An Implacable Foe: My Counterterrorism Magazine Q&A With Sean M. Wiswesser, Retired CIA Officer And The Author Of 'Tradecraft, Tactics And Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence And Putin's Secret War'

Counterterrorism magazine published my Q&A with Sean M. Wiswesser, a retired CIA officer and author of Tradecraft, Tactics and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War.

You can read the pages above and below or the following text:

Mr. Wiswesser has nearly thirty years of experience working as a national security professional with intelligence, foreign service, and defense organizations.

As a senior operations officer with the CIA, he served on multiple overseas tours and many other deployments on temporary duty, including war-zone service. He was a chief of station and had multiple joint-duty assignments with intelligence community partners.

Mr. Wiswesser was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in history and Russian & Slavic linguistics. He was awarded a Master of Strategic Studies in 2023 from the Air War College and received the Russia Integrated Deterrence.

Mr. Wiswesser is the author of “Tradecraft, Tactics and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Dirty Tricks,” published by the Naval Institute Press.

Sean M. Wiswesser was interviewed by Paul Davis.

IACSP: I enjoyed your book on Russian intelligence. I’ve been interested in Russian intelligence since I was a teenager and read spy thrillers. I did security work while serving in the U.S. Navy as a young sailor on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War and later as Department of Defense civilian employee. I was trained to guard against Russian intelligence and I attended many FBI, NSA, DIA and CIA briefings and training sessions on Russian intelligence, but there was still a lot in the book that I didn't know.

My first question is why did you write the book?

Wiswesser: There is a saying, if you're going to write a book, write the book only you can write. In the CIA I was a Russia guy, which meant I had to focus on my career and tradecraft, particularly denied area tradecraft, so in other words how we operated in the toughest of environments overseas, like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. As a member of our senior expert cadre with a focus on those areas, I had an idea about writing a book and then I went to the War College towards the end of my career, and it gave me some faith that maybe I could actually do it. I got published in a couple of books at the  War College and another one with the Cambridge Publishing House on the Ukraine War. I would never do a memoir; I’m not interested in that. I knew it would be focused on our adversaries, because that's where I want to do damage to them. I don’t have any grudges or concerns, and I didn’t want to do an expose on us. In fact, I want to do an expose on them, the bad guys. So that was the motivation and there was the added burden of having to get CIA to clear it, so that was an extra step in the process, but in the end it all worked out.

IACSP: You say the book was written for general readers, but why should everyday Americans be concerned about Russian intelligence in particular?

Wiswesser: Well, Paul. They are an implacable foe. Early in the book, I talk about a Russian intelligence officer in the period post 911. Even though I was trained, I wanted to ask him, maybe somewhat naively in retrospect, I said, well, what about Bush and Putin agreeing that the Global War on Terrorism is more important, are we all going get along? And he was betraying his country and helping us, he just laughed at me and said you have always been the main enemy, you are the main enemy, you will be the main enemy of Russia and our security services. For us, the United States comes first.

So I think that we’ve been engaged in 20 years of war, the Global War on Terrorism, the Iraq War, and now we have another war with Iran, Russia has never taken its eyes off of us, because democracy is the only ultimate threat to Putin that he's really concerned about. Democracy and Democratic institutions. Those are the only true threats to his rein.

IACSP: Your book is subtitled “Putin's Secret War.” How would you describe a secret war?

Wiswesser: The secret war is the hybrid war, the gray zone tactics. Traditional espionage, but also cyber operations and the information war. Now in Europe you see the other aspects that I touched on in the later chapters of the book. Sabotage, assassinations and “wet work.” It’s not a new thing. These are old Cold War tactics going back decades into the Cold War, even to the time of the Bolshevik revolution.  

IACSP: How would you briefly describe the Russian SVR, the FSB and the GRU?

Wiswesser: The FSB is the largest of the services, going somewhere around 400,000 officers across Russia, including 200,000 border guards. There are there are no equivalencies to the U.S. intelligence community. People say they are sort of like the FBI. Nothing could be further from the truth. They don't swear their allegiance to the Constitution; there are no laws that they have to worry about breaking. The FSB has the singular mission of protection of the regime, and the protection of Vladimir Putin as the head of it. Remember, he is the former director of the FSB. Their allegiance is to him. The FSB is responsible for counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and wide swaths of activities, including corruption and feeding their own pockets.

The next largest is the GRU, known today as the GU, military intelligence. They number probably between 70,000 and 100,000. They incorporate our DIA, NSA and NRO. They have a vast bureaucracy that they're in charge of in terms of military intelligence and signals intelligence, imagery and otherwise. And they have the Spetsnaz Brigades, the equivalent of the Tier-1 Delta Force and the Navy SEALs.

The SVR is the smallest of the three. They are the foreign intelligence service directorate, numbering probably around 30,000. They are the remnants of the old First Chief Directorate of the KGB, which was in charge of foreign intelligence. That’s a brief summary of the three. 

IACSP: You mention in the book something that was new to me, at least on the grand scale that you note, of how corruption is rampant in Russian intelligence and is a major weakness of their intelligence services. Would you explain that?

Wiswesser: The life of a Russian intelligence officer is overwhelmingly obsessed with and dominated by corruption. Russian intelligence officers and their bureaucracies are deeply embedded to the overall Russian kleptocracy, which is their government. They are constantly on the take for graft, greed, scamming and scheming of all different types, in order to make money for themselves and their patronage networks. I point out in the book that Russian intelligence services resemble more mafia gangs and giant feudal systems then they do anything that resembles the government bureaucracies in the West. These are systems that are set up where you have to make your boss look good and you have to literally line the pockets of your boss all the way up the chain. Every Russian intelligence officer that I worked with him in my career all said the obsession of their services is corruption, making money.

IACSP: In the book you state that you debriefed several Russian defectors. Why generally do they defect and how do they adjust to the US?

Wiswesser: Defectors by and large come to the West because our message resonates. Another journalist asked me if we were losing the intelligence war. No, we're winning. The reason is we will always be winning because our message is far more appealing to Russian intelligence officers. They know that corruption is there, and they know there's no chance of their children ever achieving great things based only on their merits. That's what they seek out eventually, especially in middle age. They realize they have been struggling their whole life for a lie.

IACSP: What sparked your initial interest in Russian language and culture?

Wiswesser: When I was 14 years old, I was really fortunate that I won a scholarship at an all-boys boarding school outside of Philadelphia. The school had a great language program, and I got to study Russian for four years with an excellent instructor named Rick Borger.

I don’t have a strong American accent, which later in my career that was a huge benefit for me. When I was trying to meet Russians for the first time at receptions out there it was a huge advantage that they didn't immediately identify me as an American. With that interest in Russian language came a desire to go to Russia to study, which I did in college. I was fascinated and I hopefully it comes across my great respect for the Russian people and their great language and culture and literature, but I also saw the darker side of their society. The people lived in fear. I decided that I wanted to join the intelligence community and fight back against the Soviet regime.  

IACSP:  One of the things I found most interesting in your book is that you write about how Russian intelligence interfered with our presidential elections. Did they interfere in favor of Trump or were they just interested in dividing Americans and damaging our electoral process?

Wiswesser: Their attack was fundamentally against democracy more broadly. This is not new. They have been doing it for decades.  They want to spread the false idea that you can't have free and fair elections in the West.  They want our youth in America and other democracies to give up. Any benefit to an individual candidate is incidental.

IACSP: You write about Putin, the former KGB Lieutenant Colonel and later the director of the FSB. He's a big supporter of Russian intelligence. What do you think will happen when he dies?

Wiswesser: I don't believe fundamentally that there's any opposition to Putin whatsoever. Whoever replaces him, he's going to be a hand-picked successor, most likely from Putin’s inter circle of those veterans of the KGB that came with him when he was the deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg. Those veterans are fiercely loyal to him. They're completely beholden to him. So, Putin is going to decide who's going to succeed him. 

IACSP: Thank you for your service with the CIA and thank you for speaking to us.

Paul Davis, a longtime contributor to the Journal, also writes the online IACSP Threatcon column.                                                                                              

Former CIA Operations Officer Gary Berntsen On Trump And The Gutting Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran

Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA Operations Officer, former Iraq Desk Officer, former Chief of Hezbollah Operations, three-time CIA Station Chief, and author, offers a piece in the Dallas Express on President Trump’s war on Iran.

I entered the Central Intelligence Agency in 1982 as part of the Career Service Trainee Program. By 1983 I was a trainee in the Near East Division’s Arab North section, responsible for Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. I became the Iraq Desk Officer the day after Iranian-backed and directed Hezbollah terrorists blew up our embassy in Beirut, killing half a dozen of my CIA colleagues.

I was present at the creation of Hezbollah as a lethal force. For the next three decades my home base remained the Near East Division, covering the Middle East and South Asia. I studied Persian, served in an Iranian Operations Group dedicated to countering the regime, and later became Chief of Hezbollah Operations in the Counterterrorism Center. I served as CIA Station Chief three times. Throughout those years I had a front-row seat to the murderous operations of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. What I witnessed across Republican and Democratic administrations was the same recurring failure: presidents unwilling to confront this self-avowed enemy for fear of “expanding the conflict.”

After Iran and Hezbollah slaughtered 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983, President Reagan ordered Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger to strike the IRGC at the Sheikh Abdullah Barracks in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Weinberger balked. Reagan did not overrule him. The signal to Tehran was unmistakable: murder Americans and pay no price. George H.W. Bush refused to hold Iran accountable for its continuing terrorism. The Clintons suppressed intelligence implicating Iran and Hezbollah in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia. George W. Bush never confronted Iran over the deadly explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) its Quds Force supplied to Shia militias that killed and maimed hundreds of American troops in Iraq.

Then came the deepest betrayal: Barack Obama and Joe Biden sought to realign the Middle East by accommodating and legitimizing this murderous regime through the disastrous JCPOA nuclear deal and its successor policies. For fifty years, from Reagan to Biden, both parties chose restraint, diplomacy, and wishful thinking over decisive action.

Only one president in that half-century has shown the courage and fortitude to face this enemy head-on: Donald J. Trump. Trump’s decision to align fully with Israel in a sustained offensive has gutted the Islamic Republic of Iran in ways previous administrations could only imagine.

You can read the rest of the piece via the link below:

OPINION | Trump And The Gutting Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine Q&A with Gary Berntsen via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: Operation Jawbreaker: A Look Back At The CIA's Bin Laden Hunters                                                                           

CIA Turncoat Aldrich Ames, Who Sold US Secrets To The Soviets, Dies In Prison At 84

The Associated Press reports that Aldrich Ames. a former CIA officer turned Soviet spy, has died in prison.

WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who betrayed Western intelligence assets to the Soviet Union and Russia in one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in U.S. history, has died in a Maryland prison. He was 84.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Ames died Monday.

Ames, a 31-year CIA veteran, admitted being paid $2.5 million by Moscow for U.S. secrets from 1985 until his arrest in 1994. His disclosures included the identities of 10 Russian officials and one Eastern European who were spying for the United States or Great Britain, along with spy satellite operations, eavesdropping and general spy procedures. His betrayals are blamed for the executions of Western agents working behind the Iron Curtain and were a major setback to the CIA during the Cold War.

He pleaded guilty without a trial to espionage and tax evasion and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors said he deprived the United States of valuable intelligence material for years.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Aldrich Ames, CIA officer who sold secrets to Russia, dies at 84 | AP News 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine Q&A with the late Sandra Grimes, the former CIA spy hunter who helped takedown Ames, via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Ames Mole Hunt: My Q & A With Sandra Grimes, Former CIA Officer, Mole Hunter, And Author Of "Circle Of Treason"

 

My Counterterrorism Magazine Q&A With David McCloskey. Former CIA Analyst And Author Of The CIA Thriller 'The Seventh Floor'

Counterterrorism magazine published my Q&A with David McCloskey, former CIA Analyst and author of the CIA thriller, The Seventh Floor. 

You can read the interview via the pages above and below, or the text below: 

The IACSP Q&A With David McCloskey, Former CIA Analyst

and Author of the CIA Thriller “The Seventh Floor.” 

By Paul Davis 

David McClosky, the author of three fine CIA spy thrillers, “The Seventh Floor,” “Moscow X,” and “Damascus Station,” is a former CIA analyst and former consultant at McKinsey & Company. While at the CIA, he wrote regularly for the President’s Daily Brief, delivered classified testimony to Congressional oversight committees, and briefed senior White House officials, ambassadors, military officials, and Arab royalty. 

McCloskey worked in CIA field stations across the Middle East throughout the Arab Spring and conducted a rotation in the Counterterrorism Center focused on the jihad in Syria and Iraq. During his time at McKinsey, he advised national security aerospace and transportation clients on strategic and operational issues. 

David McCloskey holds a M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School for Advance International Studies, where he specialized in energy policy and the Middle East. 

David McCloskey lives in Texas with his wife and children. 

He was interviewed by Paul Davis.        

IACSP: I've read all three of your thrillers and I've enjoyed them. Have you always wanted to write novels, or did you get the notion while serving as a CIA analyst? 

McCloskey: The answer is actually neither. I grew up reading extensively and reading a lot of spy thrillers. My dad's a big fan of spy thrillers and that kind of genre in general, so I grew up reading it. I never thought that I would write it, never really imagined it as a possibility. When I was at the CIA, it's kind of the same answer. I did not think that I would end up writing spy novels. When I left, I started to write something really for me, kind of reflecting on my time at Langley and the war in Syria, which accounts for most of my time in the CIA. It wasn't a novel or even a draft about anything, but it was a journal, I found I liked the process of sitting down to write it. It helped make sense of the world, how I felt about it, and I would get into a flow of 6, 7, 8 hours, and the time flies by. It happened sort of organically, one step at a time.

IACSP: Former CIA directors General David Petraeus and Leon Panetta, as well as Washington Times columnist and former CIA Chief of Middle East Operations, Daniel N. Hoffman, have all praised your first spy thriller “Damascus Station” for being a realistic portrayal of CIA overseas operations. Was “Damacus Station” based on your personal experiences there? 

McCloskey: No, it was not based on any of my personal experiences, but it was based on two things I wanted to do, neither of which had anything to do with me. One of them was how do I tell a story about the Syrian Civil War that's authentic to that conflict in that period of time, 2011 to 2013, which is when I was covering it day in day out. How do I weave in real dynamics, real war, real events, maybe sometimes even real people, and write something that people will read and come away knowing something about Syria and become more interested in Syria.? The second bit was how do I deal authentically with the CIA as much as possible in the scope and span of a spy novel?  That part for me was not about my experiences, but as I'm writing characters who are CIA case officers or CIA chief of station, how do I render those people accurately and authentically to the kind of people that I knew and worked with when I was inside? And can I say something realistic, or true rather, about not just the operations or the tradecraft of CIA, which are I think fascinating, but also the kind of moral ethics and sort of the code of the place. For me, those two things were guiding lights as I wrote. 

IACSP: How do you write a realistic CIA novel without giving away too much classified information. I know you have the review board, but is it difficult to write about the CIA without touching on your tradecraft and the stuff that you shouldn't be talking about? 

McCloskey: I found that it's not that challenging to write what I hope is a really interesting and authentic spy thriller and brush up against anything that's really sensitive. I don't think it's that difficult to do, and I believe a lot of the information that's really sensitive is more technical in nature and has no place in a spy novel. In most cases, the really sensitive stuff that I might consider including would just gum up the story. My priority is always to have a great story that has readers turning the page. I send everything to the CIA’s Publication Review Board. 

IACSP: How would you describe your CIA characters Artemis Aphrodite Proctor and Sam Joseph?

 

McCloskey: Artemis Aphrodite Procter is a mildly deranged CIA case officer with a foul mouth, zero patience, a deeply ingrained code of honor and personal loyalty, and a bit of a drinking problem. In “The Seventh Floor,” she is wrestling with what she owes CIA, having given it her career, and, arguably, her life, before being cast aside. Must she remain loyal to a place that does not love her back? What’s clear, though, is her unwavering loyalty to her friends. She has many in this novel, and quite a few enemies, too, but first among equals is her old friend from Damascus, Sam Joseph, a stellar case officer whose career fell off the rails after he made a terrible mistake. Sam is a Minnesota boy, a talented reader of people and assessor of risk who’s also, perhaps like Procter, impulsive and prone to thinking with parts of his body that are not his brain.

 

IACSP: Is Sam Joseph autobiographical or is he based on someone you knew?

 

McCloskey: I hope he is not autobiographical in any way. I certainly didn’t intend him to be. What I was thinking was about case officers I knew, and the different traits they had, different ticks, their life experiences and how they dressed. I started building characters that way, not from one person, but from a composite. Other characters have, like Proctor, probably based off of one person I knew.

 

IACSP: What years did you serve in the CIA and why did you become a CIA analyst?

 

McCloskey: I was in the CIA from 2006 to 2014. I got into it by accident. The guy who ran the Middle East analytic shop at the CIA came to my undergrad college and gave a talk to my International Relations 101 class about the CIA. I thought this was really cool, and it was probably not more complicated than that. It sounded like a really interesting job, and I've always been fascinated with the world and how it works. The CIA felt like a pathway to understand it. I was 20 and I was applying for an undergrad internship, and all my friends were going home for the summer to mow lawns or something like that. I get to go work at the CIA. That’s pretty cool. I never thought I would get in, but here I am.

 

IACSP: Why did you leave the CIA?

 

McCloskey: I wanted to try something else. It wasn’t like I didn’t like this job anymore. I think I have this sense of wanderlust, and I wanted to see what else is out there and it was no more complicated than that. Let me put it this way, I was definitely at a point with what was going on Syria where I wanted to do something else, because that conflict was going horribly and it was very grim. But I was for the most part, a really happy trooper, and I look back on that time, look back on that job, with credible affection for the people I was working with, and overall, for the organization itself.

 

IACSP: I read that you often prepared the president’s daily brief, and you often briefed White House and other senior government officials, and you testified before Congress. What were your briefings mostly about? 

McCloskey: Mostly about Syria, both from a political and security perspective, and also occasionally, a counterterrorism perspective too. 

IACSP: I read in your bio that you worked in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. What was the CTC’s mission and what did you do there? 

McCloskey: The CTC runs operations to penetrate and potentially target terrorist groups around the world. The CTC writes the analysis on those groups for policymakers in DC. I was doing an analytic role in CTC, focused on the jihad in Syria and Iraq. 

IACSP: What do you think of novels, TV and movies about the CIA? I hate when CIA officers are called agents. 

McCloskey: I was going to say that. It shows that someone didn’t do their homework. I don't really have any actual pet peeves because I approach any CIA story with the presumption that it's just entertainment, and it's not targeted at me as a former officer. They are targeted at a population of people that want a good spy story and the authenticity part of it is just not paramount. But I will say that the thing that I think is almost always wrong is that the spies, the intelligence officers, are always portrayed as superheroes. 

IACSP: The intelligence officers in most fiction stories tend to act like special operators rather case officers. Has Hollywood called about your novels? 

McCloskey: We sold the rights to “Damascus Station,” which is development as a TV series, and “Moscow X” is also in development. But Hollywood being Hollywood, I'm not holding my breath. We sold it to people I trust, and we'll see where it goes. 

IACSP: Are you working on a fourth CIA novel? 

McCloskey: The fourth book will be out in September. It is an Israel and Iran story called “The Persian.” 

IACSP: You spent a good part of your life in Syria. Are you following the situation in Syria today? 

McCloskey: I have been trying to follow it. I mean it's there's a lot going on. It's obviously immensely complicated, and you know I'm not a Syria analyst day-to-day anymore, so put that caveat in there. As a former Syria hand, I'm cautiously optimistic about the transition and the current government. I think Syrians now have an opportunity to build something for themselves, which they've not had for much of their recent history. 

IACSP: Is it a case of one bad guy taking over from another bad guy? 

McCloskey: I don't think that's the right way to look at it. I mean I think the level of power industrialized outside sort of oppression had become, how immiseration the country had become under Assad’s rule, how predatory his regime was. I don't think Jeffersonian democracy is in the cards for Syria, but I think it is quite possible and maybe even likely that the new regime with Ahmed al-Sharaa ends up being a better deal for the Syrian people than Bashar al-Assad was. 

IACSP: In your view who is the biggest threat to the United States? 

McCloskey: That's a big question. We’re a probably a threat to ourselves right now. I think we are deeply polarized. I think we're losing faith in really important institutions that form the backbone of much of our political system and the way of governance and life. We're increasingly sort of atomized and sold as a society. So, I think we probably our own worst enemy. 

IACSP: I had an editor that I once went back and forth with on email and he said that out current time is the most contentious time in our history. Really? More contentious than the Civil War? Who do you think is the greatest external threat to the United States? 

McCloskey: I would probably say China, which is our closest strategic competitor and the country that has a system of government that I think is sort of potentially in opposition with our own. And China has a perspective on its role in Asia that is at odds with our role in Asia.

IACSP: Thank you for your service and I look forward to reading your next CIA spy thriller.

A Novel Individual: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr. on his Fiction

As I've noted here before, I was influenced by William F. Buckley Jr. when I was a teenager. I enjoyed his newspaper columns, his magazine National Review, and his PBS TV show Firing Line. I later enjoyed his spy thrillers. 

Buckley, who served briefly in the CIA in Mexico, was unhappy with the negative portrayal of the CIA in novels and movies. He believed, as I do, that the CIA was a force for good in the world. So, he wrote a series of thrillers that showed the CIA in a postive light.    

The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal offers a 1996 interview with William F. Buckley Jr on his series of Cold War spy novels. 

He was Interviewed by William F. Meehan III. 

This interview ran in The University Bookman in 1996 (vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 25-32), when Jeffrey O. Nelson, who was the journal’s editor, expertly turned the lengthy manuscript of my 90-minute interview into a coherent, polished piece. I was a student at Middle Tennessee State University writing my dissertation on prose style in Buckley’s fiction, and my director suggested I inquire about interviewing the author. It was fitting that Buckley was the Bookman’s first interview, as he helped Russell Kirk found this journal in 1960.

Buckley as a novelist is a topic still given little attention by scholars, and reviewers have focused more on the author instead of the work. My hope now is that readers unfamiliar with his Cold War spy fiction and the CIA’s Blackford Oakes will take away an insight or two about Buckley the novelist. Such as? His philosophy of language, his rituals as an author, how he creates a character’s name, and the OSS—which is not about the CIA’s parent organization. 

During our meeting at Buckley’s Manhattan office on East 35th Street, I inquired about plans for another spy novel. “No,” Buckley said.“The Cold War is over.” But nine years later he published Last Call for Blackford Oakes, taking Oakes back into deep cover in Moscow during Reagan’s second term. — WFM, April 2025.

You can read the rest of the interview via the link below: 

A Novel Individual: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr. on his Fiction | The Russell Kirk Center

I reviewed William Buckley’s last spy novel for the Philadelphia Inquirer back in 2005. 

You can read the review below: 

Note: You can click on the review to enlarge. 

Former CIA Official Pleads Guilty To Acting As A Foreign Agent And Mishandling Classified Materials

The U.S. Justice Department released the information below:

Dale Britt Bendler, 68, of Miami, Florida, pleaded guilty today to, while being a public official at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), acting as a foreign agent required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and removing classified material, classified up to the SECRET//NOFORN level, from authorized locations without authority and with the intent to retain such material at an unauthorized location.

As described in the plea agreement, starting in 2014, Bendler began working as a full-time contractor at the CIA with a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance. Before he was a CIA contractor, Bendler spent over 30 years working for the CIA as an intelligence officer and retired as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service in 2014. Beginning in July 2017 and continuing through at least July 2020, while a full-time CIA contractor and TS/SCI clearance holder, Bendler worked with a U.S. lobbying firm and engaged in unauthorized and hidden lobbying and public relations activities on behalf of foreign national clients. As described in the plea agreement, Bendler’s undisclosed lobbying activities included an attempt to use his position and access at the CIA to influence a foreign government’s embezzlement investigation of one of Bendler’s foreign national clients and a separate attempt to use his position and access at the CIA to influence the U.S. government’s decision as to whether to grant a U.S. visa to another of Bendler’s clients, who was alleged to be associated with terrorism financing. In exchange for his unauthorized outside activities, Bendler was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

During the course of Bendler’s unauthorized lobbying and public relations activities, Bendler also abused his access to CIA resources and personnel by, among other things, searching classified CIA systems for any information related to his private lobbying clients, improperly storing and disclosing non-public, sensitive, and classified U.S. government information to people not authorized to receive such information, and lying to the CIA and the FBI about his status as a foreign agent and his unauthorized lobbying and public relations activities. The CIA terminated Bendler’s contract and access in September 2020.

In addition to pleading guilty, Bendler consented to the forfeiture of $85,000. Bendler faces a maximum penalty of seven years in prison – two years for acting as a foreign agent while being a public official and five years for mishandling classified material. Bendler is scheduled to be sentenced on July 16.

Sue Bai, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert for the Eastern District of Virginia, Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and Assistant Director in Charge Steven J. Jensen of the FBI Washington Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office investigated the case.

Trial Attorney Adam P. Barry and Senior Trial Attorney Heather M. Schmidt of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia are prosecuting the case. Chief Jennifer Kennedy Gellie of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section provided substantial assistance in this investigation in her prior role as a trial attorney. 

Former CIA Analyst Pleads Guilty To Transmitting Top Secret National Defense Information

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information:

A former CIA analyst pleaded guilty today to retaining and transmitting Top Secret National Defense Information to people who were not entitled to receive it, information which was publicly posted on a social media platform in October 2024.

According to court documents, Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, was an employee of the CIA since 2016 and had a Top-Secret security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI).

“Mr. Rahman betrayed the trust of the American people by unlawfully sharing classified national defense information he swore an oath to protect,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Today’s guilty plea demonstrates that the Justice Department will spare no effort to swiftly find and aggressively prosecute those who harm the United States by illegally disclosing our national security secrets.”

“Asif Rahman is pleading guilty in federal court three months to the day that he disclosed top secret American documents in violation of his oath, his responsibility, and the law,” said U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia. “This District, in partnership with federal law enforcement and the intelligence community, exemplified dedication, skill, and speed to bring him to justice expeditiously. Mr. Rahman’s actions placed lives at risk, undermined U.S. foreign relations, and compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.”

“With today's plea, Asif Rahman acknowledges he betrayed the trust of his country by sharing classified information in spite of the risk to the United States and our allies,” said Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “Government employees who are granted security clearances and given access to our nation's classified information must promise to protect it. Rahman blatantly violated that pledge and took multiple steps to hide his actions. The FBI will use all our resources to investigate and hold accountable those who illegally transmit classified information and endanger the national security interests of our country.”

“Today’s plea demonstrates the FBI’s resolve to deploy the necessary tools and authorities to identify, locate, and bring to justice a government clearance holder who violated the oath he took to support and defend the U.S. Constitution,” said Assistant Director David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office. “This is a good reminder to all clearance holders that the FBI and our Intelligence Community partners will spare no resource to immediately find and hold accountable those who violate the law and disclose classified information without authorization, no matter where in the world they are located.”

According to court documents, on Oct. 17, 2024, Rahman accessed and printed two Top Secret documents containing National Defense Information regarding a U.S. foreign ally and its planned actions against a foreign adversary. Rahman removed the documents, photographed them, and transmitted them to individuals he knew were not entitled to receive them. By Oct. 18, 2024, the documents appeared publicly on multiple social media platforms, complete with the classification markings.

After Oct. 17, 2024, Rahman deleted and edited journal entries and written work product on his personal electronic devices to conceal his personal opinions on U.S. policy and drafted entries to construct a false narrative regarding his activity. Rahman also destroyed multiple electronic devices, including a personal mobile device and an internet router he used to transmit classified information and photographs of classified documents, and discarded the destroyed devices in public trash receptacles in an effort to thwart potential investigations into him and his unlawful conduct.

Beginning in the spring of 2024 and continuing through November 2024, Rahman repeatedly accessed and printed classified National Defense Information, including documents classified up to the Top Secret level, to take them to his residence. There, Rahman reproduced the documents and, while doing so, altered them in an effort to conceal their source and his activity. Rahman then communicated Top Secret information that he learned in the course of his employment to multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive it.

Rahman was indicted by a grand jury on Nov. 7, 2024, and was arrested by the FBI as he arrived to work on Nov. 12, 2024. He has remained in custody since his arrest.

Rahman pleaded guilty to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defense. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15, 2025. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for both counts in the plea agreement. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI Washington Field Office is investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy A. Edwards Jr. for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Brett Reynolds of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

 

Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information:

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, of Honolulu, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, was sentenced today to conspiring to gather and deliver national defense information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Ma was arrested in August 2020, after admitting to an undercover FBI employee that he had facilitated the provision of classified information to intelligence officers employed by the PRC’s Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB).

According to court documents, Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989. His blood relative (identified as co-conspirator #1 or CC #1 in court documents), who is deceased, also worked for the CIA from 1967 until 1983. As CIA officers, both men held Top Secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified CIA information, and both signed nondisclosure agreements.

As Ma admitted in the plea agreement, in March 2001, over a decade after he resigned from the CIA, Ma was contacted by SSSB intelligence officers, who asked Ma to arrange a meeting between CC #1 and the SSSB. Ma convinced CC #1 to agree, and both Ma and CC #1 met with SSSB intelligence officers in a Hong Kong hotel room for three days. During the meetings, CC #1 provided the SSSB with a large volume of classified U.S. national defense information in return for $50,000 in cash. Ma and CC #1 also agreed to continue to assist the SSSB.

In March 2003, while living in Hawaii, Ma applied for a job as a contract linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office. The FBI, aware of Ma’s ties to PRC intelligence, hired Ma as part of a ruse to monitor and investigate his activities and contacts with the SSSB. Ma worked part time at an offsite location for the FBI from August 2004 until October 2012.

As detailed in the plea agreement, in February 2006, Ma was tasked by the SSSB with asking CC #1 to identify four individuals of interest to the SSSB from photographs. Ma convinced CC #1 to provide the identities of at least two of the individuals, whose identities were and remain classified U.S. national defense information.

Ma confessed that he knowingly and willfully conspired with CC #1 and SSSB intelligence officers to communicate and transmit information that he knew would be used to injure the United States or to advantage the PRC.

In court documents and at today’s sentencing hearing, the government noted that Ma was convicted of a years-long conspiracy to commit espionage, a serious breach of national security that caused the government to expend substantial investigative resources. The government also noted that Ma’s role in the conspiracy was to facilitate the exchange of information between CC #1 and the SSSB, which consisted of classified CIA information that CC #1 had obtained between 1967 and 1983.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Ma must cooperate with the United States for the rest of his life, including by submitting to debriefings by U.S. government agencies. At the sentencing hearing, government counsel told the court that Ma has been cooperative and has taken part in multiple interview sessions with government agents.

Ma has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors for the District of Hawaii and Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI's National Security Branch made the announcement.

The FBI’s Honolulu and Los Angeles Field Offices investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ken Sorenson and Craig Nolan for the District of Hawaii, and Trial Attorneys Scott Claffee and Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.

Sacred Stars: CIA's Memorial Wall Turns 50

The CIA’s website offers a history of CIA HQ’s Memorial Wall.

Just inside the main entrance of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia is a white marble wall with a field of stars etched into the cold, hard stone. It is the most sacred space on the Agency’s compound.

Each star memorializes a life lost in the line of duty, a sacrifice on behalf of our nation.

The inscription above the constellation reads, “In honor of those members of the Central Intelligence Agency who gave their lives in the service of their country.”

The Memorial Wall was created fifty years ago, in 1974, when 31 stars were chiseled into the marble.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Sacred Stars: CIA's Memorial Wall Turns 50 - CIA 

My Threatcon Column: George Washington: First In War, And First In Espionage

My latest Threatcon column appears on Counterterrorism magazine’s website.

You can read the column via the below link or the below text:

IACSP - ThreatCon Articles

Major General Henry “Light Horse Harry’ Lee wrote in his eulogy of the late George Washington that the former president and general was “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” 

George Washington, aka Agent 711, was also first in espionage.       

The CIA’s public website proclaimed Washington as our first spymaster, noting, “Long before General William Donovan recruited spies to advance the American war efforts during World War II as Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor to the CIA, General George Washington mastered the art of intelligence as Commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.” 

The CIA stated that Washington was a skilled manager of intelligence. He utilized agents behind enemy lines, recruited both Tory and Patriot sources, interrogated travelers for intelligence information, and launched scores of agents on both intelligence and counterintelligence missions. 

“He was adept at deception operations and tradecraft and was a skilled propagandist. He also practiced sound operational security. Washington fully understood the value of accurate intelligence, employing many of the same techniques later used by the OSS and CIA. 

“Were it not for the use of secret writing, concealment devises, propaganda, and intercepted communications, there may have been a very different outcome to the War of Independence.” 

Joesph C. Goulden, a veteran journalist and author of “The Death Merchant: The Rise and Fall of Edwin P. Wilson,” and “Korea: The Untold Story of the War,” is an acknowledged authority on intelligence and espionage. He offered his take on George Washington as spymaster in a Washington Times piece. 

“One of the more telling — and accurate — statements to emerge from the American Revolution came from a British intelligence officer, Maj. Gen. George Beckwith: “Washington did not really outfight the British, he simply outspied us!” 

The website “George Washington’s Mount Vernon” noted that when history books praise the heroes of the American Revolution, they seldom include names like Agent 711 and John Bolton. 

But perhaps they should.    

“These men were part of the most famous spy ring of the era, the Culper Ring, and their identities were kept secret until well after the war ended,” the website stated. “George Washington – known as Agent 711 in the Culper Spy Ring – is often heralded as a great “spymaster,” and indeed he was. Under Washington’s astute watch, several networks of spies operated in both close-knit circles and far-reaching societies. The undercover agents were merchants, tailors, farmers, and other extraordinary patriots with ordinary day jobs. 

“Much as with modern-day operatives, the members of these networks kept at a distance from one another and maintained secret identities. In some cases, Washington himself didn’t even know the identities of the men who worked together in secret to aid the cause of freedom.”   

The website post went on to note that Washington’s army was under-trained, under-staffed, under-equipped, and under-funded. In order to win, he needed to out-maneuver and outsmart the British. 

“Washington recognized the need for an organized approach to espionage. He knew that spying was a field that was fraught with risk. The stories of men like Nathan Hale, who was captured and later hanged for crossing into British territory to gather information, surely weighed heavily on the General’s shoulders.” 

As the post noted, Washington knew that a larger population of civilians could be called upon to help fight the war.   

In an unclassified CIA historical document, George Washington was called the “First Director of Central Intelligence.” According to the document, he was a key practitioner of military intelligence during the Revolutionary War. 

“General Washington was more deeply involved in intelligence operations than any American general-in-chief until Dwight Eisenhower during World War II,” the historical document noted. “His skills in the “black arts” helped secure key victories, hastened the end of hostilities, and significantly contributed to the United States’ winning its independence from Great Britain.”

 

Washington recruited and debriefed Tory and Patriot sources, developed espionage networks, interrogated prisoners and travelers, cleverly used deception and propaganda, and practiced sound tradecraft.

 

He spent more than 10 percent of his military funds on intelligence operations. Washington formed an elite detachment dedicated to tactical reconnaissance that reported directly to him. Washington also oversaw the Culper Ring in New York City and Long Island. (The Culper Ring was dramatized in the TV series “Turn.”)

 

The historical document stated that in 1778 Gen. Sir Henry Clinton occupied the city, while Washington’s forces were scattered around New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Washington needed intelligence on Clinton’s forces and intentions, and he ordered Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge to establish an espionage net.

Tallmadge’s operatives practiced sophisticated tradecraft that included code names, cover stories, secret writing, encryption and dead drops.

 

“Without General Washington’s intelligence-aided victories on the battlefield,” the historical document stated. “There would have been no independence, no United States, no Constitution, and no President Washington.”

 

Paul Davis, a longtime contributor to the Journal, covers crime, espionage and terrorism in his Threatcon column.