House Panel to Probe CIA-S&L; Story
The chairman of a House subcommittee has asked CIA director William Webster to meet with the panel behind closed doors to discuss a published report of possible involvement of the spy agency in the savings and loan crisis.
Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Banking Committee’s financial institutions subcommittee, asked Webster in a letter Monday to meet with the panel about a story in Sunday’s Houston Post linking loans from 22 failed thrifts to people with ties to organized crime or the CIA.
“The allegations relating to the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency, its employees, or individuals associated with the agency, are serious and troubling,” Annunzio said in the letter.
The Houston newspaper said its sources suggested that the CIA may have used part of the proceeds from S&L; fraud to help pay for covert operations that Congress was unwilling to support publicly.
A CIA spokesman has denied that the agency used S&L; funds to finance covert activities.
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