His tales of heroism and stuff like that were slightly embellished, Rush says. Jamie Smith - CNN - Attack on CIA base - 05 Jan 2010 2,059 views Jan 25, 2010 0 Dislike Share Save silencewatch1 100 subscribers Subscribe Jamie Smith on CNN 05 Jan 2010 discussing the. Perhaps God is hardening Pharoahs [sic] heart to glorify himself and bless his people. We did a great job, he said, everyone was happy., When asked how he managed to become a government spy only two years out of South Panola high, he said, Thats in the book. There's just one little question: How much of it is true? Smith gave $200,000 to a low-budget film company called Southern Belle Productions, owned by a Los Angeles actress and director named Tammi Sutton, who was lauded in a fan magazine as one of the B-movie industrys bustiest ladies. This was seed money for a World War II epic that never got made. Just when things looked bleakest, Smiths luck turned. That was, you know, very convincing.. Douglas Murray spent more than three decades in the CIAs clandestine services and served during the Gulf War during the same period Smith says he was working against the Iraqi target.. Plus Jamie has been in this business for a quarter century. Outside's long reads email newsletter features our strongest writing, most ambitious reporting, and award-winning storytelling about the outdoors. Today. YOU'VE REACHED YOUR MONTHLY ARTICLE LIMIT. Read more But in the e-mail exchanges with Titus, the $12.5 million is never described as belonging to the Sanfords. He argues that this gray area-and its warriors who occupy the controversial space between public and private-has become an indispensable element of the modern battlefield. There were basically less than five people who ran any division in the first Gulf War, Murray said. Plans were thwarted. Theyd meet at fried-chicken joints and Memphis bars and rescue hostages held in Conex containers. He began a decorated career with the agency while taking correspondence classes. In an e-mail sent in February 2009, Smith demonstrates his tendency to take a kernel of truth and blow it up into something more. The implication is that whats left is there with the CIAs blessing. But it doesnt work like that, according to the CIA. Gray Work was published in April by HarperCollins imprint William Morrow and Company, which moved forward with the book, claiming that the CIA itself vetted the manuscript. I cant get into that, because its part of the book, and the agencys still reviewing that.. Ultimately, he did, says retired FBI special agent Tom Tierney, who had investigated Titus and also Smith. Smiths staff and clients believed he was a decorated spook and battle-tested warrior. During the training sessions down south, Smith often talked about SCGs driving philosophy, lecturing students inside an old house trailer that had been turned into a classroom. If he got this going, he could parlay that into more projects., In a deposition given nine months later as part of separate real estate litigation, Smith said he had nothing left. During the fraud trial, Smith stuck to a story that he had never met the Sanfords, even after being presented with an email he had written to Craig Sanford explicitly saying it had been nice to meet him. Salt (2010) They had recently lost a judgment in a $3 million property dispute, and though their lawyers insurance company told the Sanfords they would be covered for the loss, it wouldnt happen right away. Smiths rsum and his claims were never part of the pitch for government contracts, Rush says. Jamie Smith is a legend in his own book, the controversial new memoir Gray Work: Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy. Bob Baer and Larry Johnson, old agency hands with decades of CIA experience between them, say his hiring story sounds impossible. INTENTIONAL. By 2010, a lot of SCG employees were beginning to doubt Smith for a very tangible reason: checks had started bouncing. Fisher says his friend has told tall tales since childhood. A new paramilitary company like SCG, if established, could make a killing. Pelton, who seems to like Smith and says his claims usually contain a grain of truth, nonetheless describes some of his stories as borderline delusional and has characterized Smiths account of the Colombia episode as patently false. When the pastor wanted to recognize those whod served in Operation Desert Storm, both brothers stood. But somebody believed Smiths stories. Even if it had, that doesnt mean the CIA backs Smiths claims. But those endorsements dont actually add up to much. Tom Cruise plays a secret agent that goes on the run to uncover a rogue spy ring responsible for a series of disasters and assassinations. Jamie B. Smith - @JamieSmithANjax Family man, extoller of the Good News, former broadcaster of bad news, "Easter worshiper" (I, my, His Honour) Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla Jamie Smith - @JamieSmithLove Chief Communications Office - Ellucian, Senior Advisor - West Exec Advisors, former Senior White House Official in President Obama White House. So we walked around Bogot, did some shopping, and we flew home., The newspaper asked Pelton how much of what Smith said could be believed. The big new SCG compound was situated near the crossroads of Mississippi Highway 7 and U.S. Highway 78. Instead, he and Mary Jo are trying to rebuild their retirement fund. He was in the lobby the next morning with another fellow, who I learned later was either his brother or his cousin or something, and he was there to rescue me. Gene Hackman stars as a surveillance expert who soon begins to think he's the one being watched. According to Smiths own account in the Stratfor e-mails, he got over there anyway. There was no magic in what we built. Among the roughly two dozen documents Oliver sent to The Daily Beast were letters of support of Smiths operations in Libya and Syria from a congresswoman; a certificate showing a black belt in martial arts; a media badge Smith says was his cover for an intelligence-gathering mission for a classified agency during which he was shot in 2004; and a folder stamped with Orientation Program, along with a stapled packet containing a schedule. If you displayed some talent, you might get a nod from one of SCGs professional tough guyslawmen and military veterans who could, if they wanted, find you a job with the company someday. Smith was initially friendly when we interviewed him last spring, and he talked over the phone in a good-natured way. Enemy of the State (1998) They won, but they havent succeeded in getting him to pay up, partly because he left the country for much of the past two years and has been very hard to find. Records reviewed by The Daily Beast indicate that Smith quit an ROTC summer training program in June 1993. He hadnt received a paycheck in ten months. In 2009, Smith testified that he didnt see anything wrong with hiring Titus at SCG just three weeks after Titus had been indicted on fraud charges. Big haired, charismatic, and a Regent University law grad like Smith, Titus took to organizing asset-protection seminars to lure investors. Sets Season 2 Premiere Get First Look at Chicago Homage. The CIA doesnt usually tap untrained, 20-year-old undergrads to become agents. My only military training was as an Eagle Scout.. Wag the Dog (1997) James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O.J. It featured a shoot house built for teaching forced-entry tactics and room clearing. Smith had the land graded for a gun range and talked about bigger plans: kennels for Boudreaus guard dogs, a helipad for quick travel to and fro, a gun shop for tactical weapons and gear, and even a replica Middle Eastern village for training. What could possibly go wrong? Its an incredible story, both hard to believe and, given the nature of espionage work, even harder to verify. When pressed now, Smith says he was the founder of a division of it. Running for re-election in District 15! One of his former bosses at the firm, Gary Jackson, describes Smith as a low-level administrator in the months following 9/11. Smith often claims he earned an LLM in taxation, even listing the degrees BPA, JD, LLM under his byline in old SCG newsletters, but in court Smith admitted that he never finished. In fact, Smith simultaneously enrolled in an Ole Miss ROTC program and the National Guard in the fall of 1992meaning he joined up after the time he says he was a spookbut he dropped out in 1993, at which point the Guard discharged him. I had no idea what kind of book he was going to write.. He started small, advertising personal-protection services for wealthy international travelers. While investigating a case involving a missing porn actress, a private eye (Ryan Gosling) and an enforcer (Russell Crowe) uncover a conspiracy involving auto manufacturers and corrupt politicians. DeLaurentis handled a lot of the Air Force training at Fort Dix. Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Ed Harris star. 5 talking about this. What is the interest in little me when the books not even out yet, by Outside magazine? The wording in Grays press releases is taken nearly verbatim from old SCG materials. You have to treat the book as a work of fiction, says James Hughes, who retired from the CIA in 2005 after a long career in the agency and now sits on the board of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. During SCGs heyday, between 2008 and 2012, the U.S. government and local law-enforcement agencies paid a lot of money to get people trained so they could function capably in war zones, shoot-outs, and other dicey situations. Like Smith, Titus professed to be very religious. The SCG compound was the hub for a major international operation that touted offices in London, Dubai, Islamabad, Buenos Aires, and Kabul. In 2010, Smith kept working to broaden his public reach, and he briefly became a fixture on cable news, appearing as a talking-head expert on counterterrorism and security. We were supposed to take him at his word. Later, the $10 million was transferred to an account that allowed Smith to invest it in new assets, including land and other necessities for SCG. From the beginning, Smith wanted SCG International to be as successful as Blackwater. We were here for 20-hour days.. I do believe that he was at CIA, probably as an intern, Johnson says. The government tries to silence a career thief who witnessed the President commit a crime. Jamie Smith is challenging conservative Rep. Kelly Chambers for Legislative District 25, Position 1. The South Panola Tigers have the fifth-longest winning streak in high school history. Both Morrows representatives and Smiths suggested looking to the CIA, both claiming it had reviewed Smiths book. This Michelangelo Antonioni film starred David Hemmings as a photographer who discovers the clues to a potential murder in the photos he took of a beautiful woman. Former SCG trainers like Cusanno and Watts says Smith loved action and loved the game-playing aspects of SCG most of all: the paintball fights, the secret meetings, the rescue missions in the shoot house. Smith disputes such claims in his libel suit. Father. HarperCollins did not deny Baers assertion that he was never contacted by the publisher despite his blurb appearing on the books back cover. He had a calm demeanor, like he knew things., To Sanford, Smith casually mentioned all the work hed done in foreign countries, saying that hed had experience carrying diplomatic pouches and working with foreign banks. 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When The Daily Beast posed questions to Smiths publisher and PR agent about his book, a brief exchange led to this note from his lawyer, David Oliver: Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.. If only the government had listened to him, Smith suggests, the deadly consulate attack in Benghazi would have never happened, and the Syrian civil war would have ended in 2012. Much of Smiths story centers on his role at Blackwater, which sent private soldiers to both Iraq and Afghanistan during the American occupations there. Do you get the idea?. That presents a problem for both the author and his publisher, HarperCollins, who are trying to sell a book freshly stocked on the non-fiction shelves while some veterans of the intelligence community denounce it as a fabrication. Jamie Smith is a decorated former CIA officer, founding Director of Blackwater Security, Vice President of Blackwater Training and subsequently the CEO of SCG International. For a young adult venturing out to their first apartment, this virtual design project captures her creative, free spirit, love of the beach, and . Any advice which may be given in respect of non-securities services is given by Jamie Smith solely and no such . Such stunts were the stuff you do in ninth and tenth grade that most people grow out of, says Andy Yelton, who went to high school and college with Smith. When questioned about his past, Smith has mostly let his lawyer do the talking. Simpson star. People have a right to their opinions, and they have a right to be wrong, Hedley wrote. The CIA declined to discuss Smithofficials there dont usually talk about who has and hasnt worked for the agencyso we asked an independent expert if his story sounded feasible. JFKs assassination made viewers more suspicious and thats reflected in our films. 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