John Sipher writes:

Although Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is over, and although President Trump on Friday again described the probe as a “Witch Hunt,” the FBI is almost certain to continue its counterintelligence investigation into Russian espionage efforts related to the 2016 election. More important, they will continue to search for Americans working on behalf of the Kremlin.

The inability to establish that the Trump campaign conspired in a “tacit or express” agreement with the Russian government is not surprising. Most espionage investigations come up empty unless and until they get a lucky break. That does not mean there was no espionage activity in relation to the 2016 election. Every previous Russian political-warfare campaign was built on human spies. Russian “active measures”—propaganda, information warfare, cyberattacks, disinformation, use of forgeries, spreading conspiracies and rumors, funding extremist groups and deception operations—rely on human actors to support and inform their success. Counterintelligence professionals must doubt that Russia could have pulled off its election-interference effort without the support of spies burrowed into U.S. society or institutions.

Indeed, troubling patterns, unanswered questions, and tantalizing leads suggest that Russia relied on human sources to interfere in the 2016 election. Both the Mueller report and Intelligence Community assessments have identified a variety of Russian actors involved in the attack. They uncovered the activities of the Russian GRU, cyberhackers, and the Russian troll factory. However, one key player is missing: Russia’s premier espionage service, the SVR. Is it possible that the Russian espionage service played no role in Russia’s operation, and had no spies helping support what the Mueller report characterized as a “sweeping and systematic” attack of American institutions? The FBI would be professionally negligent if it assumed so.

Consequently, there is still much to uncover—and America’s intelligence services will work to uncover it. [Continue reading…]