Wayne Simmons, a Fox News commentator, is being charged with Fraud for false CIA claim

[6souls]

Wayne Simmons, a recurring guest on Fox News who claimed to have 27 years of experience with the CIA, was arrested Thursday after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he lied about his service.

Simmons is accused of falsely claiming that he worked as an "outside paramilitary special operations officer" for the CIA from 1973 to 2000. On Fox, this was often shortened to "former CIA operative."

He was also indicted for using that false claim to gain government security clearances and an assignment as a defense contractor, where he advised senior military personnel overseas.

While it is unknown how often Simmons has appeared on television over the years, Fox's web site lists dozens of appearances and quotes, usually labeling him a former CIA "operative," "analyst" or "officer."

In his appearances on Fox, Simmons regularly made extreme and factually dubious statements pertaining to terrorism and national security. Just this January, he claimed there were "at least 19 paramilitary Muslim training facilities in the United States."

Simmons also claimed that waterboarding was not torture and accused President Obama of being a novice who lacked spine -- claims that were given greater credence because of the perception that he was a veteran CIA paramilitary officer.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/15/medi...ted/index.html
http://www.waynesimmons.us/

[kuronosan]

Ahahhahahahahhaha.

Wow.

[Ragnus]

Holy shit.

[Athas]

Perfect.

[Zetanio]

Hah, what a dick.

[Kalmado]

I don't follow politics and what not, but this is awesome.

[Zetanio]

That guy's website is infuriating.

[Ksandra]

[Ezek]

https://youtu.be/U6P1lQOScVQ?t=1m30s

Perfect.

[Zetanio]

Oh dear. That's fucking great.

[Salodin]

Is this getting news coverage anywhere though? God I hope it is...

[6souls]

Not as much as it should. I had first read it on a site that sourced Motherjones, but went with a more trusted source for the OP.

[BerenTebogo]

It was trending on FB for a while. That's how I saw it.

[Kachiko]

Not sure why it would be big thing. He wasn't a paid Fox contributor; he was just a guests, which are a dime-a-dozen on most every cable news show, and you're bound to get a bad egg every now and then. I saw Fox acknowledge it, on a few programs that he frequented, and that's the respectable thing to do when it happens. It's unlikely to get any real traction, given he showed up mostly on opinion shows, aka, almost everything on any cable news network, which is why it's mostly being ignored, vs when an actual news show or anchor, alla Brian Williams/Dan Rather, does something similar.

[kuronosan]

If you're a news anchor making stuff up you better be fired, but if you're a random guy being touted as an expert and they don't verify your credentials, let it go.

[Howie Roary]

guests don't get paid?

[Kachiko]

No, they don't get paid, which is the crux of the matter. Any particular guest is vetted by the show they are appearing on, which is why specific show hosts apologized and other actual news programs mentioned the issue. I would have to think that, if you're going to actually represent a company, by being a paid employee, the corporation would have additional vetting to filter out this type of issue, which is why its so rare to ever hear of a paid news organization member to get away with this type of thing and why it's such a huge issue when they do something similar.

There are two things that make it an interesting story. One is the weakness of any show using unverifiable 'specialists' to analyze/editorialize on content. The other is that the guy was con enough to get away with it for years as well as defraud the U.S. government for 125K in a real estate investment, which is where the bulk of the charges/jail time center around. Had he not done that, he may never have been caught and nobody would be the wiser.

[Sho]

Well this is god damn hilarious.