Supposed Trump secrets part of a new spy tale

BERLIN — After months of secret negotiations, a shadowy Russian bilked American spies out of $100,000 last year, promising to deliver stolen National Security Agency cyberweapons in a deal that he insisted would also include compromising material on President Donald Trump, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials.

The cash, delivered in a suitcase to a Berlin hotel room in September, was intended as the first installment of a $1 million payout, according to U.S. officials, the Russian and communications reviewed by The New York Times. The theft of the secret hacking tools had been devastating to the NSA, and the agency was struggling to get a full inventory of what was missing.

Several U.S. intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian — who was suspected of having murky ties to Russian intelligence and to Eastern European cybercriminals. He claimed the information would link the president and his associates to Russia.

But instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated information involving Trump and others, including bank records, emails and purported Russian intelligence data.

The U.S. intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the U.S. government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the presidential candidate.

The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the negotiations with the Russian seller. The NSA, which produced the bulk of the hacking tools that the Americans sought to recover, said only that “all NSA employees have a lifetime obligation to protect classified information.”

The negotiations in Europe last year were described by U.S. and European intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and the Russian. The U.S. officials worked through an intermediary — an American businessman based in Germany — to preserve deniability. There were meetings in provincial German towns where John le Carre set his early spy novels, and data handoffs in five-star Berlin hotels.

U.S. intelligence agencies spent months tracking the Russian’s flights to Berlin, his rendezvous with a mistress in Vienna and his trips home to St. Petersburg, the officials said.

The NSA even used its official Twitter account nearly a dozen times to send coded messages to the Russian. The episode ended this year with U.S. spies chasing the Russian out of Western Europe, warning him not to return if he valued his freedom, the American businessman said. The alleged Trump material was left with the American, who has secured it in Europe.

The Russian claimed to have access to a staggering collection of secrets that included everything from the computer code for the cyberweapons stolen from the NSA and CIA to what he said was a video of Trump consorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, according to U.S. and European officials and the Russian, who agreed to be interviewed in Germany on the condition of anonymity. There remains no evidence that such a video exists.