Page 7 - Counterintelligence Perspective News Today

But one i want to push back just a bit. fridays indictments did get the president to move from some 400 pound guy in new jersey to now saying well, yes, yes, of course the russians tried to interfere with our elections. ive always said that. of course not true but he has moved in that direction, hes now just saying it didnt have an impact. >> thats right. and i think thats part of the power of the mueller investigation which is hes bringing facts to the table and ive said this before mika, youve...

Sort of thing from a counterintelligence perspective, it can be frustrating because i dont want to lose the forest through the trees. if you cast aside, even some of the most controversial things, whether or not the fbi lost a bunch of e-mails, or whether or not the steele dossier is factual or not, you have so much information whether or not whether it is donald trump jr. meeting with russians to get dirt on hillary, whether it is jared kushner looking for some sort of weird back channel to the...

Into context from an operational perspective. >> again, this is happening during the transition, does it undercut the idea of collusion and that russia had deep rooted ties to the trump campaign during the campaign itself? >> well, it does in a sense. i suppose you could look at it this way. speculation on my part. but i will say this. they played both sides. the russian intel service, the people involved in this effort, theyve been promoted an theyre you know, theyve done a very good job from t...

Russians were up to. the first is the light side. you have the lawyer vest veselnitskaya ka with. and magnitsky which is shorthand for the adoption issue. thats the light side. the dark side is that the russian government knew these people were getting into a high level meeting with a lot of senior trump people were present and using the people as cut outs to see whether or not the trump campaign in the person of donald trump junior and everybody else in the room as part of the team were interes...

If thats not collusion its pretty close. but there is two possible variations as to what the russians were up to. the first is the light side. you have the lawyer veselnitskaya, kaveladze, guys like that who say heres an opportunity to get in at the high level and talk about sanctions associated with magnitsky, which is shorthand for -- you know, for the adoption issue. thats the light side. the darker side is that the russian government knew these people were going to get into a very high-level...

Bending the rules and making money on the side? is it possible that they could cooperate and not understand what theyre doing? all of those things are in the spectrum of what the russians could be interested in. so the fact that we have another person who is apparently either interested if having contacts or trying to arrange contacts with russia is concerning from a counterintelligence perspective, and another data point as you continue to assess data as to what are the connections between trum...

350e up to people doing whats called an agent of influence. bend the presidents ear and say we would like you to do this, that, or the other, being under the control of the russian government. its a wide variety of different things that they might be looking for. but the fact that we continue to see and hear about more e-mails that come up from a counterintelligence perspective is concerning. it depends on whether or not it really rises to a legal issue or not. thats something that mueller and h...

Different. that would certainly are legal implications. but from a purely intelligence perspective, ive heard ambassador kislyak described as the dark lord, the spy master in washington. i dont think he was. he is an ambassador, he is the eyes and ears of vladimir putin, but i dont believe hes an intelligence officer. from a counterintelligence perspective, were the meetings with kislyak part of some clandestine operation, the goal of which was collusion? i think thats unlikely. it doesnt mean t...

Ambassador kislyak described as the dark lord, the spy master in washington. i dont think he was. he is an ambassador, he is the eyes and ears of vladimir putin, but i dont believe hes intelligence officer. from a counterintelligence perspective, were the meetings with kislyak part of some clandestine operation the goal of which was collusion, i think thats unlikely. it doesnt mean the meetings themselves were not important. but from the investigative part of it, i think its much more important ...

That would make his continuous investigation problematic. >> joining us now to talk about this is former double fbi agent and also author of "how to catch a russian spy." and military analyst and spokesperson for the counter speech project. what will they be asking jared? >> i think the big question here from mr. kushners perspective is did he lie on his fa-86 on his background investigation? was there actually an intent to deceive and hide this meeting? that is sort of the crux of the question ...