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Here's What US Spies With Integrity Did When Fake Russian Info on Trump Showed Up

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When United States spies were offered the chance to get some dirt on President Donald Trump, they were wary.

When they realized that what they were being offered was likely a fabricated attempt to divide the president from United States intelligence organizations, they did the right thing.

The New York Times reported that months of secret negotiations with a “shadowy” Russian resulted in $100,000 delivered to the foreign operative last year on the promise that the operative would deliver stolen National Security Agency cyber weapons and compromising material on President Trump to U.S. spies.

The $100,000 payment was the first installment of what was going to be $1,000,000.

However, the U.S. agents reportedly made it clear to the Russian operative that they didn’t want material on Trump. They were particularly suspicious as the Russian was (and certainly still is) suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence Eastern European cyber criminals.

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Instead of procuring the NSA hacking tools as per the deal the two parties made, the Russian showed up with completely unverified — and very likely made-up — claims involving President Trump, including bank records and emails.

Now, if you’re thinking that this sounds less like a ransom to be paid for lost NSA secrets and more like a gambit to misinform the United States intelligence community, you wouldn’t be the only one.

“The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the president,” The New York Times reported.

Wow, what a novel idea. If only more of our agents had this healthy level of suspicion.

Do you think these U.S. agents did the right thing?

The interchange ended with United States spies running the Russian agent out of Western Europe earlier this year, reportedly telling him not to return if he valued his freedom.

Now compare that for a moment with the actions of former FBI. Director James Comey, Bruce Ohr and others who seemed more than willing to take phony information (read Trump dossier) at face value.

When it comes to intelligence, there is something you always have to remember — and it’s exactly the same thing you have to remember when you read a news story:

Everyone has an agenda.

If you are not prepared to engage with potentially informative material with some level of critical thinking, then you are not ready to review information. You’ll just believe whatever the most recent report from your favorite news source tells you.

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Sound like any Democrats you know?

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