The Latest from London’s Anti-Trump Cookbook: A Very Fishy Spy Tale

Sept. 10, 2019 (EIRNS)—The New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post all published contradictory stories over the past 24 hours about the Russian double agent who, it is suggested, is a major source in the Trump Russia fake news narrative. All accounts agree that the spy defected in 2017 after being urged to do so by Obama’s CIA in 2016, but at first refusing. CNN says the “extrication” —a fancy spy world term for going on vacation and not returning—occurred because of fears Donald Trump would tell Vladimir Putin who the spy was.

The Times and others state CNN’s claims are not true, but claim that the spy is a major source in the fake Russiagate narrative and that enterprising news reporters knew a lot about who it was, requiring the “extrication” for his safety. The latter version, of course, suggests that Christopher Steele’s big mouth, along with the desperation and specifics provided in the ICA Assessment of January 2017, and leaks of Obama spy officials, resulted in identification of their claimed double agent. But, the entire story itself in either version must be viewed with extreme skepticism because of its context. Coup involved intelligence officials are desperate to invent something, anything, which can provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to their three-year witch hunt against the sitting President, ahead of the Inspector General’s Report and Attorney General Barr’s investigation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the tale was so much “pulp fiction” and everyone on the Russia side denied that the alleged spy, tentatively identified as Oleg Smolenkov, had any real access to Putin. Peskov said that Smolenkov had worked in the Presidential administration, but had been fired in 2016. Adding to the very fishy and smelly nature of this narrative, it is being widely reported that Oleg Smolenkov is living under his own, published name in Stafford, Virginia. This is hardly the status anyone with counterintelligence experience would expect about an individual who, it is claimed, was the only close-in CIA source in the Kremlin. In fact, as Peskov suggests, it is laughable.