This article titled “‘Russian spy’ researcher used MP’s email and controlled his computer” was written by Rajeev Syal and Luke Harding, for The Guardian on Friday 10th December 2010 20.51 UTC

A parliamentary researcher awaiting deportation to Russia for suspected espionage controlled the office computer of the MP for whom she worked and used his parliamentary email address.

Ekaterina Zatuliveter, the assistant of Mike Hancock, was also the subject of a complaint to the Liberal Democrat whips’ office after accusing an intern of trying to read files stored on the office hard drive, the Guardian has learned.

The disclosures raise fresh questions about Zatuliveter’s access to information and whether she could have used Hancock’s email to seek privileged information without his knowledge.

Zatuliveter, 25, was taken into custody on Thursday last week, reportedly on MI5′s orders. Her presence was claimed to be not “conducive to national security”. She is alleged to be the first Russian spy caught in parliament since the cold war.

She had worked for Hancock for two years when she was arrested and detained on immigration charges. Two former interns told the Guardian last week that Hancock had a “flirtatious” and “intimate” relationship with Zatuliveter, known by friends as Katia. Hancock tonight declined to comment on those allegations.

Hancock confirmed this week that Zatuliveter had access to his official email and sent messages from it. He has admitted he did not use one of two computers in his parliamentary office and left it to her.

Asked if he was aware she was sending emails from his parliamentary address, Hancock said: “Of course I was. I didn’t use the address at all. I had my own private address that she didn’t use. Other members of my staff in Portsmouth also access my parliamentary emails.

“I don’t use the computers – I just occasionally look at the internet. When I need to use it, I have to call up the computer people in the house for the password.

“I don’t think she used my email address to do anything behind my back.”

Zatuliveter was the subject of an official complaint in 2009 to the Lib Dems’ office by a fellow intern for alleged paranoid behaviour.

Zatuliveter accused the young woman, who had worked in the office for two weeks, of trying to read Hancock’s emails and personal files including bank accounts stored on the parliamentary computer.

The intern, who had already decided to leave her post, wrote in an email to Hollie Voyce in the whips’ office that the allegations were false and that Zatuliveter had shouted at her and acted in an unprofessional way.

A Lib Dem source said that the allegations from the intern were looked into by the whips’ office, who contacted Hancock. The MP said that at the heart of the dispute was a personality clash, but he stood by Zatuliveter’s version of events.

“The whips were told by me what had happened and were happy with this explanation,” he said.

Russia’s most senior diplomat in London this week warned that any attempts to remove Zatuliveter could result in recriminations in Moscow. Alexander Sternik, the chargé d’affaires at the Russian embassy, claimed the allegations were a smokescreen to hide Britain’s embarrassment over the WikiLeaks allegations and England’s failure to beat Russia in the race to host the 2018 World Cup.

Zatuliveter started working for Hancock in 2008 and had previously been an intern at the House of Commons. She was first stopped in the summer and police have interviewed her at least four times since.

She came to Britain three years ago to study for a master’s degree in peace studies at Bradford University. She has vowed to fight her deportation case.

Today the Russian embassy’s consul and doctor visited Zatuliveter at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire. They described her as in good spirits and confident that “justice will be done”.

The embassy said Zatuliveter had still not been given an explanation for her arrest, despite “numerous requests”. It described the reasons for her detention as “unsubstantiated”.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

(hat tip Breitbart TV)

As if it weren’t already outrageous enough that Nancy Pelosi lied to the entire country and smeared the CIA last week regarding her prior knowledge of waterboarding, today it was taken up a notch.

Incredibly it was newly minted democrat Arlen Specter who chose to carry Nancy’s water. Like any good democrat he viciously attacked the CIA and brought up agency scandals of the 1980’s as proof CIA doesn’t tell the truth.

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say ‘candid’; that’s too mild — to honesty," Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency’s involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair.

As loathsome as the democrats are when it comes to national security, this is just more than I can stomach.

What a bunch of low-down dirty cowards these democrats are. They don’t even have the balls to stand behind their decisions after 9/11 when everyone was just trying to keep this country safe.

Specter has always been an insufferable prick, but this is the most disgraceful thing he’s ever done.

I hope the CIA goes on a leaking marathon that drives Nancy Pelosi and her despicable cronies right out of Washington.

One of the reasons CIA had such piss poor intel on Iraq before the war is because the agency is deathly afraid of another scandal like ones in the 1980’s. They are the most risk-averse organization in the federal government.

They do anything to avoid a scandal, even if that means not getting critical intelligence. Democrats always strike fear into the hearts of the intelligence community every 10-15 years and make our country less safe.

It’s totally ridiculous to accuse the CIA of not informing Congress. Nancy is a filthy liar who’s not fit to serve anywhere.

Only a scumbag like Harry Reid would have the chutzpah to claim any responsibility for U.S. victory in Iraq. Any success we’ve had in Iraq has been in spite of him and his cowardly colleagues.

If you recall, Harry Reid went on national television fairly early on in the war and declared “the war is lost.” Which is a stunning statement for a U.S. senator to make while our men and women are on the battlefield.

In fact, prior to the Bush administration you’d be hard pressed to find a more treasonous statement by any member of Congress — ever. The bottom line is that Harry Reid is a real piece of sh*t. His outrageous behavior likely fed into Iraq’s insurgency and gave the terrorists a renewed hope they might win after all.

So, it’s particularly disgusting to see Reid on “Meet The Press” say this:

What a weasel. That really is horrible.

(hat tip Ace)

As expected, Senator Joe Lieberman will keep his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship. Some democrats could almost taste the revenge in the air, but president-elect Obama took took the wind out of their sails early on. Telling them to do whatever it takes to keep Lieberman who represents Connecticut. So the dems stripped him of a lesser subcommittee chairmanship, which amounts to a slap on the wrist. Think of it this way, Barack Obama was chairman of the subcommittee related to the war in Afghanistan but never held a single meeting — ever.

There was a very good chance that Lieberman would have become a republican had he been stripped of his chairmanship. While it’s certainly funny that liberal democrats couldn’t get their revenge, it’s a shame he won’t be joining the GOP. Lieberman’s a good man who cares about protecting this country more than adhering to a loony, liberal ideology.

-Chris Jones

This from Sen. DeMint’s blog:

We’ve just been alerted that despite House Democrats relenting on extending bans on offshore drilling and oil shale in the continuing resolution (CR) appropriations bill, Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout. Oil shale in America’s West is estimated to hold be between 800 billion and 2 trillion barrels of oil — that is more than three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia alone.

Dingy Harry just couldn’t resist trying to hamper America’s drive towards energy independence. Why does he like buying oil from the Saudi’s so much? Why does Harry not want America to get off of foreign oil? My guess would be that he caved to the eco-terror lobby that will do anything to keep America from using her vast natural resources.

He caved to hypocrite bastards like Al Gore and his junk science. Al doesn’t give a sh*t how high gas prices go because he can afford to gas up his private jet no matter what.

I guess this is Harry’s alternate way of damaging America since he wasn’t able to make us lose in Iraq.