Did a Mole-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Leak Plot to Elect Trump?
A brave lawyer defending people the Russian government accuses of treason says the case of cyber experts charged with working for the CIA is about the toughest he’s seen.
ANNA NEMTSOVA
08.20.17 12:00 AM ET
MOSCOW—For the first time in his two decades defending people accused of treason, Ivan Pavlov has come across a case he says he truly has trouble getting his head around. Everything about it is a guessing game for the defense lawyer, including the charges against his client, whose name he is not allowed to mention in public.
Speaking at his office in St. Petersburg, under a photograph of President Barack Obama shaking his hand, Pavlov, 46, explained to The Daily Beast that the arrest in Russia last December of accused cyber spies is heavy with high-profile politics. “This is a dangerous case for everybody, including the FSB investigators, attorneys and journalists,” said Pavlov.
To get a sense of just how fraught it may be, let us go back to January. By then, allegations by the American intelligence community about Russian meddling in the American elections had been building for several months. President Obama had warned Putin, eyeball to eyeball, to stop. Two reports had been issued publicly by the U.S. intelligence services in October and in December, but in guarded and less than explicit language as America’s spooks tried to protect the methods and especially the sources that had led them to their conclusions.
As candidate and as president-elect, Donald Trump had received several classified briefings in August, November and afterward but, in public at least, Trump rejected the conclusion that Russia had interfered in the election he won, calling it fake news and the work of disgruntled losers.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/did-a-mole-who-must-not-be-named-leak-plot-to-elect-trump
