attorneys pushed aside by the Bush White House in a famously controversial, possibly political decision. The investigation into Lewis and his ties to Copeland Lowery was eventually dropped, but the lobbying firm broke up under the pressure, and Letitia White moved to a new firm. In 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named Lewis one of the fifteen most corrupt members of Congress.
But Trepp wasnât finished after hiring White. He convinced another heavyweight Nevada investor, Wayne Prim, to put money into eTreppid. In September 2003, Prim hosted a dinner that brought together Trepp, Montgomery, and Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada, a former airline pilot and rising star among congressional Republicans. Gibbons, an influential member of the House Intelligence Committee, almost certainly played a critical role in helping Montgomery to gain access to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Gibbons did not need much coaxing to try to assist eTreppid. Not only was the company based in his home state, but both Prim and Warren Trepp were longtime campaign contributors. After the dinner at Primâs house, Gibbons went to work immediately opening doors in Washington for eTreppid. Flynn said that Montgomery later told him that Gibbons quickly arranged to meet with Porter Goss, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to discuss eTreppid and Montgomeryâs technology.
By the fall of 2003, Dennis Montgomery had made a series of impressive moves to gain access to the black budget of the governmentâs national security apparatus. He had the backing of two wealthy investors, had one of the nationâs most influential lobbyists scouring the federal budget for earmarks on his behalf, and had the support of a key member of the CIAâs oversight committee. After obtaining a series of small contracts with the air force and the Special Operations Command, Montgomery was ready for the big time.
Â
For a few months in late 2003, the technology from Dennis Montgomery and eTreppid so enraptured certain key government officials that it was considered the most important and most sensitive counterterrorism intelligence that the Central Intelligence Agency had to offer President Bush. Senior officials at the CIAâs Directorate of Science and Technology began to accept and vouch for Montgomery to officials at the highest levels of the government. Montgomeryâs claims grew ever more expansive, but that only solidified his position inside the national security arena. His technology became too impossible to disbelieve.
Montgomeryâs big moment came at Christmas 2003, a strange time of angst in the American national security apparatus. It was two years after the 9/11 attacks, and the war in Iraq was getting worse. Iraq was turning into a new breeding ground for terrorism, and Osama bin Laden was still on the loose, regularly thumbing his nose at the Americans by issuing videotaped threats of further terrorist strikes. The CIA, still stumbling in the aftermath of the two greatest intelligence failures in its historyâmissing 9/11 and getting it wrong on Iraqâs supposed weapons of mass destructionâwas desperate for success, a quick win with which to answer its critics.
The CIAâs Science and Technology Directorate, which had largely been stuck on the sidelines of the war on terror, saw in Dennis Montgomery an opportunity to get in the game. The directorate had played an important role in the Cold War, but in the first few years of the war on terror, it was still struggling to determine how technology could be leveraged against small groups of terrorists who were trying to stay off the grid.
Montgomery brilliantly played on the CIAâs technical insecurities as well as the agencyâs woeful lack of understanding about al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism. He was able to convince the CIA that he had developed a secret new technology that enabled him to decipher al Qaeda
But Trepp wasnât finished after hiring White. He convinced another heavyweight Nevada investor, Wayne Prim, to put money into eTreppid. In September 2003, Prim hosted a dinner that brought together Trepp, Montgomery, and Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada, a former airline pilot and rising star among congressional Republicans. Gibbons, an influential member of the House Intelligence Committee, almost certainly played a critical role in helping Montgomery to gain access to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Gibbons did not need much coaxing to try to assist eTreppid. Not only was the company based in his home state, but both Prim and Warren Trepp were longtime campaign contributors. After the dinner at Primâs house, Gibbons went to work immediately opening doors in Washington for eTreppid. Flynn said that Montgomery later told him that Gibbons quickly arranged to meet with Porter Goss, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to discuss eTreppid and Montgomeryâs technology.
By the fall of 2003, Dennis Montgomery had made a series of impressive moves to gain access to the black budget of the governmentâs national security apparatus. He had the backing of two wealthy investors, had one of the nationâs most influential lobbyists scouring the federal budget for earmarks on his behalf, and had the support of a key member of the CIAâs oversight committee. After obtaining a series of small contracts with the air force and the Special Operations Command, Montgomery was ready for the big time.
Â
For a few months in late 2003, the technology from Dennis Montgomery and eTreppid so enraptured certain key government officials that it was considered the most important and most sensitive counterterrorism intelligence that the Central Intelligence Agency had to offer President Bush. Senior officials at the CIAâs Directorate of Science and Technology began to accept and vouch for Montgomery to officials at the highest levels of the government. Montgomeryâs claims grew ever more expansive, but that only solidified his position inside the national security arena. His technology became too impossible to disbelieve.
Montgomeryâs big moment came at Christmas 2003, a strange time of angst in the American national security apparatus. It was two years after the 9/11 attacks, and the war in Iraq was getting worse. Iraq was turning into a new breeding ground for terrorism, and Osama bin Laden was still on the loose, regularly thumbing his nose at the Americans by issuing videotaped threats of further terrorist strikes. The CIA, still stumbling in the aftermath of the two greatest intelligence failures in its historyâmissing 9/11 and getting it wrong on Iraqâs supposed weapons of mass destructionâwas desperate for success, a quick win with which to answer its critics.
The CIAâs Science and Technology Directorate, which had largely been stuck on the sidelines of the war on terror, saw in Dennis Montgomery an opportunity to get in the game. The directorate had played an important role in the Cold War, but in the first few years of the war on terror, it was still struggling to determine how technology could be leveraged against small groups of terrorists who were trying to stay off the grid.
Montgomery brilliantly played on the CIAâs technical insecurities as well as the agencyâs woeful lack of understanding about al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism. He was able to convince the CIA that he had developed a secret new technology that enabled him to decipher al Qaeda
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