Who Says That Irony is Dead?

Remember the now debunked story about Senator Bob Menendez and a Dominican Prostitute from Tucker Carlson's so-called news site Daily Caller?

Well, it turns out that they were not making it all up. The Daily Caller was used as a stooge for an intelligence operation carried out by Cuba:

Sen. Robert Menendez is asking the Justice Department to pursue evidence obtained by U.S. investigators that the Cuban government concocted an elaborate plot to smear him with allegations that he cavorted with underage prostitutes, according to people familiar with the discussions.

In a letter sent to Justice Department officials, the senator’s attorney asserts that the plot was timed to derail the ­political rise of Menendez (D-N.J.), one of Washington’s most ardent critics of the Castro regime. At the time, Menendez was running for reelection and was preparing to assume the powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

According to a former U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of government intelligence, the CIA had obtained credible evidence, including Internet protocol addresses, linking Cuban agents to the prostitution claims and to efforts to plant the story in U.S. and Latin American media.

The alleged Cuba connection was laid out in an intelligence report provided last year to U.S. government officials and sent by secure cable to the FBI’s counterintelligence division, according to the former official and a second person with close ties to Menendez who had been briefed on the matter.

The intelligence information indicated that operatives from Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence helped create a fake tipster using the name “Pete Williams,” according to the former official. The tipster told FBI agents and others he had information about Menendez participating in poolside sex parties with underage prostitutes while vacationing at the Dominican Republic home of Salomon Melgen, a wealthy eye doctor, donor and friend of the senator.

A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, which functions as the island’s U.S. diplomatic outpost, did not respond to requests for comment.

The allegations against Menendez erupted in public in November 2012, when the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, quoted two Dominican women claiming Menendez had paid them for sex.

The FBI investigated the prostitution claims but was unable to corroborate them. Last year, three Dominican women who had initially claimed to reporters that they had been paid to have sex with Menendez recanted their story.

BTW, the inestimable Charlie Pierce notes some additional irony here.

You noticed the name of the source that misled Tucker Carlson and His Evil Minions^™?

Well, the name Pete Williams has a history:

And, it appears that the Cuban spooks may well have a more finely honed sense of humor than we previously have noticed. Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a senator from New Jersey named Harrison Williams.Senator Williams was a Democrat of decent instincts,but he also was something of a grab-it-all and, one day, a phony Arab sheikh in the employ of the FBI dropped in on him with some money the sheikh said he'd like to share in exchange for Williams's help in buying the output of a defunct titanium mine. This bit of American Hustle landed forced Williams to resign from the Senate and landed him in the federal sneezer for three years.

As it happens, because his given name was Harrison Arlington Williams, Jr., his friends all called the senator, "Pete."

"Pete Williams."

Well-played, Cuban spies. Very well-played indeed.

I think that I can authoritatively state that the schadenfreude drought is officially over.