When 62-year-old Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn tried to open up lines of communication during the 2016-17 transition with 69-year-old former Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak, he tried improve U.S.-Russian relations. Instead, former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and his entire national security team had other ideas: Setting Flynn up for violating the 1799 Logan Act, preventing private citizens from conducting U.S. foreign policy. If that weren’t absurd enough, Flynn was Obama’s former Defense Intelligence Chief, knowing his way around the intelligence community, knowing, for sure, how improve relations with Russia. When you consider that Obama kicked 35 Russian diplomats out of the U.S. for alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election Dec. 31, 2016, relations with Moscow hit a 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis low.
Whatever vendetta Obama had with Flynn, it’s about to come out when Atty. Gen. William Barr and U.S. Atty. John Durham complete their investigation into the origin of the FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. Yet intelligence sharing, especially on Islamic terrorism, was something that averted a possible terror attack on Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Showing that cooperation between the superpowers is possible, 67-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged his gratitude to 74-year-old President Donald Trump. “The information received from the CIA was sufficient to search for and detain criminals,” the Kremlin announced in 2017. President Putin asked Trump to convey “words of thanks to the CIA Director,” former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now Secretary of State. Counterterrorism cooperation helps build rapport.
Russia actually tried to share counterterrorism information to the U.S. in 2013, during the Obama administration. Somehow it was lost in the shuffle when the Boston Marathon bombing happened. Russia FSB, formerly the KGB, intelligence service warned the FBI about Dzhokhar and Tameran Tsarmaev brothers before the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. According to former CIA Europe and Eurasia clandestine operation chief Marc Polymeropoulos, sharing counterterrorism information between Russia and the U.S. didn’t improve relations between the superpowers. Since the March 4, 2018 Sergei and Yulia Skipal’s Novischok poisoning by Russian agents in Salisbury, U.K., the CIA hasn’t been in the intel sharing mood. U.S.-Russian relations unraveled in when U.S. intel officials accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
When relations with Russia are distrustful like today, sharing intel becomes more difficult for intel professionals, not really buying into the idea that it’s beneficial. “Counterterrorism is the only common enemy we have [with the Russians] and we want to maintain that linkage,” said an unnamed retired CIA operative. “The last time we got anything from the Russians was around the Sochi Olympics, and it wasn’t much,” making an understatement because one week after the Sochi Winter Games Russia invaded Crimea March 1, 2014. Former CIA operative Steven Hall said, “there’s always an inclination for a new administration to reset with Russia,” the exact thing Flynn tried to do before Obama and former CIA Director James Comey set a perjury trap Jan. 24, 2017 at the White House, only four days after Trump was sworn in. Hall said the FSB shares more intelligence than counterterrorism.
Recent reports about Russian paying the Afghan Taliban to attack U.S. troops, though denied by Moscow, adds to suspicions, preventing more counterintelligence sharing. “The Russians paying U.S. dollars—it’s not odd for the Taliban,” said Mullah Manan Niazi, former spokesman for the late Mullah Mohammed Omar. Niazi’s statement does not suggest that Russian paid the Taliban as mercenaries to attack U.S. troops, something that makes little sense because Russia wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan. U.S. has a long, complicated history in Afghanistan going back to the Soviet days when the U.S. paid Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to lead an insurgency against the Soviet-backed government. When the war ended in 1989, a falling out took place when the CIA cut Bin Laden off, leading eventually to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, killing nearly 3,000 U.S. citizens.
Sharing intelligence and counterterrorism information with Russia is a good thing when it’s mutually beneficial. Flynn found that no good deed goes unpunished when her tried in 2016 to improve communication with Kislyak, only to be accused to violating the Logan Act by Obama officials. It doesn’t build rapport with Russia when U.S.-Russian relations have been politicized over the last four years, with Trump routinely accused by Democrats of colluding with the Kremlin. What’s Putin to think when Demcorats routinely accuse Trump of colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election, now meddling again in 2020. Sharing information about possible terrorist threats to Moscow helps open the door to more cooperation. Letting politics poison U.S.-Russian relations for the last four years only adds to global tensions, when Putin could help the U.S. with hotspots like Iran and North Korea.
