Obama Worried Trump Would Warn the Russians about Their Compounds … Did They?

Halfway through this CBS story highlighting all the proof that shock, shock! there was spying going on in Russia’s two foreign service compounds shut down in December is this buried lede:

The Russians were given 24 hours to get out of the compound and 72 hours to leave the country. Current U.S. officials tell CBS News they vacated the compounds before the 24-hour deadline, striking some as odd and raising the question of whether the diplomats had been tipped off about their expulsion. [my emphasis]

But the possibility that someone had warned the Russians they needed to start destroying and transferring their spy toys is actually not new. Per this May AP story, it’s something the Obama team specifically worried about.

The distrust in the other camp was clear months earlier. In late December, as the White House prepared to levy sanctions and oust Russians living in the in the U.S. in retaliation for the hacks, Obama officials did not brief the Trump team on the decision until shortly before it was announced publicly. The timing was chosen in part because they feared the transition team might give Moscow lead time to clear information out of two compounds the U.S. was shuttering, one official said.

So … Obama officials worried Trump’s folks might warn Russia. And details about the evacuation suggest Russia may have had warning.

I wonder. Who might have wanted to warn the Russians that compounds used for sensitive spying and communications were about to be raided?

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26 replies
  1. Philip Rhodes says:

    Innuendo via tags? Useful to coin a word for this?  taginnuendo is too long and is just the two words crammed together so maybe taguendo ?

    Any other suggestions?

  2. Charles says:

    It seems to me that the fact that the Administration was on its guard about Trump actually reduces (but does not eliminate) the likelihood that Flynn or Kushner were the sources. Plans for sanctions would have been tightly held among WH principals/deputies, one would think. Flynn might have had a back door in through buddies at DoD, but Kushner?

     

    What am I missing here?

    • emptywheel says:

      Agree. Though the people behind these stories obviously know precisely when Trump was noticed and probably know when the Russians started clearing out.

      That said, my guess is the CBS story comes from Congress, and so may not be privy to as much about the specifics about what FBI knows of the timing.

        • lefty665 says:

          Amazing isn’t it? Russia has its own national technical means. If they learn something it is not necessarily because someone Trump related told them. Whod’a thunk it?

          • John Casper says:

            lefty, how does the timing work?

            If Trump’s sure it didn’t come from his people, why isn’t he demanding IC and Homeland Security unearth how Russia found out?

            That’s on page one of the GOP handbook, discredit Dems on national security.

            • lefty665 says:

              Seems to me it is a chumps game to try to read Trump’s tea leaves. Page one in my book is that simpler explanations are the first place to look. In this case, the Russians have their own sources and methods, many of which (shock) have nothing to do with Trump. Maybe the Israelis told them.

              It has long been the case that the Russians can do pretty much anything we can when they choose to apply the resources. Intelligence is one of the places they put their resources.

               

            • lefty665 says:

              Hey John, You’re right, timing is the issue. Since the Trump folks were not briefed beforehand it really does not seem they were the source of the tipoff, if there was one. The Russians had other sources. Compromised US communications, a mole in the Obama White House, chatter at the UN or DoJ, clumsy FBI work, Israeli penetration of US systems, there are lots of potential sources. But because of the timing, the one thing it seems we can be pretty sure of is that it was not the Trumpies.

              The story really seems to be about Dems throwing shade at the Trump folks. “Ohhh we couldn’t trust them so we didn’t tell them, but the Ruskies were tipped off anyway, it must have been the Trumpies.” WTF? Closing the compounds and expulsions had apparently been contemplated for some time and had nothing to do with the election so there is no telling how widely they were discussed. Americans have a terrible history of failing to keep their traps shut.

  3. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Kushner and Flynn might have had the most at stake in helping ensure that the Russians destroyed any incriminating evidence at these compounds, but there would seem to be several cut-outs who could have communicated with them on behalf of Team Trump.  Sessions-at-the-Mayflower comes to mind, because his memory is so hazy, particular about “meetings” that involved more than one other person, at which a Russian or Russian representative was in attendance.  A thirty second passing word over dry vodka martinis would have been sufficient.  Then again, the FBI and the Russians have been playing cat-and-mouse communication games in DC for nearly a century.  I’ll bet there are even a few comms techniques that Kim Philby used that remain undiscovered.

    • SpaceLifeForm says:

      Thank you for the link. I, too, am not convinced that it is the ruskies behind all of the bs going on. Far from it. The dailybeast link I posted was not to draw you or anyone to go to that website in particular. I rarely read that site myself. I put it out there because it has some specific comments, I.E., intel. Tag-dots for Marcy.

  4. MaDarby says:

    This site seems dedicated to the memory of the journalistic carrier of Judy Miller. WMD (aka Russia) wall to wall. People think Trump is irrational – people who print unproven and unsubstantiated Russia did it absurdities and behave more hysterically and even possibly pathologically (the actions being pathological – I make no psychological analysis of the individuals) are under no obligation (obviously) to conduct any sort of self reflection. This is of course because god is on there side.

    The well functioning US government sense WWII has slaughtered tens of millions of innocent people all across the world. Not one single day in those 70 odd years has gone by without the US having killed people and worked to keep thousands in misery and destitution.

    I don’t want this to continue, I do not want an efficient and functioning US government to continue this slaughter and deliberate suffering.

    Apparently emptywheel has no problem with all that as it supports the US government and its institutions and wishes to preserve them against the threat of Trump.

    By all means get rid of Trump so Mike Pence can be president or better still Paul Ryan – just get rid of Trump so the bombing and slaughter can go on as efficiently as it did under Bush and Obama.

    There is no such thing as pure objective truth – acting as if there is and that it can be found here is a religious concept. It is based on the domination (especially in the US Midwest) of extremist Calvinist ideology.

    You can always tell if someone is following some religious ideology (whether they themselves know it or not) because they speak in terms of concepts of faith in the nonexistent – objective truth or free speech (as defined by the US) as absolutes universal and unquestionable ideas. Albert Einstein – remember him? – told the world there is only one absolute in the universe – the speed of light – now even that absolute is being challenged by new knowledge.

    The concepts of left and right politics is dead. There is now an insurgency against the established extremist Calvinist Neoliberal power structure – the establishment. Whatever you once were, left or right matters not any more – now you are with the insurgency or, as emptywheel, you are with the establishment.

  5. John Casper says:

    lefty665,

    Do you have an example of Israel leaking to the Russians? I thought the Russians were backing Iran against the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Did I get that wrong?

    “Israeli intelligence ‘boiling mad’ over Trump disclosure: report”

    “Israeli intelligence officers are “boiling mad and demanding answers” after President Trump reportedly shared classified information from Israel with Russia, according to a new report.”

    http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333670-israeli-intelligence-boiling-mad-at-trump-report

    You wrote, “Seems to me it is a chumps game to try to read Trump’s tea leaves.”
    May I quote you and link to this thread the next time you do?

    You wrote, “Page one in my book is that simpler explanations are the first place to look.

    snip
    “It has long been the case that the Russians can do pretty much anything we can when they choose to apply the resources. Intelligence is one of the places they put their resources.”

    Thanks for making my point.
    “Simpler explanations are the first place to look.” It’s for Trump to stop what Obama allowed the Russians to get away with, because it’s the right thing to do and it’s political gold for Trump and the Republicans.

    • lefty665 says:

      Trump is so erratic there is not a predictable course for his activities. About as close as an oracle can come is predicting that anything is possible, and often is. Believing you can predict anything more is, as I observed, a chumps game.

      The Israelis serve only their own interests, have intimate access to US activities and communications, and a history of dealing intelligence to anyone when it serves their interests. Yes they get pissed when their activities are disclosed. That is especially so when it impairs their manipulations of other nations, the Saudis perhaps in the laptop bombs kerfuffle.

      You went from ok back to swallowing the propaganda when you bit on the bait that Obama gave the Ruskies a free pass.  Getting “tough” with the Russians because Obama supposedly let them off easy (for things for which we have yet to see any hard evidence) sounds like neocon, warmongering, Hillary Dem hysteria.

       

      • John Casper says:

        lefty665,

        You wrote, “Trump is so erratic there is not a predictable course for his activities.”

        1. Please link to the times Trump has deviated from grifting.

        You wrote, “The Israelis serve only their own interests, have intimate access to US activities and communications, and a history of dealing intelligence to anyone when it serves their interests.”

        Thank you Captain Obvious.

        2. Why do you ignore the GOP’s toleration of their conduct?

        You wrote, “You went from ok back to swallowing the propaganda when you bit on the bait that Obama gave the Ruskies a free pass.”

        It was your propaganda: “It has long been the case that the Russians can do pretty much anything we can when they choose to apply the resources. Intelligence is one of the places they put their resources.”

        3. Were you wrong?

        You wrote, “‘Getting tough’ with the Russians because Obama supposedly let them off easy (for things for which we have yet to see any hard evidence) sounds like neocon, warmongering, Hillary Dem hysteria.”

        4. Did you intend to write that Trump and the GOP has no problem with letting the Russians spy on us?

        • lefty665 says:

          Sigh, you were showing signs of  shaping up and I made the mistake of engaging you. But you’re back in twitdom John. Sign up for the twit race and be all that you can be.

  6. John Casper says:

    lefty665,

    “Sigh.”

    Couldn’t find any evidence of Trump deviating from his grifter strategy?

    “Officials struggle to convince Trump that Russia remains a threat”

    “In a recent closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers expressed frustration to lawmakers about his inability to convince the President to accept US intelligence that Russia meddled in the election, according to a congressional source familiar with the meeting.
    Another congressional source said Rogers has shared concerns with lawmakers about the lack of White House focus on the continued threat from Russian cyber efforts, particularly relating to US voting systems.”

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/28/politics/officials-struggle-convince-trump-russia-threat/index.html

    Rogers is a Republican.

    “You” have never shown “signs of shaping up.” Your “mistake” in “engaging” me was you don’t have any evidence. “But you’re back in twitdom” lefty665. “Sign up for the twit race and be all that you can be.”

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