The Boston Globe - 11.09.2019

A6 Nation/World The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

By Julian E. Barnes,
Adam Goldman,
and David E. Sanger
NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — Decades
ago, the CIA recruited and care-
fully cultivated a midlevel Rus-
sian official who began rapidly
advancing through the govern-
mental ranks. Eventually,
American spies struck gold:
The longtime source landed an
influential position that came
with access to the highest level
of the Kremlin.
As US officials began to real-
ize that Russia was trying to
sabotage the 2016 presidential
election, the informant became
one of the CIA’s most important
— and highly protected — as-
sets. But when intelligence offi-
cials revealed the severity of
Russia’s election interference
with unusual detail later that
year, the news media picked up
on details about the CIA’s
Kremlin sources.
CIA officials worried about
safety made the arduous deci-
sion in late 2016 to offer to ex-
tract the source from Russia.
The situation grew more tense
when the informant at first re-
fused, citing family concerns —
prompting consternation at
CIA headquarters and sowing
doubts among some US coun-

terintelligence officials about

the informant’s trustworthi-

ness. But the CIA pressed again

months later after more media

inquiries. This time, the infor-

mant agreed.

The move brought to an end

the career of one of the CIA’s

most important sources. It also

effectively blinded US intelli-

gence officials to the view from

inside Russia as they sought

clues about Kremlin interfer-

ence in the 2018 midterm elec-

tions and next year’s presiden-

tial contest.

CNN first reported the 2017

extraction on Monday. Other

details — including the source’s

history with the agency, the ini-

tial 2016 exfiltration offer, and

the cascade of doubts set off by

the informant’s subsequent re-

fusal — have not been previous-

ly reported. This article is based

on interviews in recent months

with current and former offi-

cials who spoke on the condi-

tion that their names not be

used discussing classified infor-

mation.

Officials did not disclose the

informant’s identity or new lo-

cation, both closely held se-

crets. The person’s life remains

in danger, current and former

officials said, pointing to Mos-

cow’s attempts last year to as-

sassinate Sergei V. Skripal, a

former Russian intelligence of-

ficial who moved to Britain as

part of a high-profile spy ex-

change in 2010.

The Moscow informant was

instrumental to the CIA’s most

explosive conclusion about Rus-

sia’s interference campaign:

that President Vladimir Putin

ordered and orchestrated it

himself. As the US government’s

best insight into the thinking of

and orders from Putin, the

source was also key to the CIA’s

assessment that he affirmatively

favored Donald Trump’s elec-

tion and personally ordered the

hacking of the Democratic Na-

tional Committee.

The informant, according to

people familiar with the matter,

was outside Putin’s inner circle,

but saw him regularly and had

access to high-level Kremlin de-

cision-making — easily making

the source one of the agency’s

most valuable assets.

Leaving behind one’s native

country is a weighty decision,

said Joseph Augustyn, a former

senior CIA officer who once ran

the agency’s defector resettle-

ment center. Often, informants

have kept their spy work secret

from their families.

“It’s a very difficult decision

to make, but it is their decision

to make,” Augustyn said.

“There have been times when

people have not come out when

we strongly suggested that they

should.”

The decision to extract the

informant was driven “in part”

because of concerns that Trump

and his administration had

mishandled delicate intelli-

gence, CNN reported. But for-

mer intelligence officials said

there was no public evidence

that Trump directly endan-

gered the source, and other cur-

rent US officials insisted that

media scrutiny of the agency’s

sources alone was the impetus

for the extraction.

Trump was first briefed on

the intelligence about Russian

interference, including materi-

al from the prized informant,

two weeks before his inaugura-

tion. A CIA spokeswoman re-

sponding to the CNN report

called the assertion that

Trump’s handling of intelli-

gence drove the reported ex-

traction “misguided specula-

tion.”

Some former intelligence of-

ficials said the president’s

closed-door meetings with Pu-

tin and other Russian officials,

along with Twitter posts about

delicate intelligence matters,

have sown concern among

overseas sources.

“We have a president who,

unlike any other president in

modern history, is willing to use

sensitive, classified intelligence

however he sees fit,” said Steven

L. Hall, a former CIA official

who led the agency’s Russia op-

erations. “He does it in front of

our adversaries. He does it by

tweet. We are in uncharted wa-

ters.”

But the government had in-

dicated that the source existed

long before Trump took office,

first in formally accusing Rus-

sia of interference in October

2016 and then when intelli-

gence officials declassified parts

of their assessment about the

interference campaign for pub-

lic release in January 2017.

News agencies, including NBC,

began reporting around that

time about Putin’s involvement

in the election sabotage and on

the CIA’s possible sources for

the assessment.

The following month, The

Washington Post reported that

the CIA’s conclusions relied on

“sourcing deep inside the Rus-

sian government.” And The

New York Times later published

articles disclosing details about

the source.

The news reporting in the

spring and summer of 2017

convinced US government offi-

cials that they had to update

and revive their extraction

plan, according to people famil-

iar the matter.

The extraction ensured the

informant was in a safer posi-

tion and rewarded for a long ca-

reer in service to the United

States. But it came at a great

cost: It left the CIA struggling to

understand what was going on

inside the highest ranks of the

Kremlin.

By Choe Sang-Hun

NEW YORK TIMES

SEOUL — North Korea

launched two short-range pro-

jectiles on Tuesday, hours after

proposing to reopen denucle-

arization talks with the United

States this month.

The two projectiles were

launched from Kaechon, north

of Pyongyang, the North Kore-

an capital, toward the sea off

the North’s east coast, flying

up to 205 miles, the South Ko-

rean military said in a state-

ment.

It was the eighth time

North Korea has tested ballis-

tic missiles or other projectiles

since late July, and the first

weapons test in 17 days.

South Korean defense offi-

cials provided no further de-

tails on the latest test by the

North. They said they were an-

alyzing data they acquired

through radar and other intel-

ligence-gathering equipment

to determine what type of pro-

jectiles were launched.

The launching on Tuesday

came hours after the country

said it was willing to sit down

with the United States in late

September “for comprehensive

discussions.”

But Washington must come

to the negotiating table with

acceptable new proposals; oth-

erwise, dealings between the

two countries may come to an

end, First Vice Foreign Minis-

ter Choe Son Hui said in a

statement carried by the

North’s official Korean Central

News Agency late on Monday.

Trump, speaking to report-

ers at the White House on

Monday, called North Korea’s

announcement “interesting.”

“We’ll see what happens,”

he said. “In the meantime...

we’ve had no nuclear testing

for a long time.”

The president and North

Korean leader Kim Jong Un

met in Singapore in June last

year in the first summit ever

between the United States and

North Korea. But their meet-

ing produced only a vaguely

worded joint statement in

which Kim committed to

“work toward complete denu-

clearization of the Korean Pen-

insula” in return for security

guarantees and “new” rela-

tions from Washington.

Kim and Trump met again

in Hanoi in February, but part-

ed without an agreement or

joint statement.

In April, Kim set the end of

the year as a deadline for the

United States to offer im-

proved terms for denucleariz-

ing the Korean Peninsula.

While negotiations stalled,

North Korea is believed to

have continued to produce fis-

sile materials.

Its latest series of weapons

tests was seen as an attempt to

raise tensions and increase its

leverage against Washington,

while at the same time testing

new, short-range ballistic mis-

siles and large-caliber multi-

ple-tube rocket launchers that

threatened South Korea and

Japan, American allies.

Under a series of UN Secu-

rity Council resolutions, North

Korea is banned from testing

ballistic missile technology.

By Benjamin Mueller

NEW YORK TIMES

LONDON — Along with the

angry braying and ornate in-

sults that were the soundtrack

to Brexit debates this past year

in the British Parliament, there

was, for better or worse, a cer-

tain kind of choreography that

kept proceedings on track.

Government ministers gave

way to questions from the op-

position. The speaker shouted,

“Order!” and lawmakers, for a

little while at least, lowered

their grumbles. Both sides kept

showing up.

But that sense of consensus,

however stylized or superficial,

was blown apart around 2 a.m.

on Tuesday.

In remarkable scenes that

flustered even the sotto voce

BBC commentators, opposition

lawmakers threw themselves at

the silk-canopied speaker’s

chair, trying in vain to keep him

from getting to his feet and al-

lowing Parliament to be sus-

pended.

When a security team finally

tore the lawmakers away, and

the speaker, John Bercow, rose

for the acutely formal ceremony

of sending Parliament home,

only Prime Minister Boris John-

son’s half of the chamber fol-

lowed, with opposition law-

makers shouting, “Shame on

you!” as their Conservative ri-

vals filed out.

It all amounted to an ex-

traordinary breakdown of par-

liamentary protocol that, even

in the norm-bending era of

Johnson’s leadership, made

longtime observers of British

politics shudder.

Each side of the House of

Commons boycotted the rituals

of the other. And as a country

increasingly rapt by the Brexit

debate slept, its elected body

was shuttered by the prime

minister in a ceremony that fea-

tured a rod, a mace, and a few

lines of Norman French.

The fracas was set in motion

two weeks ago, when Johnson

said he would suspend Parlia-

ment for five weeks at the

height of the Brexit crisis. The

decision, while within the

prime minister’s rights, was a

sharp departure from the short,

pro forma suspensions that are

a normal feature of British poli-

tics. Scholars called it constitu-

tionally suspect, if not down-

right unconstitutional.

The showdown only grew

more heated.

Opposition lawmakers

rushed through a law averting

an abrupt, no-deal Brexit by

forcing Johnson, in the absence

of a new deal, to ask for a delay.

Johnson vowed that he would

rather “die in a ditch” than do

that.

But it was when the time

came for Parliament to be sus-

pended that the real pandemo-

nium broke out.

Parliamentcloses,butlawmakers

don’tgoquietlyamidBrexitmess

NorthKorealaunchestwomore

projectilesinlatestweaponstest

JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A man at a railway station in Seoul watched a news report

Tuesday showing file footage of a North Korean missile.

Retrieving spy left CIA without a key eye on Moscow

Informantwas

reluctanttoleave

MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/FILE 2018

The Kremlin in Moscow. The informant reportedly had

access to high-level Kremlin decision-making.

617.487.4364 • Visit us at http://www.eastcoastautotransport.com

Operating since 1992•Fully Licensed & Bonded

• Company Owned Trucks•8 Convenient Florida Locations

YouFly,WEDrive!

East Coast

Auto Transport

$50 OFF

1st Time Customers

.Dependable.

TheBrightestTomorrows...

...beginhere!That’swhy

BrighamHouseAssistedLiving

hasbecomethefirstchoiceof

moreseniorsandtheirfamilies.

Whereverthere’sarayofsunshine,

we’llfinditforyou.Discoverthe

BrighamHousedifference.

Stopinforaprivatetour.

Callfor

SPRING

SPECIALS

617-923-

341Mt.AuburnStreet,Watertown,MA BrighamHouseAL.com

Brigham House

Assisted Living

Large Selection, New Products,Top Brands

Holtkotter, Hubbardton Forge,Visual Comfort

OUTLET

70% OFFEVERYTHING

Open Wednesdays through Saturdays 10am to 6pm

1299 Beacon St., Brookline

http://www.neenaslighting.com

NOWOPENON

SATURDAYS