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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsU.S. Spies, Seeking to Retrieve Cyberweapons, Paid Russian Peddling Trump Secrets
BERLIN After months of secret negotiations, a shadowy Russian bilked American spies out of $100,000 last year, promising to deliver stolen National Security Agency cyberweapons in a deal that he insisted would also include compromising material on President Trump, according to American and European intelligence officials.
The cash, delivered in a suitcase to a Berlin hotel room in September, was intended as the first installment of a $1 million payout, according to American officials, the Russian and communications reviewed by The New York Times. The theft of the secret hacking tools had been devastating to the N.S.A., and the agency was struggling to get a full inventory of what was missing.
Several American intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian, who was suspected of having murky ties to Russian intelligence and to Eastern European cybercriminals. He claimed the information would link the president and his associates to Russia. Instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated information involving Mr. Trump and others, including bank records, emails and purported Russian intelligence data.
The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the president.
This story keeps getting curiouser and more convoluted. I hope Mueller brings all of them down eventually.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)To make the US look bad. The fact that NYT is now reporting this, shows how deep this likely goes.
IronLionZion
(45,534 posts)they must have trusted their sources enough to justify publishing this
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,733 posts)The world is taking advantage of our weakened state. Congress shrugs.
unblock
(52,328 posts)isn't this like a software program or a set of software tools that lets someone hack and so on?
is it not possible to simply make an electronic copy?
indeed, is the nsa even "missing" these tools or is it simply that someone unauthorized managed to get a copy?
seems to me it's not possible to convincingly "return" anything as more copies could still be out there.
even if there's a hardware component to it, and even if the original hardware is returned, it's still quite possible that someone in possession of the hardware was able to reverse engineer it and make another copy.
struggle4progress
(118,350 posts)We probably won't decode this one: there are too many possibilities
US agents trying to feel out possible Russian assets? Russian game to outwit US agents? Cover story to distract from something else?