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"The Rise and Fall of a Fox News Fraud" Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-a-fox-news-fraud-20160126by Reeves Wiedeman , January 26, 2016
By the time Wayne Simmons went on Fox News last March for what would end up being his final appearance, viewers knew what to expect. "This president clearly has absolutely no idea what he is talking about," Simmons said of President Obama's handling of ISIS. Simmons had made guest appearances on Fox more than a hundred times as a "former CIA operative," and certainly looked the part: white mustache, neck bulging out of his dress shirt, a handshake "so hard, he can crush you with it," as one Fox host put it. Beyond offering his expertise as an intelligence officer, he had become particularly adept at serving up hawkish red meat to the network's audience. "We could end this in a week," he went on, suggesting that the United States run "thousands of sorties" against ISIS. "They would all be dead."
anonymous when he first appeared on Fox, in 2002, but he soon became a regular face on the network, alongside a cast of retired military officers who, like Simmons, had been recruited into the Pentagon's "military-analysts program." The initiative invited retired officers who had made names for themselves as television-news commentators to attend regular briefings from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and to make trips to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. In 2009, The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its report on how the Pentagon used the analysts to build public support for the war in Iraq. The program disbanded, and many of those involved tried to distance themselves from it. But Simmons boasted of his connection as a way to bolster his bona fides, even mentioning it in his Amazon author biography. In 2012, Simmons co-wrote The Natanz Directive, a novel about a retired CIA agent called back for one last op. When the book was published, Rumsfeld contributed a blurb: "Wayne Simmons doesn't just write it. He's lived it.
But, according to prosecutors, Simmons was living a lie. Last October, the government charged him with multiple counts of fraud, saying he had never worked for the CIA at all. Prosecutors alleged that Simmons used his supposed intelligence experience not only to secure time on Fox and an audience with Rumsfeld, but also to obtain work with defense contractors, including deployment to a military base in Afghanistan. He was also charged with bilking $125,000 from a woman, with whom prosecutors say he was romantically involved, in a real-estate investment that did not exist. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his trial is scheduled to begin February 23rd. If convicted, he will likely face several years in prison.
Simmons claimed to have spent 27 years with the CIA, but Paul Nathanson, the assistant attorney prosecuting the case, said in a court filing that Simmons "never had any association whatsoever with the CIA." (The CIA declined to comment – as a rule, it never confirms or denies agents – but said it is "working closely with the Justice Department on this matter."
Instead, prosecutors say Simmons spent those 27 years doing just about everything else: He ran a limousine service, a gambling operation and an AIDS-testing clinic; worked for a hot-tub business, a carpeting company and a nightclub; and briefly played defensive back for the New Orleans Saints.
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