Posted on 12/15/2019 7:42:32 AM PST by billorites
At approximately 8 PM on Sunday, February 18, 2001, there was a knock on my front door.
At the time I was a Special Agent (SA) with the FBI, so imagine my shock when I opened the door and found the two top officials in the Division on my doorstep. I knew this couldn't possibly be good news, but they quickly sought to reassure me.
"Everything is all right, but Bob Hanssen has been arrested."
All right? Bob Hanssen was my brother in law, and a longtime counterintelligence (CI) official at FBIHQ, privy to a vast range of sensitive intelligence information. A "high Bureau official," as field agents jokingly referred to anyone at HQ.
"Arrested? For what?"
"Espionage," they said.
I searched for something to say: "For the Russians?"
"Yes."
"I think you'd better come in," I said.
There was a small room right just off my front door that I used as a library. I led them in, got them seated, and then said, a bit shakily:
"I suppose this goes back to what I related all those years ago," I ventured, referring to events that occurred in 1990.
That statement was met with blank stares. And so, I found myself backtracking to 1990. I explained that at that time I had approached the supervisor of the Russian CI squad to explain why I thought the Bureau should open an espionage investigation on Bob Hanssen. I had discussed it all with my wife the night before and had organized my thoughts around three salient points -- I wanted to be sure to present a coherent and strictly legally oriented case. Those three points were as follows:
I knew through family that Hanssen had told his wife, "We may retire in Poland." This had been stated at the height of
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Great read, thanks for posting.
There is an old movie out about Robert Hansen. He and his wife devout Catholics. Movie is an eye opener and had never heard of him until I saw the movie.
Aren't they basically the same thing: using governmental agencies to spy on your enemies?
Counterintelligence is effort to thwart your enemies’ attempts to spy on you.
Intelligence is straight forward spying on your enemies.
Thank you both for the question & the answer. Love John le Carre & I should have known ; )
The rule of thumb for looking at motivation supposedly is "MICE":
In other word, he was looking for a huge cash payout, OR he really believed the USSR/Russia should prevail over the USA, OR the Reds were blackmailing him to cover up some secret vice, OR he just enjoyed playing a high-risk intellectual game, thinking himself a genius and his fellow agents as dimwits.
As I understood it, the consensus was, it was EGO. He did get money from the Russians, but the amount was piffling considering what they were getting out of him. He just liked being the "victor" in the espionage game.
And to this day, he has not cooperated in exposing the inner works of his counterspy ring.
Can you add anything to that?
It actually doesn't add up in my mind.
In case you’re wondering what happened to Bob Hanssen, the traitor, he’s doing 15 life terms in a Super Max in Colorado. Some of these Deep Staters and media types should join him.
I think the movie was called Breach. Good movie.
I think it started out for money as he had six kids. However, about 6 years after he started spying he met a stripper in a club not far from FBI building where he worked. He gave her money, a mercedes, jewelry, american express card, and took her on some over seas trips. He talked to her about his wife, his Catholic faith, his kids and tried to get her to stop stripping.
I also think it turned to his ego and being unappreciated by his upper level superiors.
We need to build another Supermax (or three) to house all the deep-state bastards that have been selling us out. Hanssen deserves a lot of company. Not that any of them would have the slightest clue where the rest were once they got stuck in the slammer.
Good article!. Thanks!
We knew about the “deep state” before it was the deep state. There have always been career bureaucrats and government employees that maintained their jobs irrespective of what politician currently headed the government. They knew their jobs and their place and left the politicking to the “professionals”.
But at some point they became radicalized and decided that the government was too important to be entrusted to politicians - especially Republican politicians. We are now witness to what happens when we allow the deep state to flourish.
It is incumbent upon us to scour the government from one end to the other and rid ourselves of these parasites. Some need to go to jail. Some to breadlines. All need a “Do not rehire” in their permanent files. They should never again be allowed anywhere near anything more important than cleaning the restrooms.
Yes. Excellent article, pounding away at the crux of the issue with what befell the POTUS candidate of a major political party, and later electoral victor, and later POTUS officeholder. The fact that this should never be allowed to happen again, which Trump wisely cites loudly and often, could not be clearer, and will justify perfectly carting dozens of deep state creeps into custody in manacles and leg irons, regardless of their protestations of immunity. This crap DOES NOT HAPPEN HERE.
I watched the History channel yesterday and it was a series on prison life. Solitary confinement at a super max prison for the rest of your life is some real bad juju..........I would have taken the death penalty.
If an FBI agent has suspicions about someone, his superiors had better listen. Major causes of 9/11 failures to prevent airplane hijackings.
Well, the guy was just found dead in prison at 79.
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