updated Mon. October 16, 2023
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Consortium News
March 3, 2018
Jeffrey Sterling, the case officer for the CIA's covert “Operation Merlin,” who was convicted in May 2015 for allegedly revealing details of that operation to James Risen of the New York Times, was released from prison in January after serving more than two years of a 42-month sentence. He had been triedÃâà...
New York Times
January 16, 2018
WASHINGTON — A former C.I.A. officer suspected by investigators of helping China dismantle United States spying operations and identify informants has been arrested, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The collapse of the spy network was one of the American government's worst intelligenceÃâà...
STLtoday.com
June 20, 2017
During my time working for the CIA, I felt compelled to report my concerns about Operation Merlin to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as I believed the operation would compromise the safety of the American people and our troops who were being sent to war in Iraq. By approaching thisÃâà...
Shadowproof (blog)
April 29, 2017
During a trial in January 2015, the government convinced a jury, with largely circumstantial evidence, that Sterling leaked information about “Operation Merlin” to New York Times reporter James Risen, who published details on the operation in a chapter of his book, “State of War.” The former CIA officer wasÃâà...
Huffington Post
February 25, 2015
With negotiations between Iran and the United States at a pivotal stage, fallout from the trial's revelations about the CIA's Operation Merlin is likely to cause the International Atomic Energy Agency to re-examine U.S. assertions that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. In its zeal to prosecute Sterling forÃâà...
Huffington Post
February 3, 2015
The leak trial of CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling never got near a smoking gun, but the entire circumstantial case was a smokescreen. Prosecutors were hell-bent on torching the defendant to vindicate Operation Merlin, nine years after a book by James Risen reported that it “may have been one of the mostÃâà...
Newsweek
January 27, 2015
Sterling, 47, a 10-year veteran of the spy agency, was accused of telling reporter James Risen about a bizarre, failed CIA operation to derail Iran's nuclear weapons program by providing it with deliberately misleading technical blueprints, supposedly from a disaffected Russian scientist code-named Merlin.
Middle East Eye
January 23, 2015
The jury is still out in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling for allegedly having leaked the story of “Operation Merlin” - the covert CIA effort to lure Iran into working on phony plans for a key component of a nuclear weapon - to New York Times reporter James Risen. But “Operation Merlin” itself wasÃâà...
Business Insider
January 13, 2015
In February 2000, the CIA went forward with a covert operation called Operation Merlin to stunt the nuclear development of Iran by gifting them a flawed blueprint of an actual nuclear weapon. It all started when the CIA persuaded a defected Russian nuclear engineer (who was granted citizenship and aÃâà...
