Epstein Secrets

s, had granted only a handful of face-to-face press interviews. Most of these were with the journalists who had published his story, but one was with James Bamford for his 2014 Wired piece. According to Bamford, it took nearly nine months to arrange the meeting. “I have been try- ing to set up an interview with

ely a deep state. Trust me, I’ve been there. —EDWARD SNOWDEN, Moscow, 2014 Wa WAITING to hear back from Kucherena’s office, I arranged to meet with Victor Cherkashin, who had been one of the most successful KGB spy handlers in the Cold War. Cher- kashin, born in 1932, had served in the KGB’s espionage branch from

6_2p_all_r1.indd 315 @ 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019803 316 | Notes to pages 113-121 109 first live interview in Moscow: Snowden met with James Bamford, the author of the 1982 book The Puzzle Palace, in Moscow in June 2014. Bamford, “Edward Snowden.” CHAPTER 13 The Great Divide 113. “That moral dec

owden.” “Tf I were providing information”: Transcript of interview with Snowden in Moscow, Rusbridger and MacAskill, “I, Spy.” Pelton, for example: Victor Cherkashin, interview with author. “This debriefing could not”: Intelligence source who requested anonymity, interview with author. Mike Rogers, the chairman:

on this claim in three more interviews arranged by Wizner. These interviews were with three journalists who themselves had opposed NSA surveillance: James Bamford writing for Wired magazine, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation. He also gave a televised

the CIA’s sophisticated lie detector tests. Both Hanssen and Ames eluded intensive FBI and CIA investigations that lasted over a decade. According to Victor Cherkashin, their KGB case officer, who I interviewed in Moscow in 2015, the KGB was able to hide their existence from investigators for such a long period part

tp://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-04/petraeus-justice- and-washington-s-culture-of-leaks > In an interview in Moscow...”—Snowden met with James Bamford, the author of the 1982 book The Puzzle Palace. In Moscow in June 2014. James Bamford. “Edward Snowden: The Untold Story,” Wired, August 2014. (Herei

have many notable cases...” For the cases of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, see Appendix A 16. “The greatest trick the...”—Author’s interview with Victor Cherkashin. The quote from Zhe Usual Suspects was adopted by the movie from Charles Baudelaire’s observation, “La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous per