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Editor's note: Frida Ghitis, ex-producer and correspondent for CNN, is a columnist on international issues. He collaborates frequently for the CNN opinion section, for The Washington Post and is a columnist for the World Politics Review. You can follow her on Twitter at @fridaghitis. The opinions expressed in this comment are those of the author.
(CNN) - It's tempting to file the news that the US He urgently removed one of his most valuable spies from the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin as another amazing development of the Donald Trump era. But this deserves more attention. It was not just another “covfefe” moment, nor another instance of strange events that in any other government would provoke a national shock but now land in the growing pile of daily indignations. This is different.
CNN reports that US intelligence agencies —That they had cultivated a secret source in the Kremlin for years (decades according to some stories), so much so that the agent had approached Russian President Vladimir Putin so that he could send photos of documents to Putin's desk at the CIA — made the decision of removing it. They did so in part because they began to be alarmed by the inappropriate handling of the president of state secrets, worried that the risk to the source was so great that the benefits it provided to US national security. they had to be sacrificed in order to save the agent's life.
This means that the president's behavior is such a clear threat that the country is having, in effect, weaken its own security to protect itself from the consequences of Trump's actions.
The government notes that the chronicle is "incorrect," and the CIA describes certain parts as "misguided speculation." In addition, the New York Times said that according to its sources the agent was extracted fearing that media speculation about how US intelligence learned. that Putin had personally ordered the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 elections in order to help Trump win the presidency could expose the spy.
Jim Sciutto, a CNN journalist, says he spoke with five government sources, some of whom were directly involved in the discussions. All reports agree that the concern for the agent's safety arose in 2016, and that it was extracted in 2017. By then, Trump already had shocking records revealing classified information precisely to the wrong people, such as a man known as the top spy Russian among US intelligence officials, the then Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak.
In any case, three observations regarding this incident point out how disturbing this should be for Americans.
First, the loss of the agent is fantastic news for Putin and dire news for the United States. The man who led the CIA operations in Russia, John Sipher, noted that recruiting and developing a source at this level is extremely difficult, "it can happen once in a generation, if it happens." Russia remains a key antagonist for the US - Robert Mueller, during his testimony before Congress, said Russia's interference in 2016 “was not a single attempt. They are doing it while we are sitting here. And they hope to do it during the next campaign. ” Russia has interfered in elections in multiple countries, including US allies, and has opposed many vital strategic US goals. in the world. The loss of the spy was a clear triumph for the Kremlin, an enemy of the US, and a loss for the United States and its friends. The Kremlin has denied that the American spy had access to Putin.
Second, Trump's handling of classified information is scandalously irresponsible. According to CNN, the decision to remove the agent from Moscow was finally taken after an overwhelming meeting at the White House in May 2017. It was already amazing that Donald Trump invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Emb. Kislyak not only to the White House but to the internal sanctuary, the Oval Office, just after US officials had accused Moscow of attacking US democracy. But Trump revealed to his guests - once again, US adversaries - highly classified intelligence provided by Israel, about Syria's ISIS plans to use handheld computers to blow up passenger planes. The revelation endangered Israeli sources in Syria, where Putin is an ally of the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
That is just one of the multiple cases of mishandled information. A couple of weeks ago, Trump tweeted what experts say was a classified image of an Iranian missile test. He has made other inappropriate disclosures of classified intelligence.
As president, Trump has the power to declassify secrets, provided he does not do so with the deliberate intention of harming the United States. At a minimum he is undisciplined and careless with the secrets of the United States. That pattern provides a reasonable explanation so that intelligence officials have decided that they should extract the most valuable US spy in Moscow.
Third, Trump's relationship and attitude regarding Putin remain strange and disturbing. That is openly in public view and cannot have escaped the attention of intelligence officials who made the decision to lose critical clandestine access to the Kremlin.
Trump received classified information - which perhaps included some mention of the existence of that spy - when he was informed about Russia's interference in the 2016 elections. He has repeatedly stated that he does not believe in the US intelligence conclusions. that the Russians interfered, and the president says he accepts Putin's word, as he did in that shameful conference with Putin in Helsinki last year.
Trump is fond of meeting privately with Putin, and supposedly for hiding the contents of the talks. A couple of months after the US foreign to the Moscow spy, Trump met privately with Putin in Hamburg, during a G20 summit. After that meeting, Trump demanded the interpreter's notes. The conduct is disturbing on its own, but when combined with Trump's handling of classified materials, and Putin's background of interfering with the US political system for Trump's benefit, the alarms sound much louder.
The life of expia could be in danger.
Russian ex-spies have already appeared dead in other countries, or survived the assassination attempts of Russia.
For Americans, this is a chilling moment in an unreal moment. U.S. intelligence officials They had very good reasons to worry about the safety of a very valuable asset, following a direct result of who occupies the Oval Office. Trump, the president who promised to make the United States “tired of losing,” has caused a huge loss to national intelligence, a loss whose consequences are unknowable, unquantifiable, but whose impact is clear: the United States is less certain.
(Translation of Mariana Campos)