The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) He retired his highest-ranking spy in Russia in 2017, months after Donald Trump arrived at the White House, considering that his safety had been compromised, CNN and The New York Times reported Monday.
Washington recruited the informant decades ago, when he was an average official in the Kremlin, but over the years he rose to an influential position, with frequent access to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and decision making.
According to the sources consulted by the CNN network, the spy’s rank was such that it even provided the CIA with images of documents from Putin’s desk.
The information was so delicate and valuable that during the previous government, the then director of the CIA, John O. Brennan, left it out of the daily security reports to President Barack Obama and then delivered it in sealed envelopes.
However, the CIA began to worry about the safety of its informant after the Kremlin allegedly tried to interfere in the 2016 elections to the White House in favor of Trump.
Being one of its most precious values, the CIA urged the spy to abandon his work and leave Russia under US protection, which he refused, which caused strangeness in Washington and raised doubts about his loyalty.
Months later, however, in mid-2017, the agent, whose identity and whereabouts have not been revealed, did agree to leave Russia.
This happened after Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and his then ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, intelligence information that Israel had provided to the United States.
Some sources cite as a reason for the agent’s withdrawal a possible exposure resulting from the interest that was generating in some media the origin of intelligence information about the 2016 elections.
In one way or another, the exit of the spy, according to these media, was a great blow to American intelligence since it lost the access it had to the highest levels of the Kremlin at a time of strong tensions between the two countries.
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