A former F.B.I. agent has agreed to plead guilty to leaking classified information to The Associated Press about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen last year. In the leak, the government was able to obtain a special underwear bomb apparently designed by a terrorist group’s master bomb maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, to evade detection in airport security checks. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/fbi-ex-agent-pleads-guilty-in-leak-to-ap.html?hp&_r=0
On May 7, 2012, The A.P. broke the news that the bomb plot had been disrupted, setting off further disclosures.
That evening, Richard A. Clarke, a former Clinton administration national security official who had been briefed on the case by John O. Brennan, then the top White House counterterrorism official and now the C.I.A. director, said the plot never came close to being carried out because it was under “insider control” by intelligence officials.
Soon, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and other news organizations reported that the would-be suicide bomber in the operation had been a double agent.
The disclosure about the Yemen bomb plot came as Republicans were accusing the White House of deliberately leaking a variety of secret information to make President Obama look tough on national security issues in an election year, an allegation that the White House denied. Amid Republican calls for independent prosecutors, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assigned Mr. Machen to handle the Yemen bomb plot case.
