CONGRESSIONAL AIDE ARRESTED AS IRAQI SPY: The Smoking Gun has the indictment, and this summary:

A former Democratic congressional aide was arrested today on charges that she worked as an Iraqi spy. Susan Lindauer, 41, has been charged with conspiring to work with the Iraqi Intelligence Service and engaging in prohibited financial transactions with Saddam Hussein’s government, according to the below indictment unsealed today by federal prosecutors in New York. Lindauer, arrested this morning at her Maryland home, allegedly met with Iraqi agents during several visits to the country’s U.N. mission, where she “accepted various payments” in return “for services provided to the IIS in the course of her ongoing intelligence relationship with them.” Lindauer, who also allegedly traveled to Iraq in early-2002 to meet with IIS agents, has previously worked as a press spokesperson for several elected officials, including former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and congressmen Ron Wyden and Peter DeFazio. (14 pages).

Many in the blogosphere have been speculating about Saddam making payoffs in the U.S., but this is the first case to materialize. It’s likely not the last.

More background and links here, where we also learn that she’s a former journalist, and that she signed this peace pledge. If I were a spy, I wouldn’t have done that.

UPDATE: More background here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: CNN says nothing about her backgound. [Okay, actually it’s an AP story on CNN.com. Still. . .]

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Charles Austin emails:

Maybe I’m just too attuned to it, but when I saw
the headline: Ex-Congressional Aide Charged With Spying

and read the first sentence:

A former journalist and congressional press secretary was arrested Thursday on charges she acted as an Iraqi spy before and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, accepting $10,000 for her work, prosecutors said Thursday.

I thought immediately that it had to be a Democratic staffer. Otherwise, the word Republican would have been trumpeted loudly and I wouldn’t have had to wait until the fourth paragraph to find out the accused spy previously worked for Representative Wyden and Senator Mosley-Braun. By no means am I trying to imply that Representative Wyden or Senator Mosley-Braun knew or should have known anything about this, but just noting the Big Media dog that so often doesn’t bark at passing Democrats.

Indeed. See, if she had worked for a Republican who supported the war, it would be evidence of the hypocrisy of war supporters. But since she worked for Democrats, well, it’s just one of those crazy things that happen, of no particular significance in the greater scheme.

MORE: More on Lindauer and Libya, here, in a report that summarizes the indictment linked above.

STILL MORE: Reader David Hines emails:

Just saw the NBC evening news: Tom Brokaw not only skipped the substantial aspects of the indictment (her being paid ten grand *and* her willingness to perform aid and comfort when she believed she was aiding the “Iraqi resistance” with Libyan help), but he neglected to mention that she was a former journalist and former Democratic congressional aide.

He did take pains to report that she was a second cousin of White House staffer Andy Card.

I didn’t see it, but I can’t say I’m surprised to hear this.