The two oldest professions

Politico tells a spy story that illuminates the current Russia scandal. In 1986, the CIA and the FBI learned that an American, identity unknown, was passing secrets to the Soviets. In 2001, they determined that the traitor was FBI employee Robert Hanssen. The FBI used a crude tactic to uncover Hanssen: They paid a Russian intelligence operative a million dollars to spill the beans.

Spying has been called the world's second oldest profession. Paying for information may be the oldest strategy employed within that profession.

Keep all of this in mind as you think about the Steele dossier. We are told that Steele paid for some of the information in that dossier. The Republicans have tried to convince the country that payment of Russian sources is the same thing as colluding with the Russians.

That's crazy.

When the Bush II administration paid a million bucks to discover Hanssen's identity, the administration did not collude. What happened at that time may not have been pretty, but it wasn't collusion.

If you pay to learn Antoine's secret recipe for Oysters Rockefeller, nobody at Antoine's will consider you a colluder.

John Schindler is weird. Unlike Louise Mensch, he manages to get published in respectable places -- yet he still gives me the heebie jeebies. If he wants us to trust him, why does he call his operation "The 20 Committee"? The name comes from a WWII deception operation: "20" = XX = Double Cross.

A couple of days ago, he published a piece which warned that the Kremlin has plans to push fake Trump sex tapes. Such a strategy has historical precedent: An eastern bloc service used lookalikes to create a fake video of "Ronald Reagan" being serviced in a rather humiliating way by "Vicky Morgan." Putin has used sex tapes -- both genuine and phony -- to destroy political opponents.

One tactic would be to publicize a Trump sex tape and then offer proof that it is not authentic. There was a similar plan in the works back in the days of Watergate. The Nixon forces hoped to distribute a bogus audio recording of Nixon saying incriminating things to E. Howard Hunt; revealing the tape as a fake would have given all of Nixon's opponents a black eye.

Schindler's scenario makes sense to me conceptually. But I still can't trust the guy. Here's one reason why:

A half-century ago, when our Intelligence Community was assessing if there were Kremlin moles inside our spy agencies (spoiler: there were), a nasty bureaucratic fight ensued that dragged on for years. The protagonist was James Angleton, the CIA’s top counterspy for two decades, who coined the term “wilderness of mirrors” to describe the impenetrable mystery of certain espionage operations.

Schindler leaves out a key fact: Angleton was a nut. That isn't just my assessment; that was the opinion of John Gittinger, the CIA's top psychiatrist. Angleton was ultra-paranoid, ruthless, manipulative, resentful -- and incredibly powerful. It is said that he even had his own private assassination squad, run by a man named Boris Pash. (Added note: A reader has corrected me; see discussion of Gittinger and Angleton in comments.)

(Incidentally, many of the latest JFK assassination documents have Angleton's fingerprints all over them. I would argue -- at another time, alas -- that you cannot properly understand these files unless you comprehend Angelton's role in the assassination. As longtime readers know, I think that Angleton masterminded the whole thing.)

Let's get back to the dossier:

As I’ve written about the Steele dossier, although a great deal of its raw intelligence has turned out to be true, large portions reek of disinformation— including the most salacious bits. As I explained:

The dossier’s “pee-pee tape” claim is viewed with derision by most Western spies who know the Russians. It’s very likely that the Kremlin possesses kompromat on the president—senior intelligence sources from several countries have confirmed to me that unpleasant videos of Trump exist—yet there’s no reason to believe Steele’s particular claim here, without corroborating evidence.

Schindler's use of the term "disinformation" implies that the pee-pee claim came from Russian sources. As noted before, Steele lists three sources (D, E and F), two of whom were part of Team Trump; the third was a Ritz hotel employee.

Epstein. Schindler then switches the topic to Jeffrey Epstein, aficionado of underaged females.

There appear to be connections between Epstein’s debased antics and Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, now termed “the winter White House.” Hard facts remain elusive, however, and perhaps the media’s lack of ardor for getting to the bottom of this sordid case may have something to do with the fact that Epstein’s pals are a powerful bunch—and Bill Clinton is mixed up in this too.

The link goes to a Politico piece about Virginia Roberts, now Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein victim who made claims against Alan Dershowitz. For conservative propagandists, the trick has always been to portray Virginia as credible if her testimony can be used against Bill Clinton while simultaneously attacking the credibility of her claims against Dershowitz. The propagandists have managed to perform that trick with amazing dexterity, even though Virginia's complaint paints Clinton as innocent and Dershowitz as anything but.

Most people don't know that Epstein recruited Virginia Roberts when she was all of 15 years old and working for Trump at the Mar-A-Lago. If I may be permitted a bit of self-quotation:

Question: Is it common for a country club to employ girls of that age? Perhaps one of my readers can help me out here. I know many things, but I'm ill-educated on the subject of country clubs.

Incidentally, Trump may have another reason to regret ever purchasing the Mar-a-Lago: It turns out that Trump -- the candidate who insists that American jobs should go only to American citizens -- employed many guest workers from eastern Europe.

(Would you consider me a sensationalist if I mentioned, in this context, the fact that Jeffrey Epstein routinely surrounded himself with young girls imported from eastern Europe?...)

Fifteen year-old Virginia Roberts was asked to give Epstein a massage when he was at the Mar-A-Lago. That's how they met. We don't know if Trump arranged that first encounter, but we can state that Trump was Virginia's employer.

Let us here pause to note one of the great Epstein mysteries: How did he make his billions?

"My belief is that Jeff maintains some sort of money-management firm, though you won't get a straight answer from him," says one well-known investor. "He once told me he had 300 people working for him, and I've also heard that he manages Rockefeller money. But one never knows. It's like looking at the Wizard of Oz -- there may be less there than meets the eye."

Perhaps he "manages" money for billionaires not named Rockefeller. A close reading of this post may give you an idea or two as to who those non-Rockefeller billionaires might be.

Another Epstein mystery: How did he "acquire" a number of young (very young) women from eastern Europe?

Dirty business. In previous posts, we've noted that Semyon Mogilevich is considered the most powerful and dangerous of the Russian mobsters. His associates have included Felix Sater and his father. The younger Sater later joined forces with Trump (although Trump doesn't like to admit it).

Tevfik Arif, another associate of both Sater and Trump, has been linked to a scandal involving underaged prostitutes...

As for Arif, his most recent visible brush with the law came in 2010, when he and other members of Bayrock’s Eurasian Trio were arrested together in Turkey during a police raid on a suspected prostitution ring, according to the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.

At the time, Turkish investigators reportedly asserted that Arif might be the head of a criminal organization that was trafficking in Russian and Ukrainian escorts, allegedly including some as young as 13.16 According to these assertions, big-ticket clients were making their selections by way of a modeling agency website, with Arif allegedly handling the logistics. Especially galling to Turkish authorities, the preferred venue was reportedly a yacht that had once belonged to the widely-revered Turkish leader Atatürk. It was also alleged that Arif may have also provided lodging for young women at Rixos Group hotels.17

According to Russian media, two senior Kazakh officials were also arrested during this incident, although the Turkish Foreign Ministry quickly dismissed this allegation as “groundless.” In the end, all the charges against Arif resulting from this incident were dismissed in 2012 by Turkish courts, and his spokespeople have subsequently denied all involvement.

While it is fairly easy to find online stories linking Sater to Mogilevich, there isn't much evidence online directly connecting Arif to Mogilevich. But the Sater/Arif partnership allows us to say that there isn't all that much daylight between the three men.

Arif is said to have used his "girls" to entrap and blackmail the powerful. Virginia Roberts has made a similar claim about Jeffrey Esptein.

On a completely unrelated note: There is a certain personage in one of the Houses of Congress -- let us call him Durwood Ninny -- who has gained notoriety for his robustly pro-Trump attitude. Ninny isn't rich, but he does have some money, most of which he invested in a small-ish enterprise in his home state. Nothing wrong there. For a brief period, some observers worried that this enterprise did business in Russia, but those concerns were overblown and silly.

However: A former employee of that business claimed in a little-noticed lawsuit that the business once held a party for unnamed "bigwigs" on a boat, and that this party included prostitutes, and that at least one of these prostitutes appeared to be underaged. I have no information indicating that Durwood Ninny attended this party or had any knowledge of it.

Just thought I'd mention it.

On another completely unrelated note: I am sure you recall the harassment allegation levelled against George Takei, whose witty tweets have often skewered Trump. This Kos writer offers a persuasive argument against the veracity of this particular harassment claim. Nota bene:

Because some readers are having trouble believing that there could be Russian involvement in this allegation, here is an illustration. It is from the Russian intelligence Twitter monitoring site Hamilton 68. Visit and read their “about” page to learn how they work.

Here is the graph on bot activity in the past 48 hours at 4:35 pm Eastern time today.

I've caught some flack for warning readers that some "harassment" claimants -- not all, not most, but some -- may have hidden motivations.

I continue to predict that we will soon see a spectacular new claim against Bill Clinton, and that this claim will probably will have some connection to the Epstein matter. I further predict that this claim will probably involve a Russian woman, who will say that she had sex with Clinton when she was underaged. The story may be backstopped with seemingly-convincing evidence. The resultant bipartisan orgy of Clinton-hate will make the Trump/Russia scandal disappear from the national consciousness.

That's my forecast. I hope I'm wrong.