By Debbie Schlussel

If I wrote a mystery thriller about what’s been going on at ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), you’d say it was implausible, far-fetched, and bigoted against Arab Muslims, that they are loyal Americans who would never do such a thing.  And a top Homeland Security intelligence official would never help launder Homeland Security cash to Islamic terrorists, right?

ICE Intelligence Chief James Woosley Helped Steal Homeland Security $s Sent to Palestinian Muslim Accounts in Jordan

Well, here’s the plot of my book, all uncovered at the Department of Homeland Security over the last month:  a Palestinian Muslim employee runs a multi-million dollar money-laundering ring  WHILE he is an intelligence analyst for the largest Homeland Security agency, ICE.  And his boss, the ICE Director of Intelligence, can’t say anything about it because he is apparently a co-conspirator with this Muslim in submitting phony expenses to ICE for reimbursement, and is subject to blackmail. The money, stolen from American taxpayers who paid it to fund this country’s national security, is probably going to fund Islamic terrorism and is definitely going to a multi-million dollar Palestinian money-laundering ring and its bank accounts in Jordan. The Muslim ICE official has a US-government-issued diplomatic passport, which he misuses for eight personal trips to Jordan to see the Muslim brothers.

Oh, and here’s the kicker:  the Muslim will only do about two years or less in prison because, hey, now that he’s been caught, he’s “cooperating.”  That’s incredible, especially when you consider that it’s likely the money went to fund terrorism or other illicit Palestinian activities.

Almost a month ago, ICE agents began tipping me off that ICE Director of Intelligence James M. Woosley (not to be confused with the former CIA Director James M. Woolsey, a good guy) was suddenly removed from his position.  One agent wrote:

You may want to ask ICE/HSI [DS:  Homeland Security Investigations] why the Acting Director of Intelligence {James Woosley] was escorted out of the building, last week.

I wish I’d posted something about it, but I couldn’t get anyone to talk beyond that it was regarding some alleged fraud, and I needed more information.  I probably should have posted it as a question, as today, the net is filled with the story of a probe into Woosley.  He apparently helped his Palestinian Jordanian Muslim intelligence analyst, Ahmed Adil Abdallat, submit falsified and bogus travel expenses in exchange for a cut of the cash.  The greedy Woosley was already making more than $200,000 a year in travel and benefits, including a government car.  But I guess that wasn’t enough, so it’s better to sell out America and help Abdallat rip-off American taxpayers (that’s what Muslims call, “halal money,” or permitted money ‘cuz it’s great to rip off infidels).  Yup, it’s better to help this Muslim employee launder the money to his fellow Palestinians to fund who knows what terrorist attacks.

And that’s what happens when federal law enforcement agencies recruit Arab Muslims, putting their religion and ethnicity on an undeserved pedestal, ahead of the scrutiny and suspicion that their religion and ethnicity should generate.  Abdallat was recruited as an intelligence analyst for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  This means he had high-level security clearance and access to classified information. Abdallat was running a multi-million dollar money-laundering ring, involving bank accounts in Jordan, to which he was transferring money out of the U.S.  We have no idea where the money went after that, but we know that a number of Palestinian and other Islamic terrorist groups are in Jordan and use the money laundered to them from the U.S. in terrorist attacks on Israelis and other innocent civilians.

Homeland Security and the Justice Department are minimizing these parts of the story and are succeeding.  But the truth is that this is a major national security breach and a gargantuan example of the failure of political correctness and pan-Muslim affirmative action in federal law enforcement agencies.  It’s simply incredible that Woosley, who had top secret security clearance and access to the most vital intelligence information, was not only a criminal but was helping funnel nearly $2 million–a good deal of it fraudulently-obtained Homeland Security dollars–to Palestinian-Muslim-controlled bank accounts in Jordan.  If that can happen, anything can happen, and neither ICE nor Homeland Security should be trusted with any national security functions. Don’t believe the press reports that this guy is “Jordanian.” Like 95% of Jordanians, he’s a Palestinian Muslim. Period.

And there’s a lot more to the story that Barack Obama’s top officials at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and ICE are covering up here.  You’ll recall I previously wrote about two corrupt agents, the two top ICE agents in Los Angeles, Special Agent in Charge, Robert Schoch, and Deputy Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Silliman, who was in line to become ICE’s top cop, the Director of Investigations position.  Both agents also reportedly falsified travel expenses, allegedly to cover up an illicit relationship.  There were reportedly several hundred thousand dollars for which they could not account. Both agents were removed from the job and agents searched their homes.  Well, both were protectees and cronies of Woosley.  And neither ended up being indicted or even fired.  That was Woosley’s doing, which makes you wonder how much of a cut he took from them, too.

Instead of being indicted, these friends of Woosley caught some very interesting breaks. Silliman accepted a lower GS grade but no loss of pay, and she got an unpaid move. But her husband, whose surname is Ebbley and who was one of Woosley’s ICE intelligence agents, was whisked out of Los Angeles to a two month vacation at a Dominican Republic resort, a cushy “assignment” from Woosley. His “job” was to provide “intelligence” on Haiti (did he predict the earthquake?) from the resort.

Later, sources say that Woosley engineered a paid move–meaning American taxpayers paid for it–so that Ebbley could reportedly relocate to the same location as his uncharged criminal wife, Special Agent Jennifer Rae Silliman Ebbley. When he relocated near his corrupt ICE agent wife, courtesy of you, there was no ICE office and no job for him. So, Woosley–the ICE Kickback King & Acting Director of Intelligence–opened a new office for him. The ICE budget, as it has been for several years, was tight, and this new special office for the hubby of an unindicted criminal ICE agent was not budgeted. How convenient! This allowed Woosley to arrange for the job to be totally run by contractors, with no-bid contracts, which conveniently, reportedly hired Woosley’s son to run the office. Whatta coincidence!

I am told that Ebbley a/k/a Mr. Silliman then hired another ICE intelligence unit buddy to be his number two in Bay St. Louis, a past frequent commenter on this site, “EverVigilantSheepdog/EVS,” who outed himself as Kyle Barnette, when another ICE agent figured him out (I do not out federal agents posting on this site). In that cushy job at an office that wasn’t needed but was created by taxpayers for an agent to be close to his unindicted criminal wife’s new job, Barnett is now reportedly double-dipping, getting two GS-15 salaries–his current ICE pay and his current ICE retirement pay.

ICE requires agents to retire upon their 57th birthdays. It is a mandatory retirement age, but the scam is that agents who are favored cronies of top brass get hired back as contractors, then collecting both generous retirement pay AND full salary as a contractor. There is nothing illegal about this. It’s just that it does an end run around the ICE mandatory retirement age and leaves an agency with a very stretched budget paying a lot of people two salaries each, when they are still working at the same agency in a similar job capacity.

Agents tell me that ICE Acting Director of Intelligence Woosley was running similar scams all over the country and all over the world, as ICE has agents stationed everywhere, in various embassies and consulates. Woosley is said to have used favoritism, selling promotions and transfers, and repeated nepotism–once with the contract to run the ICE Bay St. Louis office, and also getting someone to create new “collections” divisions, spending huge amounts of money which are never tracked or accounted for.

When Woosley couldn’t fund promotions for his friends and cronies–and apparently those who paid him kickbacks for the phony expenses he helped them cash in on–he created new job descriptions giving automatic overtime pay, which agents tell me is secondary law enforcement pay. This is the pay that is earned by Border Patrol agents who are shot at, while arresting people on the border. It is for agents who are in danger and at high risk for loss of life or limb. But Woosley created such jobs for his intelligence employee cronies in Arizona, Texas, Tampa, Bay St. Louis, California, and even in ICE headquarters, one of the safest, most secure locations there is.

The entire ICE Intelligence management team at ICE headquarters and around the world is infected with Woosley cronies, many of whom apparently got where they are because they did his bidding, which many ICE agents believe involved the same phony expense scam. Honest, decent agents are happy that the FBI acted as their Serpico and actually pursued this. But they tell me that John Morton, Barack Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped the ball from rolling any further beyond Woosley, thus preventing the apparent massive exposure of the rest of the ICE intelligence management team.

As I noted, this criminal, James Woosley, has his hooks and his people, in ICE leadership at ICE offices all over the country and all over the world. And if he was doing this for at least ten years with a Palestinian Muslim stationed in Texas, who sent the money to Palestinian-controled bank accounts in Jordan, you can bet he was doing scams like this with complicit cronies everywhere. The cases of Schoch and Silliman–reportedly engaged in the same kind of expenses fraud and embezzlement in Los Angeles, while they had Woosley’s protectzia (an Israeli word for cronyist protection)–are proof positive of that.

Don’t worry, though. ICE may not investigate its own top intelligence guy’s fraudulent expenses, embezzlement, and money-laundering to Palestinian Muslim bank accounts in Jordan and definitely keeps defrauders like Schoch and Silliman on the payroll. But, hey, they’re doing the really important work . . . like capturing a guy in the woods who streamed WWE broadcasts on his website.

Now, I feel safer.

More:

An FBI agent said Wednesday that James M. Woosley, the deputy director of intelligence at ICE headquarters in Washington, was placed on administrative leave Feb. 4 amid allegations he helped a subordinate file fraudulent travel expense reports and took some of the cash they generated.

Testimony about Woosley came during a federal detention hearing for ICE intelligence analyst Ahmed Adil Abdallat, who is accused of using a diplomatic passport to make eight personal trips to Jordan since October 2007 and receiving about $123,000 in reimbursements from phony travel expenses.

Magistrate Judge David C. Guaderrama was expected to rule later Thursday on whether Abdallat would be eligible for bail.

Abdallat, 63, is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Jordan. He also is the subject of a larger money laundering investigation after he made three wire transfers worth a combined $570,000 to Jordan over a six month period, according to the FBI. Authorities also linked Abdallat to an additional $1.2 million in Jordanian bank accounts.

Abdallat’s attorney, Mary Stillinger, said after the Wednesday hearing that her client was facing “worst case scenario, a couple years in prison.” She said he had cooperated fully during interviews with FBI investigators, most of which focused on Woosley. . . .

FBI Special Agent Shannon N. Enochs testified Wednesday that Woosley approved Abdallat’s phony travel expenses and that he and another federal official who worked for Woosley were paid about $58,000 as part of the scheme. He said Woosley was Abdallat’s supervisor for “over 10 years.” He said Abdallat mailed Woosley checks, wired him money, paid his utility and mortgage bills, and sometimes even traveled to Washington to leave his boss cash in drawers.

Enochs said scrutiny of Abdallat’s personal e-mails revealed evidence that Woosley tried to arrange for an official trip to Jordan for Abdallat “around 2009,” after Abdallat’s mother died. The trip was not approved, and Abdallat ended up paying his own way.

Abdallat was issued a diplomatic passport between 2005 and 2007 after being detailed to the ICE attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Enochs said. About 10 FBI agents raiding his home found 31 stamps in a still-valid diplomatic passport, and Enochs said that while he didn’t know how many of those stamps might have represented authorized travel, Abdallat never got clearance to travel to Jordan on official business.

Authorities also seized a personal U.S. passport that had no entry stamps or visas in it, and two expired Jordanian passports, Enochs said.

Woosley was suspended the same day the FBI raided Abdallat’s El Paso home and seized at least 29 boxes of evidence.

So, where did Abdallat send the money once it got to Jordan? Where did the rest of the $2 million come from if it didn’t come from ICE and Homeland Security dollars? What did he do while in Jordan and with whom did he meet?

With whom did Abdallat consort in Saudi Arabia? We know that at least one Muslim FBI agent, Gamal Hafiz, who was stationed at the Riyadh U.S. Embassy was helping and tipping off Islamic Jihad founder Sami Al-Arian, and another agent, Wilfred Rattigan, converted to Islam and became an extremist, while stationed there. What did Abdallat do while he was there? And for whom is he really working while on the ICE and DHS payrolls?

Since Abdallat worked for Woosley for 10 years, what other crimes did they commit for the jihad and the Brotherhood while on the ICE and DHS payrolls?

You can bet the Justice Department, ICE, and DHS will make sure we find out as little as possible. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And this is a raging, multi-state forest fire, which means there’s a lot more burning behind it.