When POTUS is the Security Risk

This Presidency has expanded the public’s interest in–and knowledge of–some of the covert actions taken by our collective Intelligence Community (IC). I’m on the fence about the long-term benefits of this new desire for information: on one hand, I love that the general public is taking more of an interest in our Government, particularly the most fun parts, like counterintelligence (CI) and covert intelligence operations. On the other hand, much of the information that is given to the public is bad, or just flat out misinformation. Some of this bad information comes from purported experts on television, making it difficult to vet what’s legit and what is conjecture.

The irony of an anonymous account lecturing people on vetting information is not lost on me, and probably not on any of you, either, but it’s still important to say. Anyway, I digress:

So, what are we talking about here?

It’s important to understand that there are two major types of investigations that we are talking about: criminal and counterintelligence. Comey has alluded to viewing them as separate entities as it related to Trump, although as we’ve seen in current reporting, that’s not necessarily the case anymore. Oftentimes, an investigation will start as a criminal inquiry and evolve to a counterintelligence one, or vice versa. Before 9/11, this wasn’t always easy to do, but as the need for agility increased in the post-9/11-world, the barriers that separated criminal and counterintelligence investigations all but evaporated. If you haven’t read Benjamin Wittes’ brilliant piece “What if the Obstruction Was the Collusion?” you should do so here; he lays it out far better than I can.

Now for the differences in types of investigation:

• Criminal: a criminal investigation looks at whether or not an actual prosecutable crime has been committed – (“Duh, Angry”)
• Counterintelligence: the FBI’s CI program is tasked with “identifying and neutralizing ongoing national security threats from foreign intelligence services”

Without going into too many details, the FBI is tasked with investigating both of these, often at the same time. A CI investigation will often illustrate criminal conduct, and vice versa. There is nothing inherently unusual about this, except for the fact that we’re talking about the President of the United States.

So… we know Trump is a criminal, but is he a national security risk?

The FBI CI division (CD – not to be confused with Criminal Investigative Division, or CID) has 4 primary goals, with a whole bunch of subcategories they’re responsible for:

• Protecting the secrets of the United States IC
• Protecting the nations critical assets
• Countering the activities of foreign spies
• Keeping weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands

We can rule out #4 – proliferation isn’t really a risk here. The enemy we’re investigating already has their own weapons of mass destruction. You could probably also rule out #2.

On a basic level, this is where we’re at: our IC concluded that there was reason to believe a sitting POTUS was a risk to the secrets of the United States, working in concert with a foreign intelligence service, or both. This is not done lightly. There would have been a high threshold for opening that investigation.

What do we do about it?

Unfortunately, not a whole lot until Mueller is done. If you haven’t read Asha Rangappa’s OpEd from today, you should do so here. If you’re blocked by a paywall or don’t feel like reading it, I’ll briefly summarize here:

There are a few ways the FBI can approach a CI investigation, keeping in mind that the goal is to identify and stop threats to national security:

• “Monitor under the radar, and, in the process, collect intelligence on what our foreign adversaries are interested in and able to do.”
• “If the target is in a position to provide direct foreign intelligence about an adversary and appears to have wavering loyalties, our intelligence services can offer financial aid and other incentives to “flip” the target.”
• “In the case of a foreign national or spy who is working under diplomatic cover who poses an egregious threat to national security, the FBI can force the target to leave the country.”

None of these options are super viable when the target is the POTUS. We can’t *really* restrict POTUS from access to intelligence or provide him with fake information. Can’t flip him, and can’t force him to leave the country (damn it). This, according to Asha (and other CI pros I’ve spoken with) leaves one option: exposure. Exposure means Mueller.

Again, from Asha, “Exposing the activities of a foreign intelligence service renders them ineffective, since it removes plausible deniability, which is the hallmark of covert intelligence operations. It also reveals the sources and methods a foreign power is using, forcing them to abandon the operation.”

Back to me: This is what you’ve been seeing from Mueller for over a year. Charging Russians who we have no chance of prosecuting, releasing the exact methods of their online troll factory, and tying Putin directly to the plot are all examples of exposure and mitigation techniques from Mueller. The leaks we are seeing are also evidence of this: the alarm is being sounded full-blast that Trump is in Putin’s pocket. Now it’s up to Congress to listen when Mueller releases his report. It’s been slow, but it has to be. This report is going to rock DC (and the greater US, honestly) to its core – it has to be done right. People have asked me if I worry that it might somehow exonerate Trump, but I don’t see any scenario where that is possible: if any exonerating information existed, Trump would have forced it to be released already.