While California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman might have been employing an illegal immigrant housemaid, it seems her opponent, Jerry Brown, has an even more sinister Latino affiliation in his past.
Cuba expert Ann Louise Bardach is reporting that Brown violated the law during a 2000 visit to Cuba when he used a CIA traitor as a travel agent and “bonded” with Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Then mayor of Oakland, Brown’s visit was purportedly an attempt to secure Santiago de Cuba as a sister city. While in the communist country, Brown dined with the family of former international crisis-inducer Elian Gonzalez and spent a great deal of time with Fidel Castro — at the time, reportedly, still preening over his victory against America in securing Gonzalez’s return to Cuba.
According to Bardach, Brown’s use of Philip Agee — a CIA turncoat responsible for revealing the identities of numerous CIA agents, an act which allegedly resulted in the death of at least one of those exposed — as his travel agent broke U.S. travel sanctions. Namely, in order to visit Cuba, Americans must use authorized travel agencies approved by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Agee was not an approved agent.
As of today, Brown has yet to bear the State Department’s wrath for his apparent infraction.
Bardach, who was in Cuba at the time of Brown’s expedition, reports that Brown said Agee was “a very good travel agent, [who] got everything done.” He supplemented that sentiment with, “he’s quite a guy.”
The Brown campaign has yet to publicly address the charges this election cycle and his headquarters did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller.