WASHINGTON, Sept 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US agents extracted a high-level
Russian government source who had confirmed Vladimir Putin’s direct role in
interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, US media reported late
Monday.
The source, who had been providing information for decades, had access to
Putin and had sent pictures of high-level documents on the Russian leader’s
desk, CNN reported.
The network said the spy was pulled out of Russia in 2017 due to concerns
that President Donald Trump and his cabinet could expose the asset due to
repeated mishandling of classified intelligence.
The CIA refuted this. Brittany Bramell, the agency’s director of public
affairs, told CNN: “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.”
The agency offered to extract the source in late 2016 but the informant
initially refused, citing family issues, the New York Times reported.
This prompted fears that the informant had become a double agent — but
months later the source relented, the Times added.
The unnamed individual was key in providing information that led US
intelligence to conclude Putin directly orchestrated Russian interference in
favor of Trump and against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016
election, the Times said.
The informant was also directly linked Putin to the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee, resulting in the release of a flood of
embarrassing messages, the newspaper reported.
According to the Times, the agent was the CIA’s most valuable Russian
asset.
The extraction has “effectively blinded” American intelligence to the
Kremlin’s inner workings during the 2018 US midterm election, the Times
report said, as well as the upcoming 2020 presidential election.