Rep. Ted Poe’s Bogus Jamie Leigh Jones Rescue Story

Office of Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) has been one of Congress’ biggest supporters of Jamie Leigh Jones, the former KBR contractor who in 2007 alleged she’d been drugged and gang-raped by her co-workers, then imprisoned in a shipping container in retaliation for reporting the episode. Poe played a dramatic role in the harrowing story. Jones claimed that once she was able to call her father in Texas, he in turn called Poe, who then summoned the State Department to rescue her from KBR.

In December 2007, Poe’s office issued a press release trumpeting the congressman’s role. “Congressman Poe was instrumental in facilitating the return of Jamie after receiving a call from her father in July 2005. Congressman Poe contacted the State Department’s Department of Overseas Citizen Services, which then dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to rescue Jamie.”

Poe’s high-profile role helped turn Jones’ story into a national scandal. But on Friday, the Houston jury hearing her civil case against KBR ruled that Jones was not, in fact, raped. Evidence and testimony presented during the trial highlighted many inconsistencies in Jones’ story—but it has also inadvertently revealed a big hole in Poe’s account. State Department records and phone logs show that Poe had nothing to do with rescuing Jones.

As it turns out, Poe couldn’t have sent in the State Department to save Jones when he said he did. That’s because State Department staff were already there. After reporting her alleged rape and being taken to an Army hospital, Jones called her father in the middle of the night, somewhere around 2 a.m. Houston time, which means that it would have been impossible for him to contact Poe’s office for at least several hours. According to trial records (PDF), Poe didn’t call the State Department until July 29, 2005, a day after Jones had reported her alleged rape and long after the State Department had gotten involved. State Department staff informed Poe when he called that embassy and investigative staff were already on the scene assisting Jones.

But Poe, a conservative former prosecutor who is more often in the news for quoting the Klan on the House floor, referring to immigrants as grasshoppers, or questioning the president’s citizenship, got lots of kudos for his role in the Jones drama. And he has continued to take credit for calling in the cavalry to help Jones. As recently as April 2010, Poe was on the Hill talking about his part in her rescue, saying:

After being in Iraq just a few days, she said she was drugged and gang raped by fellow employees. She was held hostage in a cargo container for 24 hours without food or water. She was assaulted so badly that later she had to have reconstructive surgery.

She convinced one of the people guarding her to let her borrow a cell phone. She called her dad. Her dad called my office in Texas. With the help of the State Department, we helped immediately to rescue her, and she was quickly brought back to America.

The Congressional Victims Rights Caucus, which Poe co-chairs, gave Jones an award in 2008 for “her efforts in raising national awareness of the plight of Americans victimized abroad.” And Poe often introduced Jones at her Hill appearances. Jones even gave her daughter the middle name Poetry in honor of the congressman. He appeared in ABC’s original 20/20 expose in 2007 that put Jones’ story on the map, and Poe makes a cameo with Jones in Hot Coffee, a new documentary on the civil justice system airing on HBO. (Full disclosure: I am also in the film.)

Since the verdict, however, Poe has been noticeably silent about the case. He did not respond to a request for comment.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate