The Plot to Hack America

The 2011 treatment of Trump by President Obama at the White House correspondents’ dinner sent him out in humiliation. A powerful man like Trump would need to be handled carefully, like all of those old East German academics Putin recruited to infiltrate West Germany. They were all the same: Full of themselves and possessing an unquenchable thirst for recognition and fortune. For the Spymaster-in-Chief it must surely have flickered across Putin’s mind that this was an asset that could be recruited, groomed, and handled. To what end originally, we may never know. But it would not hurt to have a powerful, rich, American blow-hard who could inspire the common man in one’s pocket. This was a man who enjoyed being a showman on the wrestling entertainment circuit, who had a wildly-popular show in which he behaved exactly like a Russian oligarch. To the FSB spies it must have been especially enticing to use their skills for the spy-in-chief to bring this man into a position of favor; a man like this in the White House could be very helpful indeed. But that would take a great measure of work, care, and feeding. Trump would need to first feel at home with Russia. The runway for this approach would require the first word of the MICE recruitment strategy be dangled before his eyes, and to which he was particularly susceptible: Money. The FSB could easily arrange for a billionaire wanting to earn money in Russia to meet the Kremlin’s own mutli-billionaires. Like all intelligence operations, it comes down to a Go-No Go decision by a top spy. It would involve so little effort that Putin would have to think, why not?

The Strategic Objectives of the Kremlin for LUCKY-7

The first objective for the covert operations officers of the FSB’s SVR division to meet the goals initiated by Vladimir Putin would be to bring the selected candidate into a position of favor in the American media. With almost minimal effort the Russian state could harness its own global media machine and collect strategic intelligence, in an effort to determine faults in the opponent’s policies in advance. Additionally, acquisition of the Clinton opposition research would be the highest priority. This research would not only give insight into the candidate from the opponent’s perspective, but would also be able to contribute to the overall assessment as to the suitability of the preferred candidate to meet Moscow’s goals. For an old spy, all information is good information. Information from other Republicans or Democrats could help LUCKY-7 adjust their strategy and deploy new tactics as needed. All dimensions of political and intelligence knowledge that could help meet the Kremlin’s goals would be of value, when the stakes for Russia are so high. The effusive praise that Donald Trump heaps upon Putin and the Kremlin may have been seemingly innocent in his eyes, but to the spymaster and the LUCKY-7 operations team, every utterance, every positive commentary, would put Russian objectives in a position of dominance over current and potentially future US policy.

Objective: Damage Hillary Clinton & Obama If Possible, See Her Lose the Election

Putin would have a clear motive to push for Trump to be the vessel to attack their mutual enemy: Hillary Clinton, and by extension, President Barack Obama’s policies. Trump’s spy General Flynn himself noted how he perceived that Putin does not respect American leadership and apparently changed his policy to suit that disdain. It would be well within Putin’s interest to take advantage of his now well-honed political and information warfare apparatus to show his preference and steer Trump to do his bidding.

Applying the Russian global media and information warfare structure to attack the critics of his campaign would be the first step, and there is no greater threat to Putin’s policies than Hillary Clinton. The objectives of LUCKY-7 would be to focus all efforts of the Russian cyberwarfare information operations directorates to damage her election by stealing as much internal information as possible and smacking her with a full scale Kompromat operation. If the materials existed, they would be judiciously released. If not, then the forgery masters of the FSB would be able to produce whatever dirt would be necessary.

The deep personal animosity between Clinton and Putin is long and sordid, but a few events between them are noteworthy. In March 2014, former Secretary Clinton gave a speech at the Boys and Girls Club annual fundraiser where she compared Putin’s actions seizing Crimea to the actions of Hitler and the Nazi party: