Removal Of CIA’s Top Russian Spy ‘Blinded’ U.S. Intelligence To Inner-Workings Of The Kremlin, Says Report


As The Inquisitr reported earlier today, a Monday morning CNN report suggests that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was so worried about Donald Trump compromising one of its top spies in Russia that it pushed them to remove them from the country. The report claims that the secret exfiltration mission came in the wake of Trump’s surprise Oval Office meeting with high-ranking Russian government officials — Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. However, the CIA denies that Trump’s behavior drove the alleged exfiltration of the spy.

In a report released on Monday evening, The New York Times revealed that the CIA informant in question sent information to the United States for decades. According to the report, the informant began as a mid-level Russian official that began ascending the government’s ranks and ended up in an “influential position” that allowed them access to the highest level of the Kremlin.

The existence of the source was hinted at before Trump took office. They were suggested during the formal accusation of Russian interference as well as in the declassified documents addressing the CIA’s assessment of the interference campaign. From here, bits of information reportedly began leaking and causing worry about the safety of the source. The informant reportedly refused extraction at first due to “family concerns.” But after the CIA continued to observe the severity of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections and the news media began picking up information on the CIA’s Russia connections, the informant agreed.

Although the informant was reportedly not inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, he met with him regularly and had access to “high-level Kremlin decision-making.” According to the Times report, his removal was a massive loss to U.S. intelligence.

“The move brought to an end the career of one of the CIA’s most important sources. It also effectively blinded American intelligence officials to the view from inside Russia as they sought clues about Kremlin interference in the 2018 midterm elections and next year’s presidential contest.”

Per The Inquisitr, Trump’s mysterious relationship with Putin’s has been a focal point of many experts, who have still failed to understand it fully. Julianne Smith, a former deputy national security adviser to former vice-president Joe Biden, claims that experts still struggle to determine if Trump is indebted to Putin or he simply has “admiration for Putin’s authoritarian rule,” as The Guardian reported.

“Either way, Trump’s refusal to speak ill of Putin or Russia’s aggression in its neighborhood and beyond is eroding US leadership and the transatlantic alliance,” she said.

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