Citizen charged with fraud for lying about working for the government, but nobody in government is ever arrested for lying about working for citizens

(NaturalNews) What should the government do to a person who poses as a "former CIA agent" and then profits from the lie?

The government's answer is to prosecute, which is always the government's heavy-handed answer. However, in the process, Uncle Sam exposes a bitter truth that not all Americans who abuse the public's trust are treated the same.

As reported by The Washington Post, Wayne Simmons has claimed to be something like an American version of James Bond. If you watched any television or searched for him online, you would have no reason not to believe him.

In public speaking engagements and as an "expert" for Fox News, the self-proclaimed former CIA operative sounded very authoritative when he spoke about such serious subjects as terrorism and clandestine operations, which he said he helped run for almost 30 years.

"Nobody knew who I was," Simmons said at one event. "Nobody was allowed to know who I was."

Okay, he's a phony... but who in Washington doesn't lie?

The Washington Post further reported:

But according to federal prosecutors, his claims of a 27-year career with the CIA were lies, and it was only by repeating such falsehoods that Simmons was able to briefly get actual security clearances and real government contracting work in more recent years.

In recent days, federal agents arrested Simmons, charging him with make false statements, major fraud against the United States and wire fraud.

Despite his arrest, Simmons' neighbors could not come to grips with the news that he was a fake. Many still wonder if he has been telling the truth all along.

"I wouldn't doubt Wayne a bit," David Zeyher, a neighbor and close friend of Simmons, told the Post. "I think he has to sometimes conceal what his purposes are, what he's done."

Simmons made a brief appearance in federal district court in Alexandria the day of his arrest. The Post said that Simmons, clad in jeans and a button-down shirt, sighed loudly and looked back at the audience as U.S. Marshals led him away after a magistrate judge ordered him to remain behind bars before a detention hearing the next day. The paper said he did not speak much during the hearing, except for a brief discussion with the court about who would represent him. The judge warned him twice not to talk because prosecutors would be able to use anything he said against him.

Two different systems of "justice"

The Washington Post reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Nathanson asked the judge to detain Simmons because investigators had found two firearms when arresting him and because he had a previous federal conviction as a felon being in possession of a gun.

On his web site, Simmons claims he was recruited out of the U.S. Navy in 1973 into "the Central Intelligence Agency to became part of an Outside Paramilitary Special Operations Group." He even had a high-profile endorsement of his fiction title, The Natanz Directive, from none other than former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

There is no question that Simmons has portrayed himself as something he is not, perhaps even to the detriment of the country.

However, consider this: there has been no shortage of Hollywood films and American literature that have poked fun at American politics and, more precisely, the wide chasm between what politicians promise during campaigns and what they actually do when they get into office. Some of the most high-profile lying of late has come from the president himself, who has lied repeatedly about Obamacare, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lied when she said none of the emails on her private server that she used while secretary of state were classified.

Nevertheless, our system refuses to hold these two and our myriad of elected officials who lie constantly accountable.

Maybe Simmons' biggest mistake was not getting elected to federal office while he was pretending to be someone he wasn't.

Sources include:

WashingtonPost.com

TheDailySheeple.com

Hoax.news

MediaFactWatch.com