In a previous post of mine, I suggested that Hank Asher, who sat on the board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) from 2003 until his death in 2013, worked for the CIA. Asher has provided databases used for locating missing children and tracking down sex offenders. On the surface, he seems good-hearted, and the media generally portrays him that way.

One problem: Asher helped cover up a child sex ring in the Florida and Georgia area. Mark Lunsford, the father of Jessica Lunsford, who was raped and murdered by John Couey, was likely a pedophile who pimped his daughter out to Couey. Lunsford was protected by the authorities from getting prosecuted for the child porn on his computer, but he later decided to push his luck too far, running a suspicious foundation and suing the police for botching the investigation into Jessica's death (which they did, but Lunsford was guilty as well). Asher then stepped into his life and offered him a $100,000/yr salary to close his scandal-ridden foundation and drop the lawsuit. Some might characterize that offer as hush-money.

Maybe Asher just got suckered into helping a suspicious character like Lunsford. Or maybe he was a CIA-connected fixer, sent in to tie up the loose ends of the John Couey case. Like I said in my earlier post on Asher, he smuggled cocaine from South America to the Bahamas in 1982, the same period as the Iran-Contra drug running. Then he escaped prosecution and got to work with the DEA. In that manner (flying cocaine in his airplane, getting busted, and then joining the DEA), Asher was a lot like CIA drug runner Barry Seal.

New evidence adds more reason to believe Asher was affiliated with the CIA:

• 2003/09/23 Palm Beach Post: Besides just running drugs, Asher helped plot a US-backed assassination against Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. He reportedly offered someone $1 million to take part. Ortega was opposed by the Contras, who the CIA supported. Plotting an assassination with big money behind it, like Asher was doing, sounds a lot like the modus operandi of the CIA.

• In No Place to Hide by Robert O'Harrow, it's mentioned that Asher tried to downplay his connections to drug smugglers. Others in his circle disputed that, and one even referred to "the Contra thing", implying Asher's involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.

• According to Daniel Hopsicker, F. Lee Bailey, who defended Asher and helped get him working with the DEA to supposedly clean up the drug trade, helped plot a takeover of a Bahamas island so it could be used for drug pilots. So Bailey, who got involved with Bahamas drug smuggling operations, was defending Asher, who was also involved with Bahamas drug smugglers.

If Asher was CIA (he's now dead, having died of unexplained "natural causes" in early 2013), he should be viewed with suspicion. That counts even moreso given his role in tying up loose ends with Mark Lunsford. Perhaps even the databases he provided were rigged to help catch low-level pedophiles, while leaving the elites protected.