years he has been a constantly-popping up presence in my life. During my work at the FBI I became intimately familiar with him, his associates and operations-too familiar. Then, low and behold, he popped up again during my under-oath deposition in the Krikorian case as attorney for the disgraced Congresswoman Jean Schmidt. Fast forward a couple of years and there he was: the chief legal advisor for Congressman Ron Paul. And now here he is again: inserting himself into the case of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, posing as the representative of his father. The man is like a rotten, dirty, bad penny always turning up.
In addition to publishing Boiling Frogs, where this article originally appeared, Sibel Edmonds is the founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers. She has appeared on national radio and TV as a commentator on matters related to whistleblowers, national security, and excessive secrecy & classification, and has been featured on CBS 60 Minutes, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The American Conservative, and others. Her book, ‘Shooting the Messenger,’ co-authored with Professor William Weaver is forthcoming from Kansas University Press.
