A spy in Cheney's office has been arrested, ABC News is reporting:

Both the FBI and CIA are calling it the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history.

Officials tell ABC News the alleged spy worked undetected at the White House for almost three years. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was a U.S. Marine most recently assigned to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I don't know of a case where the vetting broke down before and resulted in a spy being in the White House," said Richard Clarke, a former White House advisor who is now an ABC News consultant.

Federal investigators say Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, used his top secret clearance to steal classified intelligence documents from White House computers.

In 2000, Aragoncillo worked on the staff of then-Vice President Al Gore. When interviewed by Philippine television, he remarked how valued Philippine employees were at the White House.

"I think what they like most is our integrity and loyalty," Aragoncillo said.

Officials say the classified material, which Aragoncillo stole from the vice president's office, included damaging dossiers on the president of the Philippines. He then passed those on to opposition politicians planning a coup in the Pacific nation.

"Even though it's not for the Russians or some other government, the fact that it occurred at the White House is a matter of great concern," said John Martin, who was the government's lead espionage prosecutor for 26 years.

Last year, after leaving the Marines, Aragoncillo was caught by the FBI while he worked for the Bureau at an intelligence center at Fort Monmouth, N.J.

According to a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was arrested last month and accused of downloading more than 100 classified documents from FBI computers.

"The information was transferred mostly by e-mails," said U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie at the time of Aragoncillo's arrest.

Since that arrest, officials say Aragoncillo has started to cooperate.

Aragoncillo began working at the White House in 1999. Officials are now trying to learn how he landed the job, when he started spying, and how he escaped detection for so long.

"Of course, it is a source of embarrassment when you find out that this kind of activity has been carried out literally right under your nose," said Martin, the former espionage prosecutor.

According to friends, in addition to his work for Cheney and Gore, Aragoncillo claimed he also worked with President Clinton and Condoleezza Rice when she was the national security advisor.

Update: The New York Times has a different take: Aragoncillo was working for the FBI when he was charged with spying for the Philipine opposition:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday night that it has expanded a New Jersey espionage investigation in an effort to determine whether one of its own agents, charged last month with spying for the Philippines, may have also had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office several years ago.

The F.B.I. agent, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., an American citizen who was born in the Philippines, was charged Sept. 12 with passing classified information to government officials in Manila.

The charges filed against Mr. Aragoncillo relate only to classified information that officials say Mr. Aragoncillo took from F.B.I. computers after joining the agency in July 2004.

But the investigation is widening, government officials said, in light of the fact that he had worked for several years prior to joining the agency as a Marine in the vice president's office under both Al Gore and Mr. Cheney. A former administration official said that Mr. Aragoncillo had briefly worked as an aide in Mr. Cheney's office, as a holdover from Mr. Gore's staff. Military aides frequently rotate through those offices and usually hold security clearances.

ABC News reported Wednesday night that Mr. Aragoncillo had also stolen classified material from White House computers at the vice president's office, including information damaging to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

On Wednesday night, government officials said they had no corroboration that any material had been taken from the vice president's office, but they acknowledged that investigators have been focusing on Mr. Aragoncillo's work at the White House.

"As a result of this recent situation, they're going back to look at his earlier work to see if other stuff may have been compromised," said a government official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The White House refused Wednesday to comment on the case.

"It is an ongoing investigation and, as such, all questions should be directed to the F.B.I.," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. "We are cooperating fully with the investigation."

Richard Kolko, an F.B.I. special agent, said, "We're going to do a full investigation of the entire time he had access to any classified or sensitive information, and in the course of the investigation, we will do all due diligence to determine if any other improper activity occurred."

Also charged in the case last month in New Jersey was a friend of Mr. Aragoncillo, Michael Ray Aquino, 39, of Queens, who was deputy director of the Philippines National Police under the government of the former president, Joseph Estrada.

The complaint accused Mr. Aragoncillo of passing copies of classified documents about the Philippines to Mr. Aquino between February and August of this year, after he joined the bureau, by using cellphone text messages and e-mail messages.

Mr. Aquino was arrested in March on immigration charges for overstaying his visa. Investigators began looking at Mr. Aragoncillo after he sought to intervene on his friend's behalf and agents became suspicious, according to the complaint.

A search of F.B.I. computer records showed that Mr. Aragoncillo had conducted extensive keyword searches on agency computers for information related to the Philippines and had printed or downloaded 101 classified documents on the subject. More than three dozen documents were classified secret.

More from the Post:

...ABC News reported last night that Aragoncillo had admitted taking classified documents while he worked in Cheney's office...

Former Philippines president Joseph Estrada, who was forced from office four years ago by mass demonstrations, has acknowledged receiving documents from Aragoncillo while the suspect was still in the U.S. Marines. Estrada told a Philippine newspaper last month that Aragoncillo had passed on material while visiting him at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Manila, where the former president was receiving treatment while being held on corruption charges from 2001 through 2003. Part of that stay would coincide with Aragoncillo's time in Cheney's office. Estrada remains under house arrest...

Aragoncillo retired in 2004 after 21 years as a U.S. Marine and began working for the FBI as an intelligence analyst. Reports apparently based on the classified material allegedly downloaded by Aragoncillo are being published in the Philippines. The reports reveal not only sources of sensitive U.S. information but include frank and unflattering assessments of Philippine leaders.

In once such report published in a Manila newspaper, comments attributed to diplomats at the U.S. Embassy described Arroyo as weak and overbearing with little popular credibility. Her vice president was called inept and unfit to take her place. Clandestine discussions among dissident soldiers were detailed and the president's chances of surviving a coup were weighed. [...]

According to the criminal complaint, federal investigators first took an interest in Aragoncillo after he tried to intervene on behalf of Aquino, who had been arrested in March for overstaying a tourist visa.

Aquino had come to the United States almost four years earlier and settled in New York. When he left his homeland, he was under indictment in the Philippines for involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a public relations executive, who had quarreled with Estrada, and the man's driver.

After Aragoncillo contacted U.S. immigration officials this spring, identifying himself as an FBI employee and Aquino's friend, the FBI launched an audit of its internal database, which offers access to documents from various government agencies.

Investigators discovered Aragoncillo had used his top-secret clearance to download and print information relating to the Philippines although the material was outside his area of assignment, the complaint alleged. He then allegedly forwarded the information by e-mail, telephone and text message to the officials in the Philippines.

Federal prosecutors have charged the men with conspiracy and acting as unregistered agents under the direction of foreign officials. Aquino's lawyer has denied the allegations. Aragoncillo has offered no public statement.

A U.S. official familiar with the investigation said Aragoncillo was paid to steal the information he obtained, but e-mail messages cited in the complaint also portrayed him as having a interest in shaping the politics of his birthplace...

Posted by Laura at October 5, 2005 08:43 PM