Epstein Secrets

had a role in acquiring the product of the self- described “single point of failure,” would work to cover their tracks in the affair even before the Aeroflot plane carrying Snowden touched down at Sheremetyevo International Airport on June 23. If any false flag operations had been used to trick, mislead, o

SECRETS Alexander Litvinenko, I had interviewed Andrei Lugovoy. A former KGB officer assigned to protecting the Kremlin’s top members in the 1990s, Lugovoy later opened his own security company. In 2005, he became a business associate of Litvinenko’s in gathering informa- tion and made regular trips to L

lakic Keith Alexander: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Vladimir Putin: AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev Julian Assange: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire @ Russian airline Aeroflot: Courtesy Ena and Ines Talakic @ Michael Hayden: Rex Features via AP Images U.S. base at Yokota: Courtesy Ena and Ines Talakic Snowden’s home in Hawa

61 When I had been investigating: Edward Jay Epstein, The Annals of Unsolved Crime (Brooklyn: Melville House, 2013), 209-40. 262 “I don’t know him”: Lugovoy, interview with author. 264 It was rare: The vast majority of the fifteen American defectors to the Soviet Union in the Cold War, including Joel Bar

proved allowing HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020369 218 Snowden to come to Russia. Putin’s s decision no doubt set in motion the operation to exfiltrate him on Aeroflot, the state-controlled airline. We know that the Russian government acted in advance to facilitate Snowden’s trip from Hong Kong. Without such an int

terviewed a number of people in Moscow, including Andrei Lugovoy. A former KGB officer assigned to protecting the Kremlin’s top members in the 1990s, Lugovoy later opened his own security company. In 2005, he became a business associate of Litvinenko’s in gathering information, and made regular trips to Lo