A #Muckrakers Life, Interrupted / #Boston #Bombing

Daniel Hopsicker

Last week, after almost four months of silence, I published a 2400-word initial account about what’s been learned about the man who became a daily fixture on cable and network news when his nephews were accused in the Boston attack. Ruslan Tsarni is also—and not coincidentally—an unacknowledged spook with ties to the CIA. 

On a personal note, I figured the astonishing news would let my four-month absence here pass unnoticed. I was wrong. Major scandals and jaw-dropping disclosures no longer pack the wallop they once did. After last week’s story I received expressions of concern—”Daniel, I was getting worried that we’d lost you!”— and more pointed questions as well: “Where have you been?” 

So that—the personal note—is mostly what this story is about. That, along with a few observations about the extraordinary world of Ruslan Tsarn, filled with people who run the gamut from fugitive billionaire bankers to England’s Prince Andrew, from what a Judge in London called an “international network of criminals,” to Chechen terrorists. 

Did the CIA commandeer the Boston bombing investigation?

Daniel Hopsicker

It’s been more than 300 years ago since demonic possession figured as heavily in a criminal probe as it has in the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing.

Not since the Salem Witch Trials has the search for accomplices to a major crime centered so heavily on finding a suspect who believed he could talk to demons.

"He took (and ate?) his brains"

Since the remaining of the two brothers accused of planting the bombs was found cowering under a tarpaulin in a boat in a backyard in Watertown Massachusetts two weeks ago, coverage of the bombing by the most respected organs of the American mainstream media has been full of breathless updates—delivered with a straight face—about the progress of an FBI manhunt for a red-haired Muslim who talked to demons, dabbled in exorcism, and walked around carrying other people’s brains.

The drumbeat was started by Ruslan Tsarni, who became famous as “Uncle Ruslan” for his forthright condemnation of the attack in a now-famous news conference on his front lawn just four days after the Boston Marathon Bombing.

“There is someone who brainwashed him, some new convert to Islam,’’ Tsarni said. I would like to stress (the acquaintance was) of Armenian descent.’’

Since then he has been using the media to press investigators to find Misha, a man who appeared to combine the worst features of villains from two different horror movies.

“The Exorcist” meets “The Walking Dead.”

"This person just took his brain. He just brainwashed him completely," Tsarnaev's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, told CNN from his home in Maryland, describing the friend as an Armenian convert to Islam.

“The bombers' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, depicts Misha as a Rasputin-like figure who "took [Tamerlan's] brain" and said that his presence soon became a source of tension within the family,” reported USA Today.

Also citing the boys' uncle, London’s Daily Mail reported that “Misha used to give one-on-one sermons to Tamerlan over the kitchen table, during which he claimed he could talk to demons.”

Tsarni, Tsarnaev's uncle, told CNN he was so concerned about someone brainwashing his nephew that he called a family friend in the Cambridge area to investigate.

"I said, 'Listen, do you know what is going on with that family? With my brother's family?' Then he says … there is a person, some new convert into Islam of Armenian descent," Tsarni told CNN's Shannon Travis.

Tsarni said, "Armenians, I have no intention to say anything about Armenians.”

Then he proceeded to do just that. “It's a neighboring region with North Caucasus," the same area where the Tsarnaev family also hails from.”

A red-haried Armenian exorcist…with a big mouth…in Cambridge

Tsarni described Misha as being "chubby, a big guy, big mouth presenting himself with some kind of abilities as exorcist . . . having some part-time job in one of the stores, not married. All of the qualifications of a loser, just another big mouth.”

According to Uncle Ruslan, Misha, over a considerable period of time, had radicalized Tamerlan.

“But there are signs that Tamerlan had become radicalized — apparently from a friend in the United States named “Mischa” — described as a Russian of Armenian descent who was a relatively recent convert to Islam and who lived in Cambridge, according by Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni,” NBC reported.

Tsarni told NBC News that Mischa presented himself as an “exorcist” who specialized in “removing demons from people’s bodies.”

Not a day went by without references in the press to the search for Misha. There were literally hundred of news reports about him. Very soon, it began to appear there was nothing new to be said.

But that didn’t stop anyone. Reported New York magazine:

“According to reports, family members point the finger at a man identified only as Misha, a friend whom Tamerlan knew through a local mosque. Misha is described as a bald, red-bearded, 30-year-old Armenian convert to Islam who "claimed to be an exorcist who is fighting with demons."

OMG…you mean he's even scarier than…Alex Jones?

There was also a half-hearted attempt to draw Alex Jones into the controversy. Reported the Atlantic Magazine online:

“The major development in the sleuthing of the Tsarnaev brothers, specifically sinister Tamerlan, involves a red-bearded exorcist named Misha.”

“Tamerlan listened to Alex Jones's popular and usually looney radio show Infowars. BuzzFeed's Rosie Grey reached out to Jones to see how he felt about having a suspected terrorist as a listener.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone asking Alex Jones, “How does that make you feel.” But the effort to smear him was no doubt duly noted. But the problem with doing any serious damage to Alex Jones was simple: When you’re lookng for an Armenian exorcist who talks with demons, slandering a poor radio host in the bargain loses its lustre.

The fever over finding Misha finally broke when somebodsy actually found him. Christian Caryl of the New York Times Review of Books scored the first media interview with Misha. In her interview with the alleged Boston Bomber’s ‘Svengali,’ he told her he hadn’t seen or spoken to anyone in the Tsarnaev family for more than three years.

Ooops! Uncle Ruslan’s response spoke volumes about him. Was he abashed? Far from it. He changed his story without batting an eye, and turned his attention to a secondary target, a woman who, if you're trying to create a distraction, is right out of Central Casting.

“Check out Bomb Mom”

Ruslan dismissed Zubeidat, who was arrested last year for stealing $1,600 of lingerie from a department store, as a ‘bad character’.

“Ruslan Tsarni, told the AP from his home in Maryland that he believed his former sister-in-law had a "big-time influence" on her older son's growing embrace of his Muslim faith and decision to quit boxing and school.”

“ Ruslan Tsarni claimed that Zubeidat allowed a firebrand cleric into their house to give one-on-one sermons to Tamerlan over the kitchen table during which he claimed he could talk to demons and perform exorcisms.”

He told London Daily MailOnline : ‘The change of the older boy, one of the biggest causes is her. ‘First she started playing into this religious crap, they say is a devotion to Islam.”

"I work. Why do you want to know?"

Tsarni was cagey with reporters about what he did for a living.

“Tsarni was careful not to give out too much information, reported the Washington Post. “When asked about his profession, he responded, “I work, I work.’”

And with good reason, because for the past twenty years he has almost certainly been a CIA asset operating in a number of former Soviet Republics.

Tsarni’s bio, in an official SEC filing, stated he worked for the US Agency for International Development, USAID, during the early 1990’s. Bloomberg Business Review revealed last week that since 2008, he’s again been working for USAID.

Famously, USAID workers build schools, as well as provide cover for CIA assets overseas. Recently they were thrown out of Russia. Just last week, they were asked to leave Bolivia.

In between his stints with the obviously-conflicted US Agency, Ruslan Tsarni worked for several Halliburton-controlled oil companies, as well as a Kazakh man charged with a major banking scandal in Kazakhstan whose repercussions earlier this year stretched all the way to London.

Maybe Ruslan Tsarni’s commute car doesn't bear a “smoking gun” parking sticker from CIA headquarters in Langley. But neither his bio nor his demeanor since the bombings qualify him for a “Humanitarian of the Year” award, either.

Of demons, exorcists, and shoddy shoddy journalism

The search for foreign involvement in the Boston Marathon Bombings has been a sad joke.

The fact that no one has stood up and called "shenanigans" on the mainstream purveyors of what is supposed to be responsible journalism in this country is a national disgrace.

When you look at how this happened, its hard not to suspect that a “higher power” than the FBI was steering the investigation.

This raises the strong possibility that the FBI’s investigation into the bombing has been manipulated, or steered, by the CIA.

In the post-mortems to come on the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, the crucial question will be: Who was behind this effort, and why?

A big question is what Uncle Ruslan stood to gain by making accusations about Misha.

If you’re on a CIA’s crisis management team, and your job is to play for time and try to run the clock out on the American people’s attention span, the result might look something very much like the last two weeks in America.

And if your goal was to forestall pointed questions about Ruslan Tsarni and top CIA official Graham Fuller’s roles in the Tsarnaevs family’s frequent trips to Dagestan, you couldn’t have played it better.

Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official

Daniel Hopsicker

The uncle of the two suspected Boston bombers in last week’s attack, Ruslan Tsarni, was married to the daughter of former top CIA official Graham Fuller

The discovery that Uncle Ruslan Tsarni had spy connections that go far deeper than had been previously known is ironic, especially since the mainstrean media's focus yesterday was on a feverish search to find who might have recruited the Tsarnaev brothers.

The chief suspect was a red-haired Armenian exorcist. They were fingering a suspect who may not, in fact, even exist.

It was like blaming one-armed hippies on acid for killing your wife.

Ruslan Tsarni married the daughter of former top CIA official Graham Fuller, who spent 20 years as operations officer in Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong. In 1982 Fuller was appointed the National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia at the CIA, and in 1986, under Ronald Reagan, he became the Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, with overall responsibility for national level strategic forecasting.

At the time of their marriage, Ruslan Tsarni was known as Ruslan Tsarnaev, the same last name as his nephews Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged bombers.

It is unknown when he changed his last name to Tsarni.

What is known is that sometime in the early 1990’s, while she was a graduate student in North Carolina, and he was in law school at Duke, Ruslan Tsarnaev met and married Samantha Ankara Fuller, the daughter of Graham and Prudence Fuller of Rockville Maryland. Her middle name suggests a reference to one of her father’s CIA postings.

The couple divorced sometime before 2004.

Today Ms. Fuller lives abroad, and is a director of several companies pursuing strategies to increase energy production from clean-burning and renewable resources.

On a more ominous note, Graham Fuller was listed as one of the American Deep State rogues on Sibel Edmonds' State Secrets Privilege Gallery,. Edmonds explained it featured subjects of FBI investigations she became aware of during her time as an FBI translator.

Criminal activities were being protected by claims of State Secrets, she asserted. After Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to muzzle her under a little-used doctrine of State Secrets, she put up twenty-one photos, with no names.

One of them was Graham Fuller.

"Congress of Chechen International" c/o Graham Fuller

A story about a Chechen oik exec/uncle pairing up with a top CIA official who once served as CIA Station Chief in Kabul sounds like a pitch for a bad movie.

But the two men may have been in business together.

In 1995, Tsarnaev incorporated the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Maryland, using as the address listed on incorporation documents 11114 Whisperwood Ln, in Rockville Maryland, the home address of his then-father-in-law.

It is just eight miles up the Washington National Pike from the Montgomery Village home where “Uncle Ruslan” met—and apparently wowed, the press after the attack in Boston.

The Washington Post yesterday called him a "media maven," while nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist Ester Cepeda , in a piece with the headline “The Wise Words of Uncle Ruslan” opined that he was her choice for "an award for bravery in the face of adversity.”

Success through indirection, mis-direction, redirection, and protection

Uncle Ruslan’s spy connections go far deeper than was already known, which was that he spent two years working in Kazakhstan for USAID.

But the mainstream media was lookng the other way.

Under the headline “Did 'Misha' influence Tsarnaevs? In Watertown, doubts,” USA Today reported: “Misha. A new name has emerged in the Boston Marathon bombing case—one familiar to the family of the two young men accused of the atrocity and apparently of interest to the Russian and American security services as well.”

Ruslan Tsarni was the first to bring up the supposed man's supposed name. Or rather, he brought up a first name: Misha. But it was enough. We were off to the races…

Attention all cars: Be on lookout for chubby Armenian exorcist

Tsarni described Misha to CNN as being "chubby, a big guy, big mouth presenting himself with some kind of abilities as exorcist . . . having some part-time job in one of the stores, not married. All of the qualifications of a loser, just another big mouth.”

According to Uncle Ruslan, Misha was the man who over a considerable period of time had radicalized Tamerlan.

It seemed strange, then, that in contrast to his “you are there” verbal picture of the man, even with all his supposed concerns, and given his high level of education and abundant resources (Big Sky Energy was paying him in excess of $200,00 a year, according to documents filed with the SEC) Ruslan had somehow never found out just who the bad guy was.

He never got a name, something that in spook-dom is considered something of a faux pas. Then again, no one else had either.

Worse, Tsarni's vivid description seemed to be taken from personal observation, from, in other words…real life. But that isn’t possible. Tsarni had stated he hadn’t been physically in the presence of his Boston relatives since December 2005. And Misha, if he existed, didn’t show up on the scene until 2008 at the earliest.

Still, just a few days later, the entire family began chiming in. Misha anecdotes were flying fast & furious, and the nation’s scribblers were busy uncritically scribbling down their every word.

Maybe their Twitter account got hacked again?

No performance was nearly as masterful, however, as that of the Associated Press.

“Bomb suspect influenced by mysterious radical,” reported the Associated Press.

"Tamerlan's relationship with Misha could be a clue in understanding the motives behind his religious transformation and, ultimately, the attack itself," reported the Associate Press. Only to take it all back in the very next line.

"Two U.S. officials say he had no tie to terrorist groups."

The AP’s “story” about the mysterious “Misha” was 1145 words, long enough for an editor to squeeze in a caveat.

“It was not immediately clear whether the FBI has spoken to Misha or was attempting to,” the national wire service reported. “Efforts over several days by The Associated Press to identify and interview Misha have been unsuccessful.”

The big difference: when you do it, its conspiracy theory. When we do it, its informed speculation.

In any other context, this might be seen as the rankest kind of “conspiracy theory.” But, apparently, when the Associated Press does it, its news.

Then Uncle Ruslan made a clear mis-step.

“An uncle of the alleged bombers claims that Misha, an Armenian convert to Islam, had a huge influence on the elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Describing him as an "Armenia exorcist, Tsarni said, “Somehow he just took his brain.”

Armenians are a deeply-rooted Christian community, which is proud of the fact that their country was the first in the world to adopt Christianity as state religion in 301 AD.

Moreover this is the week every year when they remember the Armenian Holocaust, when as many as 1,000,000 Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish Muslims.

In the large and close-knit Boston Armenian community, a red-bearded Armenian named Misha becoming a radicalized Muslim would stand out.

"I've never heard of him, nor has anyone that I know," Hilda Avedissian, executive director at the Armenian Cultural & Educational Centre.

So what if the guy was involved with biggest bank fraud in history?

"For an Armenian to convert to Islam is like finding a unicorn in a field," Nerses Zurabyan, 32, an information technology director who lives in nearby Cambridge told USA Today.

The report reveals that the bomber’s Uncle, made famous for his outspoken condemnation of his nephew’s which aired repeatedly on international news networks, is a well-connected oil executive who at one point worked for a Halliburton shell company used as a front to obtain oil contracts from the Kazakh State.

Ruslon Tsarni was implicated in an investigation involving the laundering and theft of $6 billion. But everybody loves Uncle Ruslon. At least most of America’s mainstream media does.

There has, to date, been no speculation at all about whether an uncle of the men suspected of the bombing who had been involved in international intrigue at the hightest levels, and who married the daughter of a top CIA official, might warrant a closer look.

It’s enough, isn’t it, to turn even reasonably rational adults into—gasp!—conspiracy theorists.

“News,” someone once wrote, “is selection. And selection is always based on an ideology and agenda, which is something to remember next time you watch, listen or read the ‘news.’”

Too true.