Epstein Secrets

arrant to investigate U.S. citi- @ zens who use Tor. The NSA is hardly immune from an attack on its own computers. As the former CIA deputy director Morell wrote in his 2015 book, The Great War of Our Time, many financial institutions have “better cyber security than the NSA.” The Internet certainly help

her actors. “For our enemies, having it [the black budget] is like having the playbook of the opposing NFL team,” said the former CIA deputy director Morell in 2015. “I guarantee you that the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, would have paid millions of dollars for such a document.” If unlike

cure debriefing room, he said that he had information that Russia would find interesting, but he wanted money in return. What interested me about the Pelton case was that Cherkashin proceeded to recruit Pelton, even though he was no longer working at the NSA and no longer had access to @ the NSA. In addi

urse grab them.” The final recruitment I asked Cherkashin about was that of Ronald Pelton, the civilian employee of the NSA who had retired in 1979. Pelton had left the NSA without taking any classified documents with him. After retiring, he had financial difficulties, and he sought to get money from the

ay of the 9/11 attack, “Terrorist organizations around the world were already start- ing to modify their actions in light of what Snowden disclosed,” Morell wrote in 2015. “Within weeks of the [Snowden] leaks, com- @ munications sources dried up, tactics were changed.” Even more @ disturbing, suspects on

w with author. 134 The NSA had also notified: Former NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author. 136 NSA did not immediately share: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 283-88. 136 briefed by the NSA: See “Unclassified Declaration of David G. Leatherwood,” US. District Court for the District o

4 “There's definitely a deep state”: Vanden Heuvel and Cohen, “Snowden Speaks.” 255 according to Cherkashin: Cherkashin, interview with author. 258 Pelton had left the NSA: George E. Curry, “Ex-intelligence Expert Guilty of Espionage,” Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1986. CHAPTER 26 The Handler 261 “As for

lations.” (He was correct that Snowden had stolen a larger number of CIA documents that he had not turned over to journalists, as CIA deputy director Morell confirmed.) Whatever this material might reveal, the FSB was presumably aware of its existence. After all, Kucherena was on the FSB’s public oversig

urse grab them.” The final recruitment I asked Cherkashin about was that of Ronald Pelton, the civilian employee of the NSA who had retired in 1979. Pelton had left the NSA without taking any classified documents with him. After retiring, he had financial difficulties, and he sought to get money from the

return. What interested me about the Pelton case was that Cherkashin proceeded to recruit Pelton even though he was no longer working at the NSA, and Pelton no longer had access to the NSA. In addition, since the FBI had 24 hour surveillance on the embassy, Pelton had almost certainly been photographed en

s around the world were already starting to modify their actions in light of what Snowden disclosed. Communication sources dried up.” What heightened Morell’s concern about this loss of intelligence sources was the discovery a 26-page document on an ISIS computer in Syria indicating that the terrorist gro

ously tapped into Soviet undersea cables in the Sea of Okhotsk, which connected a to the Soviet Pacific Fleet's mainland headquarters at Vladivostok. Pelton received another $30,000 from the KGB. “Did the information in his head proved valuable?” I asked. “As long as the NSA didn’t know the tap was comp

he residence of the Soviet ambassador to Austria. A KGB’s electronic communications expert, Anatoly Slavnov, was then sent to Vienna to supervise the Pelton debriefings. The debriefing sessions, which went on for 15 days, were from 8 AM to 6 PM. In them, Pelton managed to recall Project A, a joint NSA-CIA