It happened two years earlier, but on Monday it was breaking news: CNN anchor and chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto reported the Central Intelligence Agency carried out a top-secret mission in 2017 to extract a high-level Russian asset—a Kremlin official who'd been informing U.S. intelligence on the activities of Vladimir Putin's government—in part because of concerns that President Trump and his administration had repeatedly mishandled classified information.

The fear was that this careless tradecraft had placed the asset at severe risk. The loudest alarm bell was a May 2017 meeting between Trump and two Russian ambassadors in the Oval Office, in which Trump spilled classified intel on ISIS sent over by Israeli authorities. Soon after the meeting, the CIA moved to extract the asset. But that was just the latest in a long pattern of behavior that spurred the CIA to essentially retire one its most valuable assets amid an ongoing cyber conflict with Russia.

Soon after the CNN story went live, The New York Times confirmed why the asset had been so treasured: the source had reportedly been "instrumental" in proving Vladimir Putin himself had ordered the attack on the 2016 elections to benefit Trump's campaign. Later that day, The Washington Post's Greg Miller reported the individual had produced documents proving Putin had personally authorized the attack.

On Tuesday, we caught up with Sciutto—also the author of a book, , on US cyber battles with Russia and China—to discuss how he landed the scoop, the surprising turns his reporting took, and the US intelligence community's attitudes towards the president. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How long have you been working on this story?

I've been working on it for a number of weeks, and I spoke to multiple sources from the Trump Administration, but also from the intelligence agencies and on Capitol Hill. And I wouldn't have done this story without that kind of work, that number of people, and that expanse of people, who serve both this president and in the agencies. But also, the level of the people that I spoke to for this—these were folks with direct knowledge, not folks who heard about it over a beer.

Sciutto is CNN’s chief national security correspondent. CNN

Your reporting suggests the intel community's concern grew significantly after an Oval Office meeting in May 2017 with Russia's Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the US in which the president divulged classified information about ISIS. Was that a watershed moment in the agencies' perception of how the president handles classified intelligence?

I would describe it as part of a larger picture. The first concerns were expressed at the end of the Obama Administration. The intelligence sourced from this asset had been included in the assessment of Russian interference in the elections—specifically, that Putin had directed the interference, and that he had done so not just to disrupt US politics, but to advantage Trump over Clinton.

The IC [intelligence community] actually offered to exfiltrate the asset at the time, but the asset refused. Then, in the first month of the Trump administration—and by the way, I was told this by someone who was directly involved in the discussions—the concerns grew because of repeated cases of Trump and his administration mishandling classified intelligence.

Then you have the May 2017 Oval Office meeting, where the president discussed classified intelligence with Russian officials—not from this source, but from a source from Israel. And that further added to those concerns. I know that there was a call that took place soon after that Oval Office meeting during which the decision was made that it was time for this person to get out.

The Washington Post's Greg Miller reported the asset handed over documents proving Putin personally authorized the election interference plot. Is that accurate?

I don't want to comment on his reporting, just because I don't know what his sourcing is. I would just say that, one, I know this source contributed to the assessment. And two, that the person's access was directly to President Putin, which included that ability to take photos of his documents.



Mikhail Metzel Getty Images

Is there reason to believe that the asset is in significant danger today?

It has been two years since the extraction took place—that factored into our decision. It was not something that had happened the week before. It was also my understanding that after this person was taken out of Russia, and that the Russian government very quickly concluded what had happened. By reporting this, we weren't telling Putin something he didn't already know.

The CIA itself issued a statement denying the exfiltration had to do with the president or his handling of classified intel, correct?

They did. I think it's worth reading that statement very carefully. The first sentence does not describe the story we wrote. It says something along the lines of, "We would never make a decision without sound analysis." But our story doesn't say that they made a decision without sound analysis. In fact, we describe in great detail how the IC grew concerned by a number of data points over the course of months.

Do you feel generally, though, that there is some pushback against the president in the intelligence community? That there are concerns about his handling of classified intelligence, but also his leadership?

Well, let's start with this. For this story, I spoke to five sources who worked for the Trump Administration, people who work for the intelligence agencies, and people who worked on Capitol Hill handling classified intelligence. They said, very clearly and without hesitation, that the intelligence agencies have deep concerns about the president's handling of intelligence, and that those concerns are not based on one single incident. One thing that got a little lost is that our story recounts another instance, two months after the May 2017 Oval Office meeting. This, of course, was the July 2017 Hamburg G-20 meeting between Putin and Trump, where Trump confiscated the translator's notes afterwards.

We reported that after that meeting, the intelligence agencies were concerned that the president had once again improperly discussed classified information. And those concerns did not end in July 2017. I've heard from people who still serve that they believe the president is undisciplined with the way he handles intelligence, and that that creates dangers.

Win McNamee Getty Images

What is the normal procedure for that kind of bilateral meeting?

You often have many people present. At a minimum, you have a US translator there along with the president, so that you have a second set of ears to confirm what took place. You might have your Secretary of State, you might have the ambassador to the country involved, national security advisor—so that you don't, in effect, grant the other country license to characterize the meeting to their advantage. That's not to say no president has ever met privately with the leader of another country, even a hostile country. But what is clear is that this president took unusual steps in meetings with the Russian president.

And of course it takes place in the context of his regular public denials that Russia interfered in the election in the first place.



Exactly. You have the private steps and then you have the very public attacks on not just the agencies and intelligence officials, but also their findings. He stood next to Putin in Helsinki and took Putin's word over the IC's. He raised public questions about the intel community's assessment that Iran was complying with the nuclear deal. He created his own narrative that contradicted the intelligence. And on North Korea, [when] it continued to expand its nuclear program—that's the intel community's assessment. And the president dismisses that in public.



JORGE SILVA Getty Images

Has this effected the intel community's ability to recruit new assets?

I'll tell you, the CIA has bad memories of what happened just a few years ago—and this has been in public reporting—when they lost a whole host of sources inside China. Somehow those sources were compromised, and China found them, and killed some or many of them, maybe all of them. That lost a lot of vision inside China at a time when the US needed it.

This Russian asset was so high up. It literally took more than a decade to develop this person. You can't replace that overnight. I spoke to a former senior US intelligence official who made that point. It's a glaring loss.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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