Accounts of Russian CIA informant disputed

The Trump administration on Tuesday disputed reports of a Russian official who was recruited as a spy for the CIA and then evacuated to the United States after revealing information about the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley and the CIA challenged reports that appeared in The New York Times, CNN and elsewhere about a Russian official with highlevel access who provided the U.S. with valuable intelligence for years until he was abruptly pulled from the country.

“Suffice it to say that the reporting there is factually wrong,” Pompeo said Tuesday, without specifying exactly what he was disputing. Pompeo was head of the CIA at the start of the Trump administration, soon after the spy reportedly was brought to the United States.

The CIA singled out CNN in a statement that disputed the network’s reporting about what prompted the evacuation. CNN cited an unnamed source as telling them that the informant was removed in part because of concerns about the Trump administration’s mishandling of classified information and the possibility that the Russian official could be exposed.

“CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes lifeordeath decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false,” said CIA Director of Public Affairs Brittany Bramell. “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.”