The spy who came in from the cold ... ‘to stop Trump blowing his cover’
The CIA ‘extracted’ a spy placed in the highest levels of the Russian government amid fears Donald Trump would blow his cover.
The agent was removed in a high-risk operation two years ago when the US President and his officials were thought to be mishandling secret information, especially in dealings with Russia.
An ‘exfiltration’ mission is used only when a covert operative is thought to be in imminent danger of exposure.
According to CNN there was ‘no alternative’ spy of similar rank inside the Kremlin providing insight into Russian president Vladimir Putin’s actions.
A former senior intelligence official said that ‘you can’t reacquire a capability like that overnight’, especially in Russia which is notoriously hard to penetrate. The operation came amid fears in the intelligence community that the White house was mishandling classified information.
CNN said alarm bells first rang in May 2017 when Mr Trump divulged top secret information about Islamic State to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov at the Oval Office.
After that, intelligence officials began a review to see whether information about intelligence operations was being properly handled by the White house.
Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director at the time, reportedly told other senior officials too much information was coming out about the covert source. There was enough concern to pull him out immediately even though he had been in place for years.
Knowledge of the Russian covert source’s existence was highly restricted within the US government and intelligence agencies.
CNN said its story, which has been dismissed by the White house and the CIA, came from speaking to five sources who served in the Trump administration and at intelligence agencies and Congress.
Mr Trump has repeatedly disclosed classified material including pictures of missile sites on Twitter.
he also has a strangely close relationship with Mr Putin and has banned the press and note takers from their one-on-one meetings.
The loss of the spy means the US now knows less about the inner workings of the Kremlin and Mr Putin’s thinking at a time when Russia is considered a severe threat to the security of the West.
A former senior intelligence official told CNN: ‘The impact would be huge because it is so hard to develop sources like that in any denied area, particularly Russia, because the surveillance and security there is so stringent.’
The President has long been soft on Russia even though the intelligence agencies concluded the Kremlin meddled in the 2016 election.
But Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, said: ‘CNN’s narrative that the CIA makes life-ordeath decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false.
‘Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence, which he has access to each and every day, drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.’
A spokesman for Mr Pompeo, who is now secretary of state, declined to comment.
White house press secretary Stephanie Grisham said: ‘CNN’s reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.’