Wayne Shelby Simmons (born 1953 or 1954)^[1] is a former Fox News guest commentator who claimed to be an ex-CIA agent. He was exposed as a fraud by actual CIA analyst Kent Clizbe, and convicted of multiple counts of fraud and other violations in 2016.

Early life and education[edit]

Raised in Maryland, Simmons was the son of an FBI fingerprints expert and Wayne Allison Simmons, a distinguished naval officer who was at Pearl Harbor. His sister was a senior official in the Navy and then under George W. Bush in the Defense Department.^[1][2] He attended Jacksonville State University.^[1]

Career and claims[edit]

Simmons claimed to have enlisted in the Navy in 1973, received a medical discharge, and then trained in Alaska and worked for the CIA for 27 years, specializing in organizational sabotage, and retired in 2000.^[1][2] After being recruited to Fox in 2001 and making his first appearance on the Geraldo Rivera Show,^[1] he was a guest on Fox News in 2002, and by 2004 had become a regular guest commentator and was recruited into the Pentagon military analyst program in support of American intervention in Iraq; he was present when President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act in 2006. In 2012 co-wrote The Natanz Directive, a novel he claimed to be partially autobiographical, about a retired CIA operative recalled to duty.^[1][2] In 2012, although the government was already aware of his false claims, he became a member of the Citizens' Commission on Benghazi.^[1][2] He referred to President Obama as a "boy king" and Nancy Pelosi as a "pathological liar",^[1] and in February 2015 claimed there were "at least 19 paramilitary Muslim training facilities in the United States".^[2] He was not paid by Fox;^[1][2] during his years as a news commentator, he started Simmons Air, a commuter airline, and after its failure worked in 2008 for military contractor BAE Systems but performed unsatisfactorily during training as a Human Terrain System Team leader, was rejected for a position with Triple Canopy in 2009 after a background check by the State Department revealed that he did not have the CIA experience he claimed, and had to return in 2010 from a contractor post in Afghanistan after revocation of his temporary security clearance.^[1][2]

According to prosecutors, instead of the CIA Simmons had actually worked at a carpeting company, as a head waiter at a nightclub and a manager at an adult entertainment hot tub business, operated limousine and AIDS testing businesses, run an illegal gambling operation out of his home, and also played semi-professionally for the Baltimore Eagles and professionally as a defensive back for the New Orleans Saints for a few months in summer 1978.^[1][2] He was arrested in 2007 for attacking a Pakistani cab driver whom he falsely identified as having a bomb,^[1][2] and has several convictions for drunk driving^[2] and two previous federal firearms convictions.^[3]

Charges and conviction[edit]

Kent Clizbe, who had actually worked for the CIA and as an intelligence consultant with a specialty in deception detection, saw through Simmons' story when he met him in 2010.^[1][2] His alerting his former boss, as well as the suspicions of other former CIA agents, led to an investigation, although in 2013 the Washington Times decided not to pursue a story on the issue^[1] because Simmons had been granted a security clearance and sent to Afghanistan.^[2] In October 2015, Simmons was arrested by the FBI and charged with fraud, including using fraud to obtain employment with military contractors and defrauding a woman of $125,000.^[1][2] He pleaded guilty to major fraud against the U.S. government, wire fraud, and a firearms offense,^[3] while maintaining that he had worked for the CIA;^[4] on July 15, 2016, he was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison plus three years of supervised release, restitution, and forfeiture of criminal proceeds.^[3]

Personal life[edit]

Simmons lived in Annapolis. His wife, Corinne, a military hospital administrator, died in 2012; they had two children, one of whom is in the Secret Service.^[1][2]

References[edit]