John Sipher on Spy Swaps: Past, Present, and Future
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2019
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
The Russian government's recent arrest of American Paul Whelan and its charges against him have many politicians and pundits speculating about the possibility of an intended spy swap for Maria Butina. There's a lot going on here, but there's also a lot of misunderstanding about the history of spy swaps, what they are, and what they aren't.
Earlier this week, David Priess sat down with his former CIA colleague John Sipher to talk about it all. They discussed the history of spy swaps, the current case involving Paul Whelan, and prospects for some kind of a release.
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Transcript
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| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | I do think this is the way the Russians might want to do it. |
| 0:37.0 | You have to remember again that President Putin grew up through the KGB. |
| 0:41.0 | He spent his career in the KGB. He ran the Russian Intelligence Service, |
| 0:45.0 | the internal security service, the people who make these arrests, the FSB. |
| 0:49.0 | And then he's been the President for almost 20 years. |
| 0:51.0 | He has wallowed and been in this world for years. |
| 0:55.0 | He's done efforts to clandestinely film people with prostitutes to try to set them up. |
| 1:01.0 | He has been involved in all of the defecions and arrests and intelligence things over the last 40 years. |
| 1:07.0 | I think he understands how to play this game, and therefore maybe calculating that |
| 1:12.0 | this is a good way to put pressure on an administration or government who doesn't have that kind of experience. |
| 1:18.0 | And so I think the wildcard here is President Trump. |
| 1:22.0 | Is this something that he sees as a problem, sees himself as a great negotiator, |
| 1:27.0 | and doing this kind of swap or something would be something that would be useful to the government to move past |
| 1:33.0 | and then build a better relationship with the Russians? |
| 1:36.0 | I think most professionals and people in previous administrations and probably in this administration |
| 1:40.0 | other than in the White House think that's a very bad idea. |
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