Summary: A most learned denizen of #LionelNation wrote as follows. It is a commonplace of espionage novels from the lurid and fanciful to the dark and serious that intelligence agencies run counterintelligence disinformation campaigns against competitor nations and enemies, even against friends. And everything we know about actual intelligence services supports these fictional stories. It is well known also that the quality of information that the agencies obtain from many sources ranges from the highly informative to the ludicrous. And the sources are rewarded or not rewarded accordingly. All reports and purloined documents, expensive or not, are viewed with deep suspicion, and especially if they are timely or relevant. As one of John Le Carré’s protagonists says, “topicality is always suspect.” Information is similarly suspect if it has been solicited. The prudent spy knows that a source will be tempted to tell him what he wants to know, regardless of whether it resembles reality or not. In short, spies trust no one, especially their sources, as there is a fair chance that they are either counterespionage agents, fortune seekers, or downright charlatans and fantasists. Further, the bosses of these spies are skeptical of their own agents, knowing that an agent may be tempted to show success where there is none or where there is even disinformation. The deception campaigns run by the British in WW2 are celebrated, as are the exploits of Mossad. They were successful, not by being gullible, but by persuading their enemies to be gullible. It is no mean feat. In addition to “considering the source”, intelligence agencies are at pains to evaluate the materials presented as to their content. Do they seem plausible? Do they contradict other verified information? Is their significance inflated? Are they “chickenfeed” or the “Crown Jewels”*. If the source is suspect, could the information still be of quality or vice versa? The spymaster’s lot is not an ‘appy one. So it is very strange that the recent “dossier” of “information” about President-elect Trump was passed around so many people as if it had been cleared to the highest level by the top of the Department of Central Intelligence and now was fit for secure and confidential dissemination to those who “need to know”. No. It somehow came into the hands of John McCain, MI6, CIA, FBI, private parties, President Obama himself, newspapers, and website proprietors and God knows who else. Has anything like this ever happened to any piece of intelligence that was regarded as sensitive or important? No. That is not the way things happen. John McCain himself said that it somehow came into his possession, source undisclosed, and he felt it was his civic duty to pass it on to the FBI. Any intelligence agency worth its salt would have sent it back with a firm, “no thanks, we do not accept unsourced, unverified materials from anyone not vetted by the agency. We advise you to destroy all copies of this document as it could be used by our adversaries to subvert our political system. We also advise you not to accept any materials claiming to be sensitive or concerning the country’s defense and to advise the source to bring the material directly to us.” What did happen, according to his own testimony, is that John McCain took it upon himself to accept this information like he was some sort of volunteer spook, and read it and pass it on to the FBI. The very fact that he is a publicly known antagonist of Donald Trump should have cautioned any prudent man not to traffic in potentially damaging and potentially false information about a political adversary. Could it be a trap? Did he imagine himself some septuagenarian James Bond? And then there is t[...]
