In an era marked by unprecedented events, it is not hyperbole to state that the Donald Trump administration and the twice-impeached disgraced ex-president’s post-presidency represent the worst counterintelligence disaster in U.S. history. An examination by WMR of court records, including criminal cases dealing with violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and Trump’s misappropriation of highly-classified documents at his private properties, points to over a dozen foreign intelligence services, most of them hostile to U.S. national interests, having gained access to America’s most guarded secrets. These include intelligence sources in countries and territories around the world, as well as the methods used to gather intelligence.
The suspected perpetrators who permitted such a wholesale compromise of sensitive U.S. intelligence include Trump; his convicted former national security adviser, Lt. General Michael Flynn; Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani; longtime Trump friend Thomas Barrack—currently on trial for acting as an undisclosed agent for the United Arab Emirates; Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner; former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, currently awaiting prison for contempt of Congress; Trump 2016 presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort; and various Trump political appointees at the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense, the Directorate of National Intelligence; and Trump loyalists among agents of the Secret Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The United States has experienced treasonous espionage in the past, but this was confined to individuals like CIA official Aldrich Ames, FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen, Navy Intelligence employee Jonathan Pollard, atomic spies Julius Rosenberg and Klaus Fuchs, and Revolutionary War General Benedict Arnold, or family-based circles like the John Walker Navy spy ring. It is unprecedented, however, to have had an entire presidential administration involved in efforts to deliver American national security information to multiple foreign powers.
Based on the dealings of Trump and members of his administration, highly-classified U.S. intelligence files, some marked Human-Control System (HCS), which indicate the identities of U.S. intelligence sources abroad; NOFORN, which stands for not for release to foreign nationals; and REL TO FVEY, which means releasable to the FIVE EYES intelligence partners of the United States that include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The foreign intelligence agencies that have likely gained possession of copies of compromised U.S. intelligence files from both Trump’s time in the White House and post-presidency include those of Russia, China (through Bannon’s patron, the Chinese expatriate billionaire Guo Wengui (Chinese intelligence code name Wu Nan), who was and may still be a double agent for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, India, North Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Brazil.
Trump’s “transactional” management style is merely a fancy term for someone willing to put a price tag on America’s most sensitive secrets. In conducting a damage assessment on a major compromise of classified materials, one must always consider the worst-case scenario. In the case of Trump and his circle of aides and cronies, more than a dozen foreign intelligence agencies may have gained access to sensitive U.S. intelligence sources and methods. The only question that remains is now many U.S. sources have been executed, imprisoned, or fled with only a moment’s notice?
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
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Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and nationally-distributed columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
