Colombia Intelligence Scandal Funded by U.S.? Two Members of Congress Demand to Know

Two leading congressional human rights advocates this week wrote four Obama cabinet officials asking for a comprehensive accounting of U.S. aid to Colombia’s scandal-ridden intelligence agency following a Washington Post story that U.S. funds were reportedly used for illegal activities, including spying and smear campaigns against Supreme Court justices and civil society groups.

In a September 7, 2011 letter to the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Attorney General and the CIA Director, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) asked that the information be provided as rapidly as possible, “but assuredly prior to when Congress begins debate on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”

Their letter comes in response to an August 21, 2011 story in the Washington Post that U.S. “cash, equipment, and training, supplied to elite units of the Colombian intelligence service [DAS, the Department of Administrative Security] over the past decade to help smash cocaine-trafficking rings, were used to carry out spying operations and smear campaigns” against former President Uribe’s Administration during 2002-2010.