“The only things missing in more than a decade of operation were actual secrets to send home to Moscow,” reports the New York Times about the accused spies for Russia. Which then beggars the question of whether they’re actually spies. In fact, “none of the 11 people accused in the case face charges of espionage, because in all those years they were never caught sending classified information back to Moscow, American officials said.” More . . .
The assignments, described in secret instructions intercepted by the F.B.I., were to collect routine political gossip and policy talk that might have been more efficiently gathered by surfing the Web.
“What in the world do they think they were going to get out of this, in this day and age?” said Richard F. Stolz, a former head of C.I.A. spy operations and onetime Moscow station chief. “The effort is out of proportion to the alleged benefits. I just don’t understand what they expected.”
What do Focal Pointers think the Russians expected? Kindly let us know in the comments section.