(I wrote about the Meyer case over at our Daily Comment blog, where I can be found on Wednesdays, and where you can also find Steve Coll's important look at the controversy around the latest draft national intelligence estimate on Afghanistan).
Mr. McCullough III is a former FBI agent, helped draft the intelligence portions of the Patriot Act, and worked in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But, again, even as he protests his innocence of the BBC's specific allegation, the diary documents his real influence over the drafting of intelligence dossiers, which even now he cannot see was improper.
Mr. Boehner's demand for the e-mail goes to one strand of the dispute: the talking points drafted by intelligence agencies for use by Ms. Rice and other administration officials in providing their initial account of what happened last Sept. 11, when the diplomatic compound came under attack and four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed.
And when they received draft-week intelligence that the Giants were aiming to select him with the 10th overall pick, Pace went to work, dealing an extra fourth-round pick to the Buccaneers to leapfrog the Giants.
"That information was not in the original draft," a senior intelligence official told the BBC.
Did Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's chief spin-doctor, insert in a late draft of an intelligence dossier published in September the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be launched within 45 minutes?
In mid-October, a draft United States Army intelligence report highlighted the growing interest of Islamic militants in using VoIP, noting recent news reports of Taliban insurgents using Skype to communicate.
This was the context in which a press officer could pen the first draft of an intelligence dossier, later carefully spun to give the more excitable papers just enough to be able to run with the hysterical claim that London was 45 minutes from attack.
