The odd resignation of an intelligence friendly German politician

In the wake of the Snowden revelations about the American NSA and various European intelligence agencies, the German federal parliament set up an investigative committee in 2014. Called NSA Investigative Committee, much of its work deals with the cooperation of the German foreign intelligence agency BND with the NSA.

While the German government has been less than helpful, the committee has done some interesting work, even though the super majority of the conservative CDU/CSU and the social democrat SPD meant expectations were fairly low.

After what seemed like an endless row over getting Mr. Snowden to testify (the result: no), a somewhat normal routine set in, characterized by lots of redacted documents, many sessions closed to the public, some leaks, and some bickering.

Early this year, the head of the CDU group in the committee, Mr. Kiesewetter, suddenly announced his resignation, citing too much other high priority work.

The media hardly blinked, mentioning only that he had been very friendly to the intelligence community, not soft balling questions, but always supportive.

Warrantless mass surveillance?

Does not exist.

Protection of Germans caught in the BND dragnet?

Look, how much of a great effort the BND is making in this area.

This past weekend, however, the shoe dropped. The gentleman, a former colonel and current head of the German Military Reserves Association, went on the record to say that "activities" of the BND within the reserves association might have been seen as a conflict of interest and resulted in damage to his credibility as a committee member.

The BND chief reacted quickly, saying that "contacts" with some members of the reserve association pre-dated the investigative committee and had nothing to do with intelligence gathering.

The BND is prohibited by law to spy in Germany, although such cases have been discovered in the past. The most recent high profile case was spying on journalists who reported on German involvement in Afghanistan.

Unsurprisingly, most of the German media simply printed the statement of the soon ex member of the committee side by side with the BND explanation.

The obvious question, however, is: Why did one or more of the fellow reservists come out and tell the head of the association and high ranking committee member of BND contacts at the point in time that they did?

The German press seems as yet to be unwilling or unable to pose the question and even further from digging for an answer.

The most likely answer is going to be that someone from the BND talked a bit too much about the role of Mr. Kiesewetter, and probably asked to see if he knew of suspected who on the committee might have leaked information to the press.

Personally, I would not put it beyond the BND to have tried to put out feelers to Mr. Kiesewetter for some kind of informal cooperation. After all, as a former soldier and as someone who defended the intelligence community throughout his time on the committee, how risky could is be to perform a gentle approach?

So, we do no know if the full story behind his resignation will ever become public.

If it does not, our explanation is the most likely one.

One more thing:
Every time this author writes about spooks and spy vs. spy, an HR person at a three letter agency says a prayer: Lord, thank you for making this person give us an 'eh, no, thanks but no' when we offered a job.