Actor Jeremy Renner (The Bourne Legacy, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol) https://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Jeremy_Renner will portray Gary Webb in the movie "Kill The Messenger" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216491/ scheduled to begin filming this summer. The film will be distributed by Universal.

http://www.jeremyleerenner.com/news/jeremy-renner-ready-to-kill-the-messenger-in-berlin-boundfilm-package-about-cia-smeared-journo-gary-webb/ Feb 1 2013 Jeremy Renner Ready To Kill The Messenger In Berlin-Bound Film Package About CIA-Smeared Journo Gary Webb The movie packages are coming together on the eve of next weeks Berlin film market. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters star Jeremy Renner has been set to star in Kill The Messenger, a thriller that Michael Cuesta will direct that is based on the tragic tale of a journalist who committed suicide after being smeared by the CIA. The script was written by Peter Landesman. Cuesta seems perfect for this; hes an exec producer and has directed numerous episodes of Homeland and has been integral in establishing the visual look of that show. He also helmed the pilots for Dexter and Elementary. Scott Stuber, who set up this project eight years ago as producer at Universal, will be joined by Renner and Don Handfield, and it will be a co-production between Stubers Bluegrass and Renners The Combine. Naomi Despres is also producing. The film begins production in the summer. This is a project that has been in the works for several years, and most recently it had been at Universal with Stuber. If the CIA mostly wears a white hat in Zero Dark Thirty for its dogged efforts to track and kill Osama bin Laden, the agency wears a decidedly black lid here. Kill The Messenger is based on the true story of Gary Webb, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who committed suicide after being the target of a smear campaign when he linked the CIA to a scheme to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua and import cocaine into California. Landesman (who is right now making his directorial debut on the JFK assassination pic Parkland) put the script together with source material from two books: Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, And The Crack Cocaine Explosion, by Webb, and Nick Schous Kill The Messenger: How The CIAs Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb. After he published his 1996 three-part series Dark Alliance, and implied that the CIA was a catalyst for the crack cocaine scourge in California, Webb was excoriated by colleagues in the press. The film will posit that Webb was mostly right, and that the CIA sought to smear him to conceal a scandal. The agency, in essence, concealed a deal with the devil that it made for what was believed at the time to be for the greater good. As a result of the smear campaign, Webb was destroyed; what should have been a career making expose turned out to be a career-ending debacle. Webb was jobless and in a spiral of depression when he ended his life in 2004.

CAA, which represents Renner and Stuber, will co-represent the films domestic distribution rights with WME, which represents Cuesta. The agencies will bring the project to Berlin. Renner is managed by Untitleds Beth Holden. Renner next stars in the Abscam drama that David O Russell is directing with Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper.

**** Jeremy Renner to star as former Plain Dealer reporter Gary Webb in 'Kill the Messenger' Clint O'Connor, The Plain Dealer By Clint O'Connor, The Plain Dealer on February 11, 2013 at 2:50 PM, updated February 13, 2013 at 12:36 PM http://www.cleveland.com/moviebuff/index.ssf/2013/02/jeremy_renner_to_star_as_forme.html Book by Weekly Managing Editor Nick Schou About Late Reporter Gary Webb Being Turned into Movie! By Gustavo Arellano Thu., Jan. 31 2013 at 5:00 PM http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/01/gary_webb_nick_schou_movie.php **** http://movies.yahoo.com/news/jeremy-renner-ready-kill-messenger-berlin-bound-film-222227439.html http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/berlin-jeremy-renners-gary-webb-420342 http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/02/05/focus-features-kill-the-messenger/ Agent: Joel Lubin, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.; Manager: Beth Holden-Garland, Untitled Entertainment, 8436 West Third St., Suite 650, Los Angeles, CA 90048.; Publicist: Nancy Seltzer, Nancy Seltzer and Associates, 6220 Del Valle Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90048. Untitled Entertainment holdengarland@untitledent.com Contact: Beth Holden-Garland Phone: (310) 601-2112 koth@untitledent.com

For background on the movie, see Gary Webbs book Dark Alliance: http://www.scribd.com/doc/117076273/Dark-Alliance-Gary-Webb-full-867-page-book-Please-Distribute Maxine Waters investigation http://www.scribd.com/doc/117070568/US-Congresswoman-Maxine-Waters-Investigation-of-CIAContras-involvement-in-drug-sales-1996-2000 Powderburns by Celerino Castillo III (DEA retired) complete book: http://www.scribd.com/doc/117693611/Powderburns-2012-with-photos www.powderburns.org The Pariah by Charles Bowden Interviews with Mike Holm and Hector Berrellez (DEA Retired) http://www.scribd.com/doc/117078597/The-Pariah-by-Charles-Bowden Essays by Michael Levine (DEA retired) http://www.scribd.com/doc/123124540/Collection-of-Essays-by-Retired-DEA-Agent-Mike-Levine http://www.scribd.com/doc/128180246/Mike-Levine-DEA-retired-CIA-Interference-in-Drug-Cases Full coverage of Gary Webbs story by former AP and Newsweek writer Robert Parry http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/crack.html How John Kerry Exposed the Iran-Contra Scandal and Showed the Cracks in the War on Drugs Posted: 01/14/2013 6:34 pm by Freeway Ricky Ross http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-ross/how-john-kerry-exposed-th_b_2469665.html How John Kerry exposed the Contra-cocaine scandal Derided by the mainstream press and taking on Reagan at the height of his popularity, the freshman senator battled to reveal one of America's ugliest foreign policy secrets. By Robert Parry http://www.salon.com/2004/10/25/contra/ Knight and Bernstein coverage: http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9612a/ciacontra.html

The William French Smith Law Enforcement Award http://www.scribd.com/doc/128584423/Law-Enforcement-Award-Named-After-a-Drug-Trafficker

Exhibit 1 U.S. Attorney General William French Smith replies to a still classified letter from DCI William Casey requesting exemption from reporting drug crimes by CIA assets,agents and contractors. Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/contra-story/01.gif

Exhibit 2: DCI William Casey happily agrees with William French Smith and signs the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) exempting his agency from reporting drug crimes. This agreement covered both the Latin American conflicts and Afghanistan war. It remained in effect until August, 1995 when it was quietly rescinded by Janet Reno after Gary Webb began making inquiries for his series. The 1995 revision of the DOJ-CIA MOU specifically includes narcotics violations among the lists of potential offenses by non-employees that must be reported to DoJ. Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/contra-story/13.gif

Exhibit 3: On February 8, 1985, Deputy Chief of DoJ's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) from 1979 to 1991, A. R. Cinquegrana signed off on this letter approving the MOU. Mark M. Richard, Deputy Assistant Attorney General with responsibility for General Litigation and International Law Enforcement in 1982, states that he was unable to explain why narcotics violations were not on the list of reportable crimes except that the MOU had "other deficiencies, not just drugs." Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/contra-story/14.gif