Trump is a Russian Asset & Here's Why

“Treason is very much a matter of habit, Smiley decided.”
― John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The spy thriller TV series Homeland holds a grip on us as it keeps us guessing whether Brody is indeed an agent of Islamist terrorists or merely a PTSD-suffering crypto-Muslim in the employ of Uncle Sam. You alternately loathe him or pity him. Whatever. We remain glued to the screen.

The ongoing roller coaster thriller that is the Donald Trump presidency has a similar effect on Americans. The Mueller report saga is the dramatic climax of Trump's first half of his rocky presidential term. He's become a Rorschach test for the politically aware: a bumbling, retrograde opportunist and sellout to his nation, or an admittedly flawed and flamboyant outsider elected to "shake things up in Washington." We are glued to our screens. Yet the fallout is a steadily roiling "hot cold war" between supporters and opponents of the president. We could very well be entering an 1850s-like period marked by physical attacks between members of Congress and, God forbid, civil violence in America's streets.

For me, Trump is no Rorschach. I see clearly a man in thrall to Vladimir Putin. I base this on nearly 25 years of having worked in national security, not to mention as a writer of spy thrillers (shameless plug: Jim at Amazon). Attorney General William Barr's enigmatic 1600-word letter to Congress summarizing Mueller's findings serves only to raise more questions than it answers. Therefore call me too a skeptic.

The arena of espionage and spy vs spy is a gray one. Some have called it a wilderness of mirrors. Not often is anything black and white. As Alice said to her cat, “Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrarywise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” Welcome to the surreal world of spies.

Ex-CIA reports officer Alex Finley describes the various levels of distance foreign intelligence services use to wrap themselves in a cloud that enables them to profess "plausible deniability":

The narrow wording of Mueller’s partial sentence that Barr quoted in his letter limits the question of coordination to a “tacit or express” agreement “with the Russian government.” Yet, the Russians’ interventions – which aimed, in part, to help Trump win and to denigrate Hillary Clinton — were surely meant to hide those two elements. This wording leaves open the possibility that Mueller found plentiful coordination with others who were not part of the government but were a step, or several steps, removed.

She cites cut-outs the Russians used in their active measures campaign: Natalia Veselnitskaya, Joseph Mifsud, Aras Agalarov, Rinat Akhmetshin, Konstantin Kilimnik, and Oleg Deripaska. All have proven connections with the Kremlin or its security services. In the shadowy world of SVR (formerly KGB) ops, Russian spies routinely use cut-outs, access agents and agents of influence to worm their way into the affairs of their foreign targets, in this case, Don Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Mike Flynn, et al. Targets often are unaware that they have been suborned by a foreign intelligence agency, hence, "unwitting" asset. Others may have some level of awareness, but are okay with it as long as the relationship suits their purposes.

I've made the case for Trump being either a witting or unwitting asset of Moscow since the 2016 campaign in Tinker, Tailor, Mogul, Spy? and The Case for Treason.

In the former, written before Trump took office, I concluded, "the bottom line is this: by turning away intelligence briefings, by inexplicably attacking his country’s intelligence agencies and by his open bromance with Putin, the president-elect is putting the nation’s national security at grave risk."

In the latter piece, I quoted veteran intelligence officers' views:

-- Malcolm Nance: "At some point, he was co-opted by Vladimir Putin. And that means he bought into and embraced the dictatorial ideology that was done by a spymaster of the KGB."

-- Mike Morell: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

-- James Clapper: "This past weekend is a great demonstration to me of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president."

All of the above admittedly is circumstantial. But then there's the Steele Dossier.

I was critical of the Steele Dossier after BuzzFeed published it. It is a collection of raw spot reporting lacking multi-sourced confirmation and containing nebulous attributions. I have not changed my view. That said, I am impressed that many of the reports have now been confirmed to be true, including, Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Trump's real estate dealings in Russia, potential Russian financial leverage on Trump, Michael Flynn's paid trip to Moscow, Carter Page's meetings with Russians, Russia's having dirt on Clinton and DNC, Putin being in charge and Manafort having received payment for work in Ukraine.

The smoke kicked up by Trump's acolytes' cozying up to the Russians has created a veritable out-of-control fire of collusion guilt. And their rampant lying about their actions has gotten them felony convictions and time in prison. Barr's letter gives us to believe there was no actual collusion among these stumblebums. I'm inclined to believe it given their abject stupidity and Trump's own ham-handed miscues and bumbling ("I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.")

If I were Trump's SVR or GRU case officer, I would instruct him to 1) destroy NATO and insult our allies, 2) attack and undercut the CIA, FBI, Justice Department, State Department, 3) do away with Russia sanctions and not aid Ukraine, 4) take no actions to counter Russian cyber-attacks, 5) wreck liberal democracy. In terms of fulfilling an agenda, if not in behavior, Trump is a dream asset. He's following these points to a "T," though with limited success so far - but the damage is mounting.

But, of all the damning evidence, these Trump giveaways nail him as a slave of Russian kompromat, in my view:

• utter supineness before Vladimir Putin

• secrecy surrounding his meetings with Putin, including keeping out U.S. officials, confiscating interpreters' notes, or relying solely on Putin's interpreter

• Jared's effort to establish a secret "back channel" of communication through Russia's Washington embassy

• statements in support of Putin's revisionist history du jour: tiny Montenegro as a global threat; and Moscow's beneficently bloody and doomed intervention in Afghanistan was misunderstood

• secretly pursuing the "Moscow Project" while campaigning for president

• His sons' revelation years ago that “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Actions like these light a counterintelligence officer's hair on fire. Any lesser official conducting himself accordingly would be summarily suspended and perhaps prosecuted.

But here is where we come back to the nub of the problem: Mueller was restricted to investigating “tacit or express” agreement “with the Russian government.” Cutouts are not necessarily officials of the Russian government. And collusion can be with a wink and a nod. Our laws on espionage and treason are prosecutable only in extremis. That is why so many American citizens doing the bidding of foreign governments, even spying, are charged merely with failing to "register as a foreign agent," which usually only gets them a slap on the wrist.

Contrary to his boasts, President Trump has not been exonerated. Barr's letter merely states that there is not enough evidence to prove conclusively in a court of law that the Trump campaign acted in coordination with the Russian government. A very high bar. The substance of Mueller's full report may paint a picture of amoral, unpatriotic and corrupt behavior just short of legal standards of criminality. And the classified FBI counterintelligence investigation may be more damning still, though not releasable to the public.

The Mueller report may turn out to be "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit." And Donald Trump may end up spending his days with O.J. basking in "innocence."