Outing of CIA's Kremlin mole echoes Iraq WMD hoax

Pushback with Aaron Mate

Pushback with Aaron Maté

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4.7 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2019

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

The outing of a CIA informant inside of the Kremlin raises new questions about the Russia investigation and the intelligence officials behind it. The informant, identified as Oleg Smolenkov, disappeared from Russia in June 2017 and turned up in the US living under his own name, in a luxury home in the Washington, DC suburbs. Former CIA analyst John Kiriakou says that all of this points to Smolenkov being less valuable an asset than he's been portrayed – and, just as we saw during the Iraq war -- to the possible manipulation of the intelligence he provided by then-CIA head John Brennan. Guest: John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst who was imprisoned after blowing the whistle on the agency’s torture program. ||| Pushback with Aaron Maté ||| Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Pushback on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pushbackshow Aaron Maté on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronjmate Listen to Pushback on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/pushbackshow Subscribe to the Pushback podcast on iTunes: https://apple.co/2lu7MGQ Find transcripts and more at https://thegrayzone.com/pushback ||| The Grayzone ||| Find more reporting at https://thegrayzone.com Support our original journalism at Patreon: https://patreon.com/grayzone Twitter: https://twitter.com/grayzoneproject Facebook: https://facebook.com/thegrayzone Minds: https://minds.com/thegrayzone

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Pushback. I'm Erin Mate.
0:05.0	The outing of a CIA informant inside of the Kremlin raises new questions about Russia
0:10.3	Gate and the intelligence officials behind it.
0:13.7	The informant has been identified as Oleg Smolinkoff, a mid-level Kremlin official.
0:19.4	CNN first reported that the CIA removed Smolinkov from Russia in 2017,
0:24.6	amid concerns President Trump could expose his identity.
0:27.6	According to one source, there was, quote, no equal alternative inside the Russian government,
0:32.6	providing both insight and information on Putin.
0:35.6	A person directly involved in the discussion, said
0:38.2	that the removal of the Russian was driven in part by concerns that President Trump and
0:42.5	his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing
0:48.9	the covorts' source as a spy.
0:51.7	That turns out to be false.
0:53.3	Reports from the New York Times and Washington Post made clear
0:56.2	that it was in fact leaks to the media that forced Smolnikov's departure.
1:00.8	According to the Russian media, Smolnikov disappeared during a visit to Montenegro in
1:04.9	June 2017. After that, he turned up in the U.S. living under his own name in a luxury home in the suburbs
1:11.9	of Washington, D.C. All this raises many questions, including how high level and how
1:17.8	valuable Smolinkov actually was. Well, to discuss this, I spoke earlier to John Kerriakou.
1:23.6	He is a former CIA analyst, best-selling author, and co-host of the podcast, Loud and Clear.
1:30.2	I began by asking John Kariaku what he makes of the fact that Smolencuff was so easily
1:35.0	identified in the media and found to be living under his own name.
	...

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