Throughout history, sources have been used to carry out dangerous and nefarious missions for intelligence operatives, law enforcement agencies and even criminal enterprises. Also known as an “agent” in the intelligence world, these individuals are recruited to do any number of operations, including gun buys, drug deals, extortions, murders, and cyber crimes. Criminals and intelligence operatives also use sources to create false trails of evidence in order to mislead investigations away from the employer of the source. Simply put, using a source ensures a large degree of separation between a criminal’s actions and the individual(s) and/or organizations that hire them. This ensures minimal to no connection and creates a backstop that leads away from the employer of the source.

For example, the FBI can often get information otherwise impossible to obtain by convincing a person with access to criminal associations to “flip” and work as a government source. The sources are then tasked with infiltrating criminal organizations, listening to and/or recording conversations about illegal activity, acquiring stolen or illegal goods, and even intruding on our enemies through cyber activities.

With this concept of effective source tasking in mind, lets consider the Democratic Party’s repetitive accusations of Russia’s meddling in all things political and their latest accusations targeting Attorney General Sessions speaking to a Russian Ambassador. It may not be as clear a picture as you think.

I’ve been saying since the DNC hack was first announced in 2016, that the potential of the DNC hacking themselves was plausible for the purpose of drumming up the victim card for Hillary Clinton’s camp to cover for the then impending hack of John Podesta’s email which came to light through WikiLeaks It would have been very easy for the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton to recruit someone from Russian Intelligence to carry out hacking and other cyber crimes, especially if you consider all the connections Hillary Clinton amassed during her time as Secretary of State as well as from her husband’s presidency.

Of course this is speculation and may sound outlandish, but it’s hard to deny how effective a Russian Intelligence source would be in developing a cover story for the Democratic Party as a Russian source would have the ability to leave specific, known Russian cyber footprints behind to be traced by authorities. In the cases of General Flynn and Attorney General Sessions, a Russian source could also provide notifications when phone calls have been made to their ambassadors.

Remember, a good source will never appear to be working for the person directing the mission. Simply put, recruit a Russian Intel agent to do your dirty work and everything they do will come back to Russia.

This could also have been the case with the January 2017 BuzzFeed and CNN fake news reports about a Trump Russian prostitute fiasco that never took place. It was here that a Washington political research firm hired by Trumps political rivals, paid a retired British Intelligence Officer to “investigate” Trumps ties with Russia, ending in a 35-page fake report full of lies about Trump.

That fake report was then mysteriously disseminated by the Democratic Party, members of Congress (i.e. John McCain), the White House, and was included in a classified National Security briefing to the Obama administration without being verified by the FBI or the CIA. Simultaneously, and without verification, the fake information was being reported by members of the media as fact, giving the information a credible appearance.

While it is easy to conclude that collusion was necessary for this chain of events to occur, you should pay close attention to how the events started with a controlled source. Like I said, sources are very effective.

And so a pattern has emerged of “take our word for it, it’s connected to Russia and it’s bad.” Yet little evidence is presented to substantiate any of those claims except a Russian cyber footprint here and there, the words of political appointees in our own intelligence community left over from the Obama administration and/or the main stream media outlets stepping up to provide misleading authenticity. As a trained investigator, I find this “blame Russia” pattern all too convenient for me to believe.

Why is it always Russia? Why does it always benefit the Democrats or individuals that hate Trump to blame Russia? If Russia is so aggressively pursuing the U.S., why wasn’t Russia an issue during the previous administration? I theorize that many in Washington D.C., have in fact obtained prior or current Russian Intelligence agents as sources to carry out leaks and/or cyber intrusions that wont lead back to the U.S.

Conspiracy or not, it is clear that 2017 will see more questionable accusations from the Democratic Party and Anti-Trumpians against President Trump. Conveniently blaming, you guessed it, Russia