Jailed American, Paul Whelan, not exactly the Secret Squirrel Ivan was hoping for.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister is brushing back suggestions that an American being held in Moscow on suspicion of spying could be exchanged for a Russian.
I have no idea how useless a Russian would have to be in order for me to exchange a guy with a Bad Conduct Discharge from the Corps for him. Let me think … ah … nah, Ivan can keep this dirtbag as long as he wants to.
Whelan’s Marine record also would likely prevent U.S. intelligence from hiring him. He began active duty with the Marines in 2003 and was deployed twice to Iraq, rising to staff sergeant. But his military career ended with a court martial in 2008, when he was convicted on charges that included attempted larceny and dereliction of duty.
Court documents released by the military show he was accused of attempting to steal more than $10,000 while on duty in Iraq, where he worked as a clerk, in September 2006. He was also convicted of using a false social security number and profile for a military computer system to grade his own examinations, and of writing 10 bad checks totaling around $6,000.
He was dropped two grades in rank and given a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps.
Let Putin feed his ass for a while. Not sure where a guy that works for a Temp Agency gets money to travel. He seems to like Russia, let him stay for a while.
Source: Jailed American spent years collecting Russian contacts
Category: Foreign Policy, Legal, Russia
I was wondering when this loser would surface here. How he got a high power security job at a big international company like BorgWarner, mystifies me. Yeah, Vlad can keep him.
I take it this guy has quite the interesting backstory.
Oh yeah. Click the link Dave provided, or scribe Paul Whelan in the search engine of your choice. For starters, besides his being shitcanned from the Marines, he multi-national, with more than just US/Canadian citizenship. Passing odd, that.
When will the sock puppets arrive to tell us his BCD was just a cover for his secret squirrel assignment?
I say let Putin keep him.
One should not disregard the propensity of some entities for a “risk” taker.
Oh Jesus,
Happy New Year.
Someone needs to put a new paragraph in the FNG FAQ here because this is some exceptional new shit, is it not?
I mean, am I not thinking along the same lines?
Poser
BCD
Russia
International Media
WTF
Who Knows
At least he’s earned a “wow”.
Right?
Give him that.
Enlistment to SSG in 5 years as a clerk? What am I missing? That used to be abiut how long it took clerks to make E5.
The ability to grade his own exams may account for the rapid rise in rank.
AW1Ed,
The exams were not promotion exams, as the Corps doesn’t have them. They were probably Marine Corps Institute Courses.
Some of them require grading by another Marine who has taken the Course before.
They are important, sometime to the point of being required for consideration for promotion to the next grade.
Ahh, thanks. Navy had rating exams; we used to call the E-7 exam to Chief “The Annual E-6 Reunion.”
His active duty began in 2003.. he had 9 years in the reserves, so 14 years altogether.
His twin brother, David, who resides in Canada (they were born in Canada) had no idea that Paul received a BCD from the Marine Corps:
“Family Disputes Russian Charges That Paul Whelan Is A Spy”:
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/681873449/family-disputes-russian-charges-that-paul-whelan-is-a-spy
“KING: Yesterday, the U.S. military told NPR that your brother was a Marine reservist who was discharged in 2008 for bad conduct and, in fact, indicted on a charge of larceny. That was after 14 years of service. Do you think that could be playing a part in the State Department’s response? And is there anything that you want to say about that?”
“WHELAN: The bad conduct discharge was news to us this week in the family.”
“KING: It was?”
“WHELAN: That was a surprise. And I think it’s not unreasonable to expect that people will try and put out their best self. And you know, Paul, understandably, might not have wanted to share that with his family.”
“I don’t think it has any implication or impact on this situation. I mean, I don’t have any details to say that it doesn’t, but it seems to be a relatively innocuous sort of thing. He’s not a lawbreaker. He doesn’t have a criminal record in the States. It just – it seems an extremely arbitrary situation that has somehow netted him.”
I wonder if Whelan’s Bad Conduct Discharge is also news to BorgWarner? I won’t be surprised to learn Whelan falsified his DD-214(s) to reflect honorable service when he applied for a corporate security position.
An idiot in my family married a guy who got a BCD and busted to E1 for selling “club drugs.” They met shortly after he was released from the brig in Norfolk after a year-long stay. Still, she considers herself “a proud Marine wife.”
So extraordinarily cringeworthy.
Maybe the Russians don’t want to exchange Whelan for an actual person. Maybe what they really want is for us to stop showing Moose and Sqvirrel reruns featuring Boris and Natasha…
“Keel moose and squirrel.”
How did he get bagged as a spy while in Russia?
I cannot imagine any hypothetical Big Chicken Dinner recipient would run a BS “secret squirrel” line of “I am on a mission for an agency” horsepucky when actually -in- Russia.
No one is that stupid, right?
I think it is in retaliation to the US bagging a Russian citizen for espionage.
Russia Says FBI Arrested Russian Citizen on Pacific Island
Bloomberg Link
Whelan was arrested a day before Makarenko.
Collusion.
The smoking gun we have been waiting for.
Again.
His Twin Brother, David, also wrote this for the Washington Post. However, what he said about Paul being in Law Enforcement and what the Washington Post discovered about that claim does not exactly match.
I don’t think David Whelan knows his Twin very well. He did not even know Paul Whelan received a BCD from the Marine Corps (please see previous post).
“I Am Paul Whelan’s Brother. He Is Not A Spy”:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-am-paul-whelans-brother-he-is-not-a-spy/2019/01/04/56b62514-1046-11e9-84fc-d58c33d6c8c7_story.html
“Paul has always been a patriot. He was a Boy Scout and later a Police Explorer at our local sheriff’s office. He served two tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. Before and after his military service, Paul was in law enforcement. Paul also served as a corporate security specialist for two respected U.S. companies”…
What the Washington Post wrote about his LEO experience:
“American Charged With Espionage In Russia Has An Unlikely Background For A Spy”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/american-paul-whelan-charged-with-espionage-in-russia-news-agency-reports/2019/01/03/51dab55a-0f6a-11e9-8f0c-6f878a26288a_story.html
“Whelan was born in Canada and later moved to Michigan, where he embarked on a career in law enforcement in the early 1990s. He appears on some occasions to have exaggerated his credentials as a law enforcement and security expert and, according to former military colleagues, came across as naive.”
“In a 2013 deposition, stemming from a case in which Whelan wasn’t a party, he said that he had been a sheriff’s deputy in Washtenaw County and a police officer for the city of Chelsea.”
“But a representative for the Washtenaw County sheriff said the agency had no record of Whelan’s employment. And Chelsea police records show that he worked as a part-time police officer, as well as a dispatcher, a crossing guard, and a parking officer, also in a part-time capacity, from 1990 to 1996.”
“Whelan’s brother, David, said Paul had connections to the sheriff’s office going back to his days as a Police Explorer, a kind of law enforcement version of the Boy Scouts. But he acknowledged that he wasn’t certain Paul was a sheriff’s deputy and said that the two didn’t discuss their work lives.”
How do you not have at least a vague idea of what your 𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒏 brother is doing for work?
It’s can happen. I once worked for a guy who later became a GO. As he told the story: his brother had disappeared in the 1970s or early 1980s after after becoming involved in some “questionable business” that produced lots of cash (he suspected drugs, but I don’t think he knew for sure – or wanted to know, for that matter). He hadn’t had any contact with his brother since he disappeared.
The brother wasn’t his twin, but still.
The current POTUS does not trade valuable prisoners for traitors like his immediate predecessor.
Good luck, Mr. Whelan. I think you’re going to need it. Cause I don’t foresee Trump or Pompeo putting a lot out there to get you back.
Maybe we could trade them 50 Russian mafia that are taking up space in American prisons.
50 permanently deported foreign shit bags for 1 seems like a good trade.
I would strongly endorse this example of the “art of the deal.”
“…communication to the family, mom and dad and the dog…cause he doted on the family dog…”
From the linkie article. This tool was a fool. Looks like he has been a POS sekreet squuurrl all his life, scamming the Corps and the family. Probably lied to the dog about the dog treats too.
Security officer for Borg Warner? Yeah right,…this tape will self destruct in 5,4,3,2,
Thought this name sounded familiar when it hit the news the other day. Gonna suck to be him, don’t think I’d want to be at the Boris Ivan Vlad deli located in the former KGB Hqs.
I’m sure that the boys in cellblock “C” are providing Paul Whelan with a diet of prison piroshkis – Lubyanka style.
Maybe he was once a Gate Guard at a Borg Warner plant where they make Transmissions thus he claims to have been a Security officer? I concur with those saying he needs to be left there in Vlad’s care. We just need to glance at him and say “Meh, y’all keep him” to the Russkies!
What exposed him was being out in public without two road guards and someone to county Cadence. No real Marine would be caught dead without them. I have heard enough complaints from Marine spouses about how that policy made the honeymoon suite awfully crowded to believe this. But they did say the Cadence counter did come in handy so there is some social redeeming value to the tradition.
Youse mugs got this guy all wrong. The records are bogus. His cover is that he was done wrong by the USMC and, by extension, the US gov’t. He goes to Ivan Land under pretense of being a disgruntled fellow with designs on making a ruble working for Ivan and, at the same time, getting even with the US for booting him from the USMC. Ivan, who knows a thing or two about questioning suspected spies, takes no time in learning the truth. The guy, instead of being hired, is arrested. See, he’s really a failed hero. At least that’s the way his book will read.
Yeah, he was a deep cover US secret agent, just like that former Marine Oswald fellow, whose cover story was so effective that he was able to come home and assassinate a U.S. president.
More like deep in someones two-hole under the covers.
Reminds me of that piece of shit Lee Harvey Oswald who thought the ruskies would fawn all over him. Turned out they knew more than he did about his job. So to get his 15 minutes he first tried to assassinate a U.S. flag officer, Walker. That didn’t work so he assassinated JFK.
This turd? Well, Barry isn’t here to send a boatload of cash so he will probably cool his heels for a while. The US using his ‘skills’ for spying on Russia? Yeah, that sounds legit
Well, I do hope he knows how to say this:
доброе утро, товарищ.
If he doesn’t, he’s toast.
какой он дурман.
Good morning, Comrade PH
OK, fine. We’ll send them Nancy Pelosi. No? Not good enough. Dammit. Then let’s add Occasional Cortex as well.
I’m sure they would consider that as no less than an act of war!
What I find particularly maddening is that the lying fake news media keeps calling him a “retired Marine.” When does a reservist who received a BCD equal a “retired” former service member. This dumb bastard is just a pawn that Putin wants to exchange for one of their peeps.
They have his story in the spin cycle, they hope it will come out clean and fresh.
Stupid often begins with not giving a shit. When it comes to matters military, most of the media don’t give a shit.
Time to tell Vlad we don’t want him, either.
Not want him? We have a few more to trade just for Ivan to keep him.
This genius did something stupid over there…
…I’m wondering if this guy didn’t think he was badass enough to try and pull off some kind of scam over there, and the Russians thinking he really WAS a Secret Squirrel.
If there’s anything to that, I’m not sure if I’d feel sorry for the guy or laugh my ass off.
Mike
Was this clown actually stupid enough to run a “secret squirrel” line of BS in the land of the Chekist?
Oh-em-gee…. he did. (Faceplam)
I’d go with Option B.
Is he related to the Whelan siren and light family??
I’m sure he tells people that he is, as an excuse for Ricky-Rescue code lights on his POV.
BCD = Shitbag.
Keep him, Russia.
Go hog wild!
He probably did some vodka and started telling the lady’s he was the real Jason Born.
Tvoyu Maht!
What a “Suka!”
I’ve been watching a lot of Russian and Ukrainian cop shows lately. Lots of action and fights with hot women everywhere! Gotta say my personal favorite is “ПЁС” on Amazon Prime. It’s like that Jim Belushi movie “K9” on steroids!
Above, I meant to say that there’s also hot women everywhere, not that the hot women were fighting!😂