Yesterday, we brought you the news that in a closed-door Italian parliamentary hearing into whether Italian intelligence officials were involved in the Niger forgeries hoax, intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari brandished a letter from FBI Director Robert Mueller, which provided him and the Italian government with a full and complete exoneration of any role in the affair.
Today the FBI publicly confirmed the story. The FBI closed its investigation in July and concluded that the production and dissemination of the forgeries were not part of an attempt to influence US foreign policy but only a money-making scheme.
FBI spokesperson John Miller told the AP that the investigation “confirmed the documents to be fraudulent and concluded they were more likely part of a criminal scheme for financial gain.”
The AP writes that “Miller did not say what led the FBI to its conclusion or identify the perpetrators of the hoax.”
At least until late in 2004 the FBI had never interviewed the man who tried to sell the documents, Rocco Martino — despite the fact that he came to the United States twice in the summer of 2004.
The FBI now says it concluded its investigation in July of this year. So did the FBI interview Martino before making its determination?
Also, did the FBI interview the two other people Martino identified as playing a central role in moving the documents into the circulation? Those would be the female Italian national who works in the Niger Embassy in Rome and SISMI Col. Antonio Nucera?
(ed.note: It is worth noting that the very definitive headline running with the AP story actually does not match the quote from the FBI spokesman, who seems merely to say that it seems likely the scheme was a money-making scheme rather than an effort to influence foreign policy.)
