Disclaimer: some of these articles are from 2015, some from yesterday. Please note that these are my own personal musings.
Let’s start with the reporting by the Daily Beast in 2015 regarding the arrest of two Russian men.
A pair of accused Russian spies tried to gather intelligence about U.S. financial markets, and potentially how to disrupt them, by feeding questions to journalists at the Russian state-owned news agency Tass, The Daily Beast has learned. The agency has a long history of giving cover to Russian spies, current and former intelligence officials say.
Source: www.thedailybeast.com/…
Daily Beast was not the only newsoutlet reporting on this, of course. The Guardian was on it as well.
The FBI has arrested a Russian man as a spy, breaking up a trio of agents who allegedly sought to recruit New Yorkers into the service of the Kremlin’s foreign intelligence service.
Federal officers arrested 39-year-old Evgeny Buryakov – “aka Zhenya” – in the Bronx on Monday and charged him with conspiracy to gather intelligence on behalf of Russia. Igor Sporyshev, 40, and Victor Podobny, 27 – both of whom have left the US – were charged in absentia with the same offence, the office of New York prosecutor Preet Bharara confirmed.
Hi Preet! Funny to see you around these parts. So you’ve made a career out of sniffing out and prosecuting Russian spies and were suddenly let go at the DOJ by Trump huh? What a coincidence.
By the way, Preet is a great follow on Twitter.
But to recap, the Russians Preet brought charges against were..
... accused of helping a “leading Russian state-owned news organisation” gather information which would help the SVR.
Source: www.theguardian.com/…
The FBI complaint claimed that, at one point in 2013, Sporyshev allegedly asked Burkyakov for "help in formulating questions to be used for intelligence-gathering purposes by others associated with a leading Russian state-owned organization."
Although the news outlet was not identified in the FBI complaint, CNBC's Earmon Javers tweeted earlier today that a US government official told him that the media group in question is TASS.
Source: www.businessinsider.com/…
To summarize the above a bit, TASS was identified by the FBI as a news organization that operates as a cover for spies. Additionally, a couple of Russians were charged by Preet Bharara in 2015 for the above mentioned spying activities. Yesterday, they got the VIP treatment from Trump, who was told to do so by Putin himself.
The above was actually reported by Josh over at talkingpointsmemo..
Now does this matter – standard or not? In a way, no. But in the world we live in, a meeting with the President in the Oval Office is a prize, sort of a bauble for the administration to bestow. When relations are chilly, someone like Lavrov would likely be frozen out.
So why did the President hold this meeting?
According to Susan Glasser, Trump had the meeting because Putin asked and said it was important.
Source: talkingpointsmemo.com/…
So all Putin had to do was ask!? Even while US intelligence has concluded that Russia has been interfering in US elections and after Obama imposed sanctions on Russia? Trump still didn’t see how this was not the right course of action? Not one alarm bell went off?
Anyways, it seems like the White House just let the Russians in. No questions asked.
But now, according to the Washington Post, they are claiming that they were misled.
www.washingtonpost.com/...
The administration official also said the White House had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer. Russian officials had described the individual as Lavrov’s official photographer without disclosing that he also worked for Tass.
Yes, the White House, while refusing to allow the US media access to the meeting, allowed Lavrov and his photographer complete access to Trump and the oval office. The White House has the FBI, the NSA and the CIA at its disposal and you’re telling me they still allowed Russians to stroll into the oval office without double checking the photographer’s credentials? Are they that stupid? Really!?
Obama alum quickly raised alarm on Twitter.
The former Deputy Director of the CIA had a clear answer.