Autumn 2001: FBI Hires Daughter of Pakistani Spy, Despite Internal Protests

The FBI hires Hadia Roberts, the daughter of a former Pakistani general who is thought to have worked as a spy in the US, despite objections by the FBI agent that vets her. John Cole, manager of the FBI national counter-intelligence program for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, says he is alerted to her by the personnel security officer, who thinks the woman might not be suitable as an Urdu translator.
Alarming Information – Cole examines the file and “it stuck out a mile: she was the daughter of a retired Pakistani general who had been their military attaché in Washington.” Cole is aware that “[e]very single military attaché they’ve ever assigned has been a known intelligence officer.” [Vanity Fair, 9/2005; Antiwar (.com), 10/8/2005; Sunday Times (London), 1/6/2008] In addition, several hits appear for her father’s name when it is run through the FBI’s computer and at one time he had been the subject of an FBI investigation, which is “an alarming piece of information that was somehow overlooked in the preliminary background check.” Further, the former attaché spends six months in the US a year, and Cole will later comment, “He’s got a lot of friends that are still there in military intelligence, and he more than likely talks to them frequently, living there as he does six months out of the year.” What is more, the results of Roberts’ polygraph examination are inconclusive, so Cole recommends she not be hired.
Hired Anyway – However, a week later she is given a job, top secret security clearance, and access to sensitive compartmentalized information. Colleagues say that Roberts frequently boasts her father is a retired general and say she is such an Islamic “zealot” that she tries to convert her colleagues to Islam. [Sperry, 2005, pp. 155-8] A few weeks later, an FBI field office finds that classified information has been provided to Pakistanis, but it is not known who leaked it, although an investigation will determine that it must have been either the technical agent or one of the Urdu translators. Roberts will still be translating Urdu for the FBI in July 2005, when this incident is first mentioned in the press. [Sperry, 2005, pp. 155-8; Vanity Fair, 9/2005; Antiwar (.com), 10/8/2005] Around this time the FBI is investigating a nuclear technology smuggling ring headed by Pakistani intelligence and allegedly assisted by top US officials (see Mid-Late 1990s, (1997-2002), and 2000-2001).