This should more properly be titled “A slice of the foreign intel angle on Spygate,” because it’s not a comprehensive survey. Such a survey would at a minimum have to include British, Australian, and Italian involvement in human intelligence (HUMINT) threads, among others. The survey here isn’t that expansive.
Rather, it separates out a chunk of the purported information to date on one part of the larger story line. The part in question is a combination of signals intelligence (SIGINT) and Russian intelligence, and in particular, U.S. and friendly intelligence on Russian intelligence. The latter – or at least claims about the latter; i.e., claims about our intel on Russian intel – played a key role in perpetuating the Russiagate narrative when it was looking particularly seedy and ill-starred.
In retrospect, it appears skepticism about some claims of foreign-intel sourcing was always in order. Continue reading “The foreign intel angle on Spygate: What probably didn’t happen, and what probably did”
The Optimistic Conservative 