Majid Karimi/James Robert Baker; Iranian in the Naval Sea Systems Command
Bobo sends us a link to the Navy Times which tales the story of James Robert Baker, an Iranian who became a naturalized US citizen and went to work as an engineer in the Naval Sea Systems Command for thirty years or so. He had access to military secrets while secretly maintaining his Iranian passport and receiving money from sketchy sources to a number of bank accounts and in possession of a number of social security numbers;
In July, authorities searched Baker’s home in Springfield, Va., and discovered a Maryland driver’s license under the name Majid Karimi and seized the key to a safe-deposit box located at a bank in Vienna, a few minutes’ drive from his home. Not long after agents arrived at the bank, an incensed Baker walked in demanding the bank give him immediate access to his safe deposit box. The agents told Baker to have a seat while they executed the warrant.
When they opened the box they found three Iranian passports — two expired and one active, the last issued in 2012 — under the name Majid Karimi with Baker’s photograph on them.
Authorities also found four different social security cards dating back to July 6, 1979 — two under the name James Robert Baker and two under Majid Karimi with addresses in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Furthermore, Karimi had driver’s licenses and ID cards from Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Delaware and New Jersey.
It looks like he came to the US in 1979 (the same year as the Islamic Revolution took control of Iran) and he became a naturalized citizen in 1985, the same year he went to work for the Naval Surface Warfare Command as a civilian. There’s much more to the story at the link – including a butt-load of unanswered questions.
Category: Crime
Yeah, all of them are not terrorists huh.
most of them are trying to just do some kind of harm.
If this is not proof enough then I don’t know what is.
Damn Quickdraw, maybe he was just a run of the mill Iranian spy.
I am really curious what his access level was. I guess the Navy was too busy re-interviewing guys like me who are married to Mexican citizens after 9/11 that they never got around to looking at the Iranian guy who changed his name and had a half dozen driver’s licenses.
I guess it is no wonder that USIS no longer has that contract.
according to the article he has had a Secret clearance in the past, had it suspended and reinstated, and for the last 10 years has worked as an electrical engineer.
Yep, makes me feel like getting a government background check will solve all the world’s problems, all right. Sure will stop all the ghetto gun violence.
At a job interview right after retiring from the Army in 78′ to be international military market manager for a major winery, I was asked by the owner’s son what my thoughts were about developing events in Iran. I replied if the Shah of Iran had any sense, as soon as returning exiled Ayatollah Khomeini stepped off the plane he would have him executed. The Shah didn’t and the rest is history with this fucked up world. Oh yes, I got the job.
He was able to get 5 photo ID’s? Is this a goo time to talk about voter suppression?
Worked for the Navy, huh?
Sounds like he needs to be keelhauled. Three ways. Long. Deep. And often.
From a carrier!
Beat me to it, Whitey
Nope. From a submarine.
At depth.
“Yeah, my name is Jim Baker, but my friends call me Majid Karimi.”
I’ll say this for the guy. He knows how to keep his yap shut. Apparently, no threats or deals are budging him. And he has balls. He challenged the denial of a security clearance for failure to surrender his Iranian passport by maintaining that he surrendered it to Iranian authorities. The timing of his trip to Iran was suspicious as hell. Of course, the surrendered passport was found in his safety deposit box. And he was fairly adept at hiding the unexplained money, too. I didn’t see HOW he came to the fed’s attention. Did anyone?
Maybe a bitter ex-wife? That is what did in John Walker. Moral of the story; If you plan on betraying your country, be sure to keep those alimony checks flowing.
And may that piece of shit twist in hell. This may be tinfoil-hat stuff, but I’ve read some very convincing arguments that, among other acts of treason, Walker [spit] had something to do with the “mysterious” loss of USS Scorpion and the 99 men she carried in ’68.
Dunno about the USS Scorpion’s loss being linked to Walker (though I’ve heard that theory as well). But change “USS Scorpion” to “USS Pueblo”, and one of the former CIA chief historians would agree with you.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=34188
I thought his connection to the Pueblo incident was verified. Either way, hell can have that bastard.
Perhaps it has been; dunno. But if so, I’m guessing that’s never been released publicly. I’ve never seen any public statement to that effect from either US or foreign governments. The closest I’ve ever seen was reference to the personal opinion of a past CIA chief historian who was convinced that such a connection existed for the USS Pueblo.
And yes: I hope that bastard Walker enjoys the “personal attention” of Satan in the infernal realm for all eternity.
Read “Red November” by W. Craig Reed. This pretty much says it all.
The idea is that Walker had given the Soviets the codes and then when they captured the Pueblo, they had the encryption device on top of the codes. Then, of course, Pelton gave away “Ivy Bells”. Former KGB have validated that this combination allowed them to decypher Navy messages.
Maybe they were afraid to investigate him from fear of being accused of “Profiling” due to his Middle East ancestry? It’s very obvious that many in Government are afraid of the race card these days.
For some reason that law office rang a bell.
http://www.law360.com/articles/705912/hacker-twin-slams-suggested-6-year-prison-term
I know this is being spun by the right into the “see! we can’t trust Islamic immigrants!” narrative, but we have home grown spies as well, from the heartland even. Ames was from Wisconsin, and Hansen was for Illinois for instance. Their betrayal does not mean we can’t trust people from the great lakes region.
There has got to be much more to this story. A great many people who left during the revolution were deeply loyal to the Shah and the west. So much so many of them still to this day refuse to call themselves “Iranian” preferring instead to be called “Persian”.
Many are engineers.
This guy is an outlier. I know several Iranians/Persians that came to the US over my career who have been absolutely loyal and dedicated to the US. One works for the Department of the Navy as an engineer on missile systems. Another was a ranger qualified infantry officer who ended up going SF.
Additionally, there was a prominent displaced Persian that I met with a few times in Iraq that was very helpful due to his loyalty to the former Shah.
I know these are anecdotes but there are thousands of displaced Iranians working in the US for the department of defense and the intelligence community. This guy’s actions should not reflect negatively on them.
One of these days, Taylor, I really do hope you’ll start reading for COMPREHENSION.
You do know what that means, don’t you?
Go back and read the prior comments.
NOBODY used the the term ‘islamic immigrant’ except you.
When you get done rereading, PUHLEEEZE take your pissing match some place else.
^^^^^ Like ^^^^^
Whistling here. Just whistling.
CAREFUL Ex-PH2, you’re bombarding him with logic and common sense, you might hurt his feelings and self esteem! /SARC
Tough bananas.
Any questions, talk to that Hobo fellow.
LocoLupus’ first comment, and Proud infidel’s comment below is exactly the kind of rhetoric I am talking about.
So save me the pedantic bullshit about whether they actually used the term “Islamic militant”.
You always like to obscure the discussion with pedantic deflections. Surprised you are not more of a fan of the Clintons.
Taylor: Jonn’s article made no mention of Islam other than to refer to the Iranian Revolution as the Islamic Revolution – an accepted name for Khomeini’s takeover of that nation. If anything, it was equally critical of both the individual and the Navy for not catching him sooner. The fact that one or two commenters may have broadened the discussion is irrelevant. Moreover, you attempted to do precisely the same yourself yesterday in another article. Since you engage in the same type of behavior, that implies you must not have a problem with that kind of argumentative technique. Any inflammatory rhetoric aside, you tell me – does or does it not appear reasonable to wonder about someone who (1) Came to the US during the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution; (2) Became a DoD employee after being naturalized; (3) Obtained a security clearance and got a job working in for a DoD agency that designs weapons systems; (4) Had their security clearance suspended after they were found to have an active foreign passport; (5) Had their security clearance reinstated after claiming they had “turned in their passport” to their country of origin during a recent trip there; (6) Was later found to have lied about returning that passport; (7) Was found to have received large sums of money from an uncertain source (but one apparently in the Middle East); (8) Was later found to have multiple IDs, including foreign passports – to include the very passport that they falsely claimed to have returned to their country of origin, and another from that same country of origin of which was both current and active; and (9) Who showed up at their bank demanding immediate access to their safe deposit box after LE had obtained the key to same and was about to begin the process of searching it pursuant to a search warrant? You claim you were (or perhaps still are) an MI soldier, as well as being former LE. If that pattern of behavior doesn’t set off multiple alarms of the CI variety in your mind, you were apparently neither… Read more »
Surely you jest.
“Where there is life, there is hope.”
There may not be much hope, but there is hope.
In this case, however, it’s probably not a good betting strategy. (smile)
Since when has he told us to do anything other than hug the Middle Easterners while singing “Kum-ba-yah” and hate ourselves for not goose stepping alongside him echoing liberal mantras?
Us being Hillaroids? BITCH, PLEASE!!! That would violate Standing Orders issued by the TAH Cadre.
I’m just going to stray off into the realm of the dictionary for a moment.
Lars the Dorkish described what I said as pedantic. Of all the silly things he’s managed to come up with so far, that is quite the silliest. He can’t resist starting an argument over nothing so he fishes a word out of the dictionary – in this case, ‘pedantic’ which means, essentially, ‘someone showing off book learning in an especially tiresome way’. We all realize that Larz, as always the attention whore, is describing himself, and throws in the unused descriptive phrase ‘islamic immigrants’, WHICH NOBODY USED EXCEPT LARS, for the sole purpose of starting another of his attention-whoring arguments over nothing but feeding his fucking ego.
And this is entirely based on my simple sentence that (see above) no one used that term except him. If that ain’t the bloviating cauldron calling the popcorn popper black, I don’t know what it is.
But Lars, you are a tiresome, self-important inflated ego with no purpose in life. If you actually used that brain of yours for something besides picking imaginary fights to get attention, your world would collapse around you.
My advice to you, LARS, you frabjious slithy tove, is drop school and get a real job. Some place like where no one actually has to listen to your shit. I suggest washing dishes at a greasy spoon roadside diner. That’s the real world for you. You can talk to the suds as it gurgles down the drain.
Gaccahhhh!
OH, and lest anyone think Jonn Lilyea was making use of some current ideological term when he said Islamic Revolution for the overthrow of the Shah, that term ‘Islamic Revolution’ was, IN FACT, the term used in all news services in the 1970s during those years when Khomeini first took power in Teheran. It was what the the Ayatollah himself called it, thus it is NOT a pejorative but rather a historically correct use of that term.
You got that, Lars, you stupid fuck? I’m bored silly with being nice to you. Just keep your shit going, pinhead.
Oh, yes – in case anyone wonders what time period I’m referring to, it was when Jimmy the Peanutshitting Carter was the President of this country. In fact, I think it was the very day that Reagan won the election that the US embassy employees were released. The Iranians were just waiting for that announcement.
That’s true, I remember watching his inauguration and someone shouting “They’re FREE, Mr. President, the hostages have been freed!” as just-inaugurated President Reagan was leaving the venue he was sworn in at.
Indeed, non-Western media seem to still use that term – specifically, Al Jazeera still uses it to refer to the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/iran-1979-revolution-shook-world-2014121134227652609.html
1979 really was a memorable year. Ted Koppel started hosting ‘Nightline’, which was focused mostly on the kidnapping of the embassy employees, and kept a day-by-day count until they were released. There were a great many subjects covered by that late night news half-hour, which Koppel hosted until he retired in 2005.
Who the fuck asked you, dickhead?
So according to you and your ponytailed, pot-headed ilk we’re supposed to ignore this and the violence that muzzie “refugees” are doing in Europe while hugging them and singing “Kum-ba-yah”, yeah we’ve heard that shit before! Whatever you take to make yourself that stupid, PC and naive is, I have to say that IT WORKS.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
“Lady?” Or “apologist?”
Does anyone know how to say “useful idiot” in Farsi?
Well, MY PERSONAL experience with Iranians goes back to 1972 at NAVSTA Great Lakes where a group of them were enrolled at students at the Services Schools Command.
THEIR behavior toward Americans and toward American women in particular was repugnant at best, and despicable at its worst.
MY opinion of them has nothing to do with their choice of religion. It has everything to do with THEIR obnoxious, repellent attitude toward Americans in general AND women in particular.
They were, in fact, at Great Lakes as guest students of the US Navy, LONG BEFORE ANY OF THE CURRENT SHIT HAPPENED IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
THEIR obnoxious behavior was consistently anti-American and they were quite resentful of OUR existence, despite being guest students.
I also ran into these asswipes at NRMC Philadelphia IN 1974. Same thing: same behavior, same attitude.
Not a fucking thing to do with Islam, Taylor. It’s their asinine culture.
As always, you don’t know your shit from your eyelashes, which is why your point of view is worthless.
Who squealed?
Roger Whittaker, a great singer, also.
Maybe Mr. Baker thought he was dealing with the Iranians and got played by some other power (Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, et al).
Are you illiterate? He was Iranian by birth. Go read the article for content.
As Ex-PH2 observes, he was born in Iran. So while it’s theoretically possible he may have been working for someone other than Iran, the likelihood of his working for anyone other than Iran is IMO quite low.
It also doesn’t matter. If he was shipping sensitive defense info overseas to ANY foreign power, he’s a damned spy for said foreign power. Federal law rather frowns on that.
PH2, I’m not illiterate .. just speculation.
John Walker and the others were born in the US. Did they conduct their crimes behalf of the US?
If proven guilty in court, I agree that Baker should be appropriately punished by the state IAW law no matter who he spied for.
Walker was after cash. He was greedy. If you want to really dig into stuff like this, the Rosenbergs were funneling government intel about nuclear development to the Soviets. They were Americans who spied for the USSR and were executed for it. Look it up.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg there are a few more to go.. I hope it’s not what I think it is !!!!!!
But this is out of control DC politics and a broke military for you