In 1963, the first director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, described the Soviet KGB as “an instrument for subversion, manipulation and violence, for secret intervention in the affairs of other countries.”
That description applies equally well today to the Russian big three intelligence services: the SVR, the GRU, and the FSB. Dulles’s words bear remembering in light of the Guardian’s reporting on Thursday of a possible leak of Kremlin documents.
Not just any documents, but notes from a Jan. 22, 2016, meeting of the Russian national security council. The notes suggest that this meeting was used to authorize and orient a priority effort to secure Donald Trump’s election as president. Describing Trump as “mentally unstable,” the notes include an assertion that Russia possessed compromising material on Trump that would allow for his manipulation. His victory in November 2016 was thus to be pursued with “all possible force.”
What are we to make of this “leak”?
For a start, the notes have some prima facie credibility. The U.S. intelligence community has now assessed with high confidence that Russia acted to assist Trump’s 2016 election (far less clear is how much influence the Russian effort actually had on the final result). The style and language of the notes also match well to Russian security form. They may be legitimate.
But the notes ring some alarm bells.
First, while there was indeed a Russian national security council meeting on the date in question, it is highly unlikely that so many eligible council members would have been included in it. While they were at the time (and, in interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko’s cases, still are), participants in most council meetings (Boris Gryzlov, Kolokoltsev, and Matviyenko) are unlikely to have been included in such a sensitive meeting. While Matviyenko is Russia’s equivalent politician to the speaker of the House, I understand that her practical national security role is insignificant. Similarly, Kolokoltsev occupies his office largely as a reward for his loyalty in providing police cover for the corruption antics of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “siloviki” inner circle.
The key point is that a meeting to orchestrate the aggressive manipulation of the 2016 U.S. presidential election would have been very tightly controlled. It would have likely been limited to Putin, then-chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, national security adviser Nikolai Patrushev, defense minister and GRU-overseer Sergei Shoygu, SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, and perhaps also Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Putin regards operational security as a preeminent personal and professional concern. He would have wanted present only those officials who absolutely needed to be there.
Second, the Guardian says the notes are classified only at the Russian “secret”-equivalent level. That’s noteworthy because it is highly unlikely such notes would be classified at anything other than a Russian-equivalent top-secret-compartmented caveat level. Notes of this kind would be very closely held from the moment of their inception. Moreover, recovering documents from the Kremlin’s inner sanctum is not easy. It is for that reason that the most useful U.S. intelligence on Russia is collected from a few highly valued human sources and a massive signal intelligence effort.
Third, the Russian intelligence services, the SVR in particular, are masters at creating credible fictions. Russia would have the motive to create and leak these notes for a number of reasons. Perhaps to allow the notes to be refuted in the future, undermining prospective future criticism of a revitalized Trump. Perhaps to further inflame U.S. domestic political disputes over Trump’s presidency, Russia, and Russiagate. Perhaps simply for amusement (Kremlin dark humor is real).
Top line: These notes may be legitimate leaks. Or they may be a concoction of fictions. Or they may be a mix of both. We just don’t know.
