Epstein Secrets

also finance and release Mediastan. This sponsorship suggests that the Russian government saw potential value in the document-gathering activities of WikiLeaks. Snowden telephoned Assange at his refuge at the Ecuador embassy on June 10, 2013. According to Assange, Snowden needed help for his exit plan. He w

| | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 98 @ 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019586 CHAPTER 11 Enter Assange Thanks to Russia (and thanks to WikiLeaks), Snowden remains free. —JULIAN ASSANGE, Newsweek, 2015 ULIAN ASSANGE had made a brilliant career of trafficking in state, military, and corporate

e was put in contact with Anatoly Grigorievich Kucherena, a silver-haired, fifty-two-year-old lawyer who is known to be a personal friend of Putin’s. Kucherena did tasks for Putin’s party in the Russian parlia- ment, or Duma. He had excellent connections in the Russian secu- rity apparatus because he served

had retained for himself and had not shared with the journalists in Hong Kong. Shevardnadze, who makes it a point to drill her interviewees, pressed Kucherena as to whether Snowden still had these NSA files, or “material,” in Russia. The dialogue went as follows (from the transcript supplied to me by Shevar

sian parlia- ment, or Duma. He had excellent connections in the Russian secu- rity apparatus because he served on the oversight committee of the FSB. Kucherena offered to serve as Snowden’s pro bono lawyer. On July 12, Snowden officially retained him as his legal representative in Moscow. In explaining the r

it from Hong Kong. He placed a call to Julian Assange. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020256 105 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Enter Assange “Thanks to Russia (and thanks to WikiLeaks), Snowden remains free.” — Julian Assange Born on July 3, 1971 in Queensland, Australia, Julian Assange had made a brilliant career of trafficking i

h Russia. He was put in contact with Anatoly Grigorievich Kucherena, a silver-haired 53-year old lawyer, who was known as a personal friend of Putin. Kucherena also did task for Putin’s party in the Russian parliament or Duma. Most important for Snowden, Kucherena had excellent connections in the Russian sec

who was known as a personal friend of Putin. Kucherena also did task for Putin’s party in the Russian parliament or Duma. Most important for Snowden, Kucherena had excellent connections in the Russian security apparatus since he served on the oversight committee of the FSB. He also offered to serve as the la

ernet appearance at well-attended events around the world, such as South by Southwest, TED, and other Internet conferences. Snowden was, according to Kucherena, was also furnished with bodyguards. To help earn his keep, he was employed at an unidentified Moscow cyber-security firm. To complete his resettleme

to disembark from the plane, Russian plainclothes officers from the special services boarded the plane and asked both Snowden and Sarah Harrison, his WikiLeaks-supplied “ninja,” to accompany them to a waiting car that whisked them away. According to the account in Izvestia, “A special operation was conducted

ere in contact with high-profile activists who were part of the anti-surveillance movements. This would include core participants in the Tor Project, WikiLeaks, Noisebridge, CryptoParties, the Free- @ dom of the Press Foundation, and the Electronic Frontier Founda- @ tion. (Snowden, for example, had been in

the journalists with the lists of sources that were particularly relevant to the NSA’s surveillance of Russia. His legal represen- tative in Moscow, Kucherena, confirmed that Snowden had taken secret “material” to Russia and had access to NSA documents that @ he had not given to journalists. Those unreveal

nly one door”: Gotta, e-mail exchange with author. 250 “A special operation”: Gridasov, Yavlyansky, and Gorkovskaya, “Secret Services in Moscow with WikiLeaks Conducted Operation Snowden.” 251 “If they [the U.S. government]”: Vanden Heuvel and Cohen, “Snowden Speaks.” 251 Overa hundred reporters: Irina Ga

Curry, “Ex-intelligence Expert Guilty of Espionage,” Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1986. CHAPTER 26 The Handler 261 “As for [Snowden’s] communication”: Kucherena interview, Shevardnadze, “Snowden Believes He Did Everything Right.” 261 learned from a Russian researcher: Vassili Sonkine, interview with author.

r NSA Director: ‘I Would Lose All Respect for Russia if They Haven't Fully Exploited Snowden,” VentureBeat, May 23, 2014. 166 He was put in contact: Kucherena, interview with Der Spiegel, “Snowden’s Law- yer: ‘Russia Will Not Hand Him Over’” Spiegel Online International, Jane 24, 2013. 166 “Officially, he

Hong Kong, as Mr. Putin admitted in a televised press conference on Sept. 2, 2013. To provide a smokescreen for Mr. Snowden’s escape from Hong Kong, WikiLeaks (an organization that the Obama administration asserted to be a tool of Russian intelligence after the hacking of Democratic Party leaders’ email in

to allow Mr. Snowden to board the Moscow flight—even though he had neither a valid passport nor a Russian visa, as his newly assigned lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena,said at a press conference in Russia on July 12, 2013. By falsely claiming his passport was invalidated after the plane departed Hong Kong— instead