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.
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