The FBI is trying to bolster its case against 11 alleged Russian spies amid increasing skepticism in the US over whether the “long-term, deep cover espionage ring” posed any real threat to US security.
US prosecutors have piled on further evidence in court proceedings while officials close to the case, who are apparently concerned that the allegations are not being taken seriously by the White House, have sought to dispel the view that the accused spies were a largely incompetent throwback to the Cold War.
“It would be a mistake not to take this case seriously,” a US official involved with the case said. “I know it is tempting to see these accused as Keystone Kops figures and not a threat. But the evidence shows that they made serious efforts to build fake identities and fake lives for the benefit of the Russian intelligence service. They were sent here to harm the United States.”
However, the FBI’s case has been undermined by its failure to identify a single piece of classified information passed to Moscow by the alleged ring despite a decade of costly surveillance.
Prosecutors have only been able to charge the 11 people accused with acting as agents of a foreign government without registering — a requirement for lobbyists and the like — and some with money laundering for accepting payments from the Russian intelligence service.
While the FBI says the case is serious, the lack of any firm allegations of espionage has left the White House less concerned.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is on a tour of former Soviet republics, said on Friday that the administration did not believe the case would harm ties with Moscow.
“We’re committed to building a new and positive relation with Russia,” she said during a visit to Ukraine. “We’re looking toward the future.”
However, the FBI and prosecutors have sought to strengthen their case by expanding on the information in the original indictments.
Prosecutors told a New York court that they have so far revealed only a fraction of the evidence against the alleged spies. A letter sent to a court in Manhattan cited “well over 100” intercepted messages between one couple of alleged spies and their Russian handlers. The original indictment only spoke of 10 such messages. ”
The authorities have also elaborated on some of the messages sent by “Moscow Center,” as the Russian intelligence headquarters is referred to in the indictment, including instructions to one alleged agent to become involved with local political campaigns.
The author Alexander Cockburn, writing in CounterPunch, described the “ripe chortling” that greeted the FBI operation.
“The 11 accused were supposedly a bunch of bumblers so deficient in remitting secrets to Moscow across nearly a decade that the FBI can’t even muster the evidence to charge them with espionage,” he wrote.
The arrests were met with similar skepticism in Russia where former spies decried the alleged ring as a national shame and an absurdity that reflected how far the successor to the once powerful KGB has fallen.
Some analysts have sought to explain away the apparent ineptitude of the alleged spies by suggesting they may have been “sleepers” ready to be put in to action if relations between the US and Russia returned to Cold War hostility.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS