Ms. McCarthy - A Woman Scorned...

Re(1): 'The McCarthy File', In From the Cold, Spook86
Re(2): 'Mary McCarthy: 'I did not do it'', The Belmont Club, Wretchard T.C.

I was intrigued by Spook86's musings on why Ms. McCarthy leaked highly classified and compartimentalized information to the media. Did she have access to all this information? Was she being fed the information? Could she be acting as a leaker for a group of malcontents - she being chosen because she was to retire soon and would thus be 'dangerous' to prosecute?

However, one area that he found confusing does not appear so. Spook86 queries:

That begs some obvious questions: first of all, when McCarthy left the Clinton White House, what position did she enter at Langley? Normally, for a "returning" senior civil servant, the agency would attempt to place the individual in a slot commensurate with their past duties and experience. For McCarthy, that would mean re-appointment as a NIO, or at least a Deputy NIO. With her White House and Democratic Party connections, such a posting would seem virtually automatic. But apparently, that didn't happen. That fact alone should raise a few eyebrows in the security establishment, because a former NRO with superb political ties should have easily segued to another high-level assignment, despite the change in administrations.

The following quote from Ms. McCarthy’s biography might point to a rather more inauspicious reason for a ‘demotion’.

Until July 2001, she served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council (NSC) Staff, under both Presidents Clinton and Bush.

Apparently, the first reference to reach President Bush regarding an al Qaeda attack inside the United States was the August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing. Why? Could the Administration have been less than enthused with her editing qualities as Special Assistant to the President.

Honestly, I am not familiar with these terms or the command structure in the CIA, NSA, or Executive Branch – the first time I heard of an SESer was a couple of weeks ago…