Epstein Secrets

tch jobs did not come out of the blue. It was not based on serendipitously discovering the documents after he began working at Booz Allen. As he told Lana Lam, he knew in advance that by switching to the job at Booz Allen, he would gain the oppor- tunity to take the lists of NSA sources. He knew that the NS

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

interview with author. 5 “Snowden was an IT guy”: John R. Schindler, “Snowden Is a Fraud,” XX Com- mittee, June 12, 2015. 75 “get access to lists”: Lana Lam, “Post Reporter Lana Lam Tells of Her Journey into the Secret World of Edward Snowden,” South China Morning Post, June 23, 2013. 75 “He targeted my

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:

set up what was to be Snowden’s final interview in Hong Kong. It was scheduled for June 12th. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020254 103 The journalist chosen was Lana Lam, a young Australian reporter working for the South China Morning Post. Tibbo had suggested Lam to Snowden. She had served as Tibbo’s outlet on previo

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

ance. He made no secret of this part of his motive after he got safely to Hong Kong. As will be recalled in answer to a question from the journalist Lana Lam about his motive for changing jobs, he answered that he took the Booz Allen job to get access to secret lists that were not available to him by worki

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