{"id":58665,"date":"2021-04-01T07:01:01","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=58665"},"modified":"2021-04-01T07:01:01","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:01:01","slug":"former-air-force-intelligence-officer-plays-prominent-role-in-25-mil-extortion-attempt-of-gaetz-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=58665","title":{"rendered":"Former Air Force Intelligence Officer Plays Prominent Role in $25 MIL Extortion Attempt of Gaetz Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gaetz \u2018Extortion\u2019 Figure’s Levinson Obsession<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Former USAF Intel officer Bob Kent raised $250,000 from ‘ex-CIA’ circles in aborted rescue plan years before approaching Trump Republican’s father<\/h3>\n

Jeff Stein
\nSpyTalk<\/p>\n

The mystery man at the center of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz\u2019s charges that he was the target of an extortion scheme to make sex trafficking charges go away is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer with business interests in the Middle East who has been obsessed for years with rescuing former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran.<\/p>\n

U.S. intelligence concluded years ago that Levinson, an FBI organized crime expert who disappeared in March 2007 during a covert CIA mission on Iran\u2019s Kish Island, had died in custody, either in Iran or in the hands of Islamic militants. Levinson\u2019s family\u00a0accepted<\/a>\u00a0that finding last year.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Bob Kent<\/a>, an Air Force \u201cspecial tactics\/intelligence officer\u201d from 2000 to 2007, remained undeterred. He never believed Levinson was dead and in 2018 began assembling a network of Iranian exile sources in Iraq, where he\u2019s been involved in the oil business, to gather information on Levinson\u2019s whereabouts and medical condition. Kent had also been an intelligence contractor with the U.S. government in Afghanistan, according to his\u00a0LinkedIn page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His sources had contacts inside Iran\u2019s security organs, Kent told me three years ago when I was preparing\u00a0a story for Newsweek<\/a>\u00a0on his and other private efforts to rescue Levinson.\u00a0He showed me interor ministry and other security agency documents he\u2019d obtained, which upon expert examination turned out to be a mix of clumsy fabrications and authentic papers of unconfirmed provenance. He now claims to have \u201cproof of life\u201d videos that the FBI says are \u201cinconclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shady money trees<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in 2018 he and his associates told me that men \u201cwith CIA connections” had offered to pay his Iranian helpers $100,000 for a proof-of-life package, including fingerprints and a blood sample and what he and Kent\u2019s associates claimed was a recent, 41-second video clip of Levinson. “Another $150,000” would be needed “for the rescue,” Kent told me.\u00a0But just as he was preparing to leave for the Middle East on Dec. 10, 2018, with $250,000 cash in hand for payoffs, he said, the federal government short-circuited the caper over sanctions issues related to Iran<\/p>\n

“I received a phone call informing me that the funding was withdrawn because the State Department and\/or FBI threatened my sponsors” with prosecution, Kent told me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three years later, according to reports this week, Kent went looking for funding for another Levinson rescue mission, this time from Matt Gaetz\u2019s father, a wealthy Florida businessman. According to copies of messages obtained by the conservative\u00a0Washington Examiner<\/a><\/em>\u00a0newspaper, Kent told Don Gaetz that he could make his son\u2019s \u201cfuture legal and political problems go away\u201d if he backed a rescue plan that would end up wrapping his son in wreaths of glory. Kent allegedly told the elder Gaetz that he would give his congressman son \u201ccredit for the operation\u201d and help arrange \u201ca presidential pardon for unnamed legal issues\u201d if he put up $25 million for the operation, according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur strategy for Congressman Gaetz to mitigate his legal, and political, troubles would be for him, or someone else, to arrange for the funds required to obtain the immediate release of Robert Levinson from captivity in Iran,\u201d the proposal said. \u201c.\u2009.\u2009. In exchange for the funds being arranged, and upon release of Robert Levinson, Congressman Gaetz shall be given credit for facilitating the release of Mr. Levinson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Gaetz, an ardent Trump Republican, is being investigated by the Justice Department over \u201cwhether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him,\u201d the\u00a0New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported Tuesday, citing three people briefed on the matter. The congressman has vehemently denied the accusation and said he\u2019s been caught up in a $25 million shakedown for the Levinson rescue.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Don Gaetz says he met on March 17 with Kent, who gave him a three-page document outlining the \u201cProject Homecoming\u201d rescue plan,\u00a0according to the\u00a0Examiner<\/em>. Kent asked in the document that the $25 million \u201cloan\u201d be deposited in the trust account of the Beggs & Land law firm, in the care of partner David L. McGee, a former federal prosecutor who has represented the Levinson family.<\/p>\n

Matt Gaetz went on TV Tuesday night to name McGee as part of the alleged \u201cextortion\u201d plot.<\/p>\n

McGee responded in the\u00a0Daily Beast<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthat any claims that he or his law firm were involved in extortion are “completely, totally false,” adding, \u201cThis is a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that Matt Gaetz is apparently about to be indicted for sex trafficking underage girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlikely suspect<\/strong><\/p>\n

Karl Milligan<\/a>, a former senior intelligence detective with the Prince Georges, Md.,\u00a0 police department, who has worked with McGee on the Levinson case as well as several other investigations, told\u00a0SpyTalk<\/em>\u00a0the accusations against McGee didn\u2019t make any sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have worked on numerous international projects together and I\u2019ve never seen him cross the line,\u201d Milligan said of McGee in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid McGee is the most honest professional I\u2019ve ever worked with. I would be shocked if the allegations are true.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SpyTalk<\/em>\u00a0reached out to Kent for comment Wednesday. He said he would not make any public comment on the allegations at the present time.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.spytalk.co\/p\/gaetz-extortion-figures-levinson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaetz \u2018Extortion\u2019 Figure’s Levinson Obsession Former USAF Intel officer Bob Kent raised $250,000 from ‘ex-CIA’ circles in aborted rescue plan years before approaching Trump Republican’s father<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}