Wonder if Hillary is available for comment….
McCabe is a civil service employee who can’t be fired without evidence of wrongdoing.
When it became public in January the McCabe had decided to step aside, FBI Director Chris Wray made it clear in a message to all bureau employees at that time that his departure was tied to the inspector general report.
Several sources familiar with McCabe’s move told NBC News that he made his decision to retire as a result of a meeting with Wray in which the inspector general’s investigation was discussed.
BI: Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing a recommendation from the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility to fire former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington Thomson Reuters
McCabe was forced out of the FBI earlier this year amid an internal investigation by the Office of Inspector General into his approval of unauthorized disclosures to the media in October 2016 about the bureau’s Hillary Clinton email investigation.
He’s scheduled to retire on Sunday, and a possible firing — which sources told The Times could could as soon as Friday — could endanger his pension benefits.
The Department of Justice’s inspector general Michael Horowitz reportedly concluded in a report that McCabe was not forthcoming during the OIG review. The FBI office subsequently recommended that Sessions fire McCabe, according to The Times.
The Wall Street Journal article at the center of the OIG’s inquiry was published on October 30, 2016, two days after then-FBI director James Comey announced in a letter to Congress that the bureau was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct government business when she was secretary of state.
The article was a highly detailed account of internal strife within the top ranks of the DOJ about how to proceed after FBI agents investigating former New York congressman Anthony Weiner discovered 650,000 emails on his laptop that could have been sent to or from Clinton’s private email server. Many of the emails came from accounts belonging to Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, who was also Clinton’s longtime aide and a senior adviser to her campaign, The Journal reported.
At the same time, DOJ anticorruption prosecutors were at odds with FBI officials over whether to continue pursuing a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation’s financial dealings.
While DOJ officials believed there wasn’t enough evidence to move forward with the probe and wouldn’t authorize further investigatory measures, FBI officials, including McCabe, believed they had the authority to continue the investigation using whatever leads they had already acquired, the report said.
Justice Department rules prevent investigators from taking significant actions that could be seen as trying to influence an election. And when a senior DOJ official called McCabe in August 2016 to express his disapproval with the FBI’s continued focus on the Clinton Foundation probe amid the heated election season, McCabe reportedly pushed back.
“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” McCabe said, according to The Journal.
The official replied, after a brief pause: “Of course not.”
The reporter who authored the Journal’s article, Devlin Barrett, was in touch with two top FBI officials on the phone two days before the story broke, according to text messages released in February. The officials were FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who often worked with McCabe, and then-FBI spokesman Michael Kortan.
While law-enforcement officials often speak to the press on background in order to provide more complete details about an ongoing story, they are prohibited from revealing information about ongoing investigations, like the Clinton emails and Clinton Foundation probes.
McCabe stepped down as deputy director in January after FBI director Christopher Wray briefed him about the impending OIG report about his conduct.
The deputy director’s ouster came following a string of public attacks President Donald Trump leveled against him, accusing him of putting his thumb on the scale in favor of Clinton.
Trump’s attacks were based on information contained in a separate Wall Street Journal article published one week before Barrett’s.
McCabe’s wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, mounted an unsuccessful run for a Virginia state Senate seat in 2015. The Journal reported on October 24, 2016 that her campaign received $675,000 in donations from the Virginia Democratic Party and from Common Good VA, the super PAC run by Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton supporter. None of the donations came from Clinton or her family.
Trump latched onto the revelations, accusing McCabe of corruption and anti-Trump bias based on his wife’s political campaign.
McCabe wasn’t in charge of the Clinton investigation at the time, and didn’t take on an “oversight role” in the probe until February 2016, long after his wife lost her election bid.
The FBI also released a trove of internal emails
and documents in January that confirmed McCabe was not warned against becoming involved in the Clinton investigation. But he recused himself anyway following The Journal’s report about his wife’s campaign.
Most notably, the upcoming OIG report detailed by The Times stands in contrast to Trump’s assertion, given its focus on McCabe’s authorization of disclosures that ultimately resulted in a negative story about Clinton.
Author Archives: Denise Simon
When Napalm, Christian Persecution and Genocide are Ignored
There are several human rights groups operating in the Middle East reporting on civil war and military conflict casualties. Yes, the United Nations is reporting also, including being in theater…but reporting is just reporting while people die, become sick and are displaced such as living under ground for safety as best they can.
The Violations Documentation Center in Syria has filed with evidence to the United Nations Security Council that 59 reports of napalm attacks by the Syrian government and Russian forces, resulting in 6 fatalities. Yes….NAPALM
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has warned Syria it would be “very unwise” to use poison gas in Eastern Ghouta amid reports of chlorine attacks.
Mr Mattis did not say President Trump would take military action, but the US struck Syria last April after a suspected gas attack in northern Syria.
Fierce fighting is continuing and the Syrian army says it has surrounded a major town in the rebel-held enclave.
More than 1,000 civilians have been reported killed in recent weeks.
The Syrian military has been accused of targeting civilians, but it says it is trying to liberate the region – the last major opposition stronghold near the capital Damscus – from those it terms terrorists.
The statistical report on deaths and casualties in Syria up to February 2018 is here.
Newsweek reports Christian deaths this way:
The persecution and genocide of Christians across the world is worse today “than at any time in history,” and Western governments are failing to stop it, a report from a Catholic organization said.
The study by Aid to the Church in Need said the treatment of Christians has worsened substantially in the past two years compared with the two years prior, and has grown more violent than any other period in modern times.
“Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith group, but ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution,” the report said.
The report examined the plight of Christians in China, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkey over the period lasting from 2015 until 2017. The research showed that in that time, Christians suffered crimes against humanity, and some were hanged or crucified. The report found that Saudi Arabia was the only country where the situation for Christians did not get worse, and that was only because the situation couldn’t get any worse than it already was.
The authors criticized the administration of President Donald Trump for not holding Saudi Arabia accountable for its human rights violations and instead focusing on the trade relationship between the two nations. In May 2017, Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia during his first overseas trip in office.
The report put special focus on Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Syria, where the authors argued Christians would have been entirely wiped out if it weren’t for military action and the assistance of Christian humanitarian organizations, like Aid to the Church in Need.
“The defeat of Daesh [the Islamic State militant group] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction,” the report found. “Many would not survive another similar violent attack.”
The report, which was released in November 2017 but received renewed attention this week, is based on research in the countries and testimony from victims. It detailed attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt and monasteries burned in Syria.
In Africa, the report focused on countries like Sudan, where the government ordered that churches be destroyed, and Nigeria, where ISIS-affiliated groups like Boko Haram have led a surge in attacks on Christians. In Eritrea, hundreds of Christians have been rounded up and imprisoned over the past year because of their faith.
The report also documented numerous case studies in which Christians in countries such as India and Nigeria were murdered or beaten for practicing their faith.
“A Christian pastor in India was left in a coma after being beaten in a ‘planned’ attack apparently carried out by Hindutva extremists,” the report noted. “Before slipping into unconsciousness, the pastor told police that the attack was religiously motivated.”
“You must never come to our village to pray. You should never enter our village,” the men told the pastor, according to the report.
In late October, Vice President Mike Pence pledged that the Trump administration would redirect aid money formerly given to the United Nations to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a move that was meant to appease Christian organizations that say the U.N. isn’t doing enough for persecuted Christians.
When Governors, Mayors and Congress Register as Foreign Agents
It is a matter of law….the democrats and some republicans are providing higher protection for illegals and criminals than they do for just plain ol’ Americans. At least they should be forced to register or something similar like a declaration that they are more loyal to illegals and criminal action than they are to Americas.
Some democrats are posturing to abolish ICE as an agency.
The Democrats mulling a run for the White House in 2020 are facing intense pressure from liberals to campaign on abolishing the agency that enforces federal immigration laws, a proposal that was once relegated to the far-left fringe.
In protesting the Trump administration’s policies toward illegal immigration, liberal commentators and writers have been embracing the idea of gutting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which identifies, arrests and deports illegal immigrants inside the United States.
“This is a growing position on the left, and I imagine 2020 Democratic presidential aspirants will have to grapple with it,” liberal writer and MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted.
We have seen California become a sanctuary state and now Illinois is too. We have seen mayors refuse to cooperate with ICE supported by their governors. Can states refuse to cooperate with ICE or how about other Federal agencies like ATF or DEA?
As long as these politicians provide legal cover and sanctuary for foreign criminals they should all be registered as ‘foreign agents’ under the FARA.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.
We have a missing illegal criminal from Denver that is part of a case of vehicular homicide….Denver law enforcement let him go under bail even though ICE had a detainer on him….he cannot be found.
Meanwhile, let us look at Illinois shall we?
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner smiles while surrounded by law enforcement officials and immigrant rights activists in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, after signing legislation that will limit how local and state police can cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The narrow measure prohibits police from searching, arresting or detaining someone solely because of immigration status, or because of so-called federal immigration detainers. AP (Ashlee Rezin /)
With mariachis performing in the background, Governor Bruce Rauner signed the TRUST Act on Monday, at a Mexican restaurant in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, officially barring cooperation between Illinois police departments and immigration officials.
The TRUST Act, valid in all cases except where a federal judge has issued a warrant for arrest, will make Illinois more welcoming to immigrants and refugees, according to its supporters.
The law denies local law enforcement the ability to detain people on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with identifying and investigating immigrants present in the country illegally. It also prohibits local officials from inquiring about a person’s immigration status, something Ruiz-Velasco called a “very important protection,” that will make immigrants more comfortable reporting crimes to local police.
“The TRUST Act will ensure that those who live in this state of limbo [as concerns immigration status] can have one certainty: When their lives and their families are in danger, they can turn to the police without their world being taken away from them,” said Serafina Ha, of the Korean immigrant services agency, the Hana Center.
Support for the law came from Illinois law enforcement functionaries, as well as over 170 faith leaders, and over 170 Illinois employers. The Campaign for a Welcoming Illinois, in support of the bill, engaged over 84 organizations and 14,000 people in the state, according to ICIRR.
However some political leaders, including many downstate Republicans, voiced opposition.
“We are a country founded by immigrants, but those were legal immigrants, and I think the last thing Illinois wants is to see a sanctuary state, and this moves us in that direction,” state Sen. Kyle McCarter, a Republican from Lebanon, Ill., told the Chicago Tribune.
Just five Republicans voted for the law in the Illinois Senate, and only one Republican voted for it in the House.
Passing with mainly Democratic support on May 5, 2017, the law had since sat on Governor Rauner’s desk as supporters organized through letters, press conferences and rallies.
“This will provide an unprecedented level of protection for Illinois’ half-million undocumented residents, who could otherwise enter the deportation pipeline through any simple interaction with police including a traffic violation,” ICIRR said in a statement. “Illinois is now the gold standard for statewide protections against deportation.”
Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi, GITMO Hearing for Release
Release back to Yemen, his home country? His terror history/jihad file is here.
His detainee ID number is 028. Guantanamo analysts estimated he was born in 1977, in Bajor, Yemen.
Al-Alawi arrived at Guantanamo on January 17, 2002, and has been held at Guantanamo for 16 years, 1 month and 23 days. In January 2010 the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended he should be classed as a forever prisoner“, one who couldn’t face charges, because he was innocent of committing a crime, who, nevertheless, was too dangerous to release. By his 2015 Periodic Review Board hearing intelligence analysts had dropped the damning allegation that he was one of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, claiming instead that he “had spent time” with some of his bodyguards.[3]
Al-Alawi is a long-term Guantanamo hunger striker, who has described his force-feeding as “an endless horror story.”
In 2011, it was summarized as such:
Government prosecutors introduced evidence showing that al Alwi, who is a Yemeni, traveled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in its fight against the Northern Alliance, stayed in al Qaeda and Taliban-run guesthouses, and received light arms training at a “Taliban-linked training camp near Kabul.” The court also found that “Al Alwi then joined a combat unit, led by a high-ranking al Qaeda official” and that “fought with the Taliban on two different fronts.”
Al Alwi’s story is a common one found in declassified and leaked documents produced at Guantanamo. Like many other detainees held there, al Alwi was a member of al Qaeda’s 55th Arab Brigade, which is the “combat unit” referenced in the circuit court’s opinion.
A leaked Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) threat assessment of al Alwi, dated March 14, 2008, notes that the 55th Arab Brigade was “also referred to in reporting as the al Qaeda Brigade, the Mujahideen Brigade, and the Arab Fighters.” It “served as [Osama bin Laden’s] primary battle formation supporting Taliban objectives, with [Osama bin Laden] participating closely in the command and control of the brigade.”
The 55th Arab Brigade was headed by top al Qaeda lieutenant Abdel Hadi al Iraqi, who is also currently held at Guantanamo. Al Iraqi had “primary operational command” of the brigade and served as bin Laden’s “military commander in the field,” according to the leaked threat assessment. Indeed, al Alwi admitted that he fought under the command of al Iraqi, as well as one of al Iraqi’s sub-commanders.
The court’s findings closely match JTF-GTMO’s description of the 55th Arab Brigade. Citing al Alwi’s admissions, the court concluded that al Alwi “joined a combat unit, the Omar Sayef Group,” which “fought the Northern Alliance and related forces on two fronts.” Al Alwi “fought under the leadership of an Iraqi named Abd al Hadi, a high-level al Qaeda member responsible for commanding Arab and Taliban troops in Kabul,” the court concluded.
The 55th Arab Brigade’s existence has long been known to US counterterrorism officials. The leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment cites an FBI analysis written in 1998, as well as several other analyses by intelligence officials. In late 2001, the brigade was quashed by Coalition forces in Afghanistan, with many of its members being killed or captured. In the years that followed, al Qaeda reformed the 55th under the auspices of the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, which draws members from various jihadist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As in previous habeas proceedings, the courts did not weigh all of the evidence against al Alwi. The district and circuit courts concluded that al Alwi’s own admissions, including those tying him to al Qaeda’s 55th Arab Brigade, were enough to justify his detention.
Additional intelligence not considered
The leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment summarizes additional intelligence compiled in al Alwi’s case, including descriptions of al Alwi provided by other Guantanamo detainees, several of whom were senior al Qaeda leaders.
Al Alwi was originally “recruited through an al Qaeda associated Salafist network linked to Sheikh Muqbil Bin Hadi al Wadi,” JTF-GTMO found. Al Alwi admitted that he visited Sheikh Wadi and that he attended the al Furqan Institute. Sheikh Wadi, who died in 2001, recruited jihadists for training in Afghanistan at both al Furqan and the al Dimaj Institute in Yemen.
Although al Alwi made some important admissions about his time in Afghanistan, authorities at Guantanamo concluded that he was never truly forthcoming.
Al Alwi used a “known cover story” and withheld “significant details of his activities, associates, facilities, times, and locations in Afghanistan” during questioning, the JTF-GTMO threat assessment reads. In particular, al Alwi claimed that he first traveled to Afghanistan in 2001, but JTF-GTMO’s analysts found that this conflicted with other parts of al Alwi’s own story, as well as additional intelligence placing him in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
JTF-GTMO determined that al Alwi was a bodyguard for bin Laden and also received advanced terrorist training in al Qaeda’s camps. But al Alwi never did admit that either of those allegations was true. Other detainees in US custody, however, did.
Al Alwi was captured in December 2001 as he fled the Tora Bora Mountains. He was captured as part of a group referred to in JTF-GTMO documents as the “Dirty 30,” which was comprised mainly of Osama bin Laden’s elite bodyguards.
One member of the “Dirty 30” was Mohammed al Qahtani, the so-called “20th hijacker.” Qahtani was slated to take part in the September 11 attacks but was denied entry into the US in the summer of 2001. Qahtani, whose detention has been controversial because of the harsh interrogation methods employed during his questioning, was one of several detainees to identify al Alwi. Qahtani identified al Alwi as “a veteran fighter in Afghanistan.”
Ahmed Ghailani, who helped plot al Qaeda’s August 1998 embassy bombings, “photo-identified” al Alwi to his interrogators as well. According to the leaked threat assessment, Ghailani said al Alwi was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. While he was detained by the CIA, Ghailani was subjected to controversial interrogation techniques. He was later transferred to the US to stand trial and convicted of terrorism-related charges.
Other detainees held at Guantanamo identified al Alwi as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, too.
JTF-GTMO concluded that al Alwi, whose internment serial number is 28, received “elite hand-to-hand combat training taught by” Walid Bin Attash, a top al Qaeda operative who was involved in both the 9/11 plot and the USS Cole bombing. Attash, who is also known as Khallad, conducted the training course at al Qaeda’s Mes Aynak camp in Afghanistan.
The leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment notes that the training sessions were “also attended by al Qaeda members slated for the cancelled Southeast Asia 11 September 2001 attacks.” As part of the September 11 operation, al Qaeda originally planned to attack targets on the West Coast of the US using planes flying from Southeast Asia. Osama bin Laden reportedly canceled this part of the operation because he feared it would be too difficult to strike both East Coast and West Coast targets at the same time.
A biography of Khallad released by US intelligence officials provides additional details about the training at Mes Aynak. Osama bin Laden asked Khallad “to help select about two-dozen experienced and reliable operatives for special training” there. Khallad “supervised the training” and many of his trainees went on to achieve infamy.
One of Khallad’s trainees “became a suicide bomber in the Cole operation.” Two others “were later 11 September hijackers.” Another trainee “was a cell leader who was killed during the suicide bombings in Riyadh in May 2003.” Still another “gained renown for his involvement in the bombing of the Limburg in October 2002 and for his plot to assassinate the US Ambassador to Yemen.”
Khallad, who was interrogated as part of the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program, told his interrogators that al Alwi was among these trainees.
The training at Mes Aynak was not the only terrorist training al Alwi received, according to the leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment. Al Alwi was also allegedly trained at al Qaeda’s al Farouq camp. Top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah told authorities that al Alwi may have been trained at the Khalden camp as well. Before being transferred to Guantanamo, Zubaydah was held in the CIA’s custody and waterboarded in 2002. In 2005, Zubaydah told US authorities that he saw al Alwi “several times during 2000 and 2001.”
In all likelihood, the damning statements made by senior al Qaeda terrorists were not introduced during al Alwi’s habeas proceedings because of the controversies surrounding their interrogations.
A “high” risk
Although the courts focused narrowly on al Alwi’s role fighting for the 55th Arab Brigade, JTF-GTMO looked at the entire intelligence picture and concluded that al Alwi is a “high risk.” Al Alwi is “likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies” if he is released, JTF-GTMO warned.
The leaked threat assessment also notes that al Alwi “has demonstrated his hatred for Americans at JTF-GTMO and will likely reestablish ties to al Qaeda and other extremist elements if released.”
JTF-GTMO recommended that al Alwi be retained in the Department of Defense’s custody. And in a section of the threat assessment detailing the reasons for al Alwi’s continued detention, JTF-GTMO’s analysts wrote that he “was identified as someone more disposed than others to conduct terrorist attacks in Yemen.”
The courts have now agreed that al Alwi’s detention is justified, albeit based on a much narrower review of the intelligence concerning his al Qaeda career.
UK’s PM Terresa May has to Face Russia over Use of Nerve Agent
May says it is very clear that the use of this nerve agent goes against the spirit of the chemical weapons treaty. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok.
Using nerve agents of this kind is banned under international conventions, developed in secret to get around those treaties and designed to avoid detection. And it is banned in part because of its potency, and the horrible effects that could stem from its use.
Novichok was first developed in the 1970s and 80s by what was then the Soviet Union. The name means “newcomer” in Russian, and indicates the fact that when it was developed it marked a major breakthrough in the power of such chemical weapons.
That new potency meant that it was by some way the most powerful nerve agent in the world, and it continues to be thought one of the most deadly weapons available.
They work like all nerve agents, by overriding neurotransmitters in the body and shutting down the way it normally works. By forcing muscles to contract by attacking the nervous system, important parts of the body start to shut down – soon after someone comes into contact with such a nerve agent, the heart and diaphragm will shut down and death can result either through heart failure or suffocation.
Though it was developed to be as dangerous as possible when used, it was also designed so that it could be relatively easily transported. The nerve agent is made out of different “precursors” – which are relatively safe until they are mixed so that they can be used in a weapon. Novichok became famous in the 90s, when a Soviet scientist called Vil Mirzayanov revealed that the country had secretly developed the powerful nerve gas – which was far more potent than anything in the US. Though the Soviet Union had been developing it for some time, it didn’t become known for as much as a decade after it was actually available, because it had been kept entirely secret. More here.
Russia deployed a military grade nerve agent in a city of 40,000 people. Chemical warfare experts were sent to the scene and hundreds of people may have been poisoned in Britain.
British PM May: “The government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible” for nerve agent attack on Russian ex-spy. “There are only two plausible explanations… Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”
British PM May says she’ll give Russia until Wednesday to respond: “Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.”
British emergency services workers in hazard suits put a tent on Thursday over the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found. Ben Stanstall / AFP – Getty Images
A police sergeant who assisted a former Russian spy and his daughter after a nerve agent attack in Britain is receiving medical treatment, as well as 18 other people who may have been exposed to the poison, police said Thursday.
The attack on Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, is being treated as attempted murder, authorities have said. The two remain hospitalized in critical condition after being found unconscious Sunday on a bench near a shopping mall in Salisbury, 90 miles west of London.
Sgt. Nick Bailey, an officer from the Wiltshire police who assisted the two victims, also remained hospitalized on Thursday but appeared to be making progress, said Kier Pritchard, the acting Wiltshire police chief.
“Of course he’s very anxious, very concerned,” Pritchard told reporters.
Some of those who were treated after the nerve agent attack received blood tests, support and hospital advice, Pritchard said. He would not say whether the other victims were other officers, medical workers or bystanders.
At a news conference, Britain’s home secretary, Amber Rudd, described Bailey as “still seriously unwell,” but “engaging and awake and talking to point.”
Police have not offered any specifics about the attack, including the type of nerve agent used or how it was delivered.
Skripal, a former military intelligence officer, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006 after being convicted in Russia of spying for Britain.
He passed the identity of dozens of spies to the United Kingdom’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency, according to news reports. He was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap that also included Anna Chapman, who was arrested in New York earlier that year.
The incident has drawn parallels to the death of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium 11 years ago in London.
Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fled Russia for Britain six years before he was poisoned. He died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at London’s Millennium Hotel.
In a report published in 2016, a British judge found that Litvinenko was killed in an assassination carried out by Russia’s security services — with the probable approval of Putin. Russia has denied any responsibility for Litvinenko’s death.
There is no evidence of any Kremlin connection in Skripal’s case. But intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who formerly worked for MI6, told NBC News that he believes that the case has the hallmarks of Putin’s involvement.