The Plot to Hack America

But I hadn’t thought through the idea that of course through hacking, which is something they’re famously very good at, that they could try and disrupt a campaign. And of course the pattern of this is something we’ve seen before: There’s a big leak, it’s right on an important political moment, it affects the way people think about the campaign, and of course instead of focusing on who did the leak and who’s interest it’s in, everyone focuses on the details, what’s in the emails, what did so-and-so write to so-and-so on Dec. 27, and that’s all that gets reported.⁵⁸

Paul Roderick Gregory argues in an opinion piece in Forbes that a former KGB officer like Putin could capitalize on Clinton’s use of a private email address and server while secretary of state to either blackmail her into dropping out of the presidential race, or leak information that “would weaken the United States’ hand in world affairs throughout a Clinton presidency.”⁵⁹ Furthermore, he notes the Kremlin doesn’t even need to have hacked or be in possession of Clinton’s emails to exert this influence, writing, “Those who follow Kremlin propaganda understand that it is not necessary for Putin to have Clinton’s e-mails to cause serious damage to a Clinton presidency. All he needs is that many believe he has Hillary’s e-mails.”⁶⁰ He continues:

The Kremlin specializes in fabricating narratives (such as the U.S. intent to steal Siberia) that are false but may contain a small kernel of truth. Putin’s army of “information technologists” (propagandists) can release fabrications to its numerous clandestine sources throughout the world. Clinton might ignore or deny those narratives (which cannot be traced to the Kremlin), but the mere idea that Putin has her e-mails will lend the necessary credibility to the story.⁶¹

Professional Assessments of Putin’s Recruitment

The Putin Strategic Kompromat & Recruit strategy is so scripted and so clearly a FSB/KGB styled political warfare operation that members of U.S. intelligence quickly saw through it. The current members, including the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Director of the CIA John Brennan, danced around the subject on the DNC hacks, as they are sworn to secrecy about the origins and sources.

Former acting Director and former Deputy Director of the CIA, Michael Morell has served six presidents—three from each party—and has voted for both Democrats and Republicans. He has kept his politics to himself throughout his thirty-three year intelligence career, until now. He takes a dim view of the entire Russian constellation of “coincidences” that surrounds Donald Trump. We may recall the U.S. intelligence community’s observation that “coincidences take a lot of planning.” The Trump coincidences seemed to bear the hallmarks of the sword and the shield of the FSB.

In August 2016 Morell wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he explained why he will no longer remain politically silent during this election. It had little to do with Trump and more to do with his professional intelligence assessment of the threat to the United States: