Zach Dorfman is a senior body of workers creator at the Aspen Institute's Cyber & technology application and senior fellow on the Carnegie Council for Ethics in foreign Affairs.
On September 25, 1984, three officers from the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco departed for San Francisco Airport to meet with their counterparts from Seattle and change exclusive "pouched" diplomatic substances.
This trade came about every different Tuesday, and every time, the Soviets have been tailed via a van filled with San Francisco-based FBI counterintelligence officials. although the FBI knew the Soviets have been privy to this surveillance, the Bureau didn't are trying to conceal it either, in response to the la times, which recounted this event from later court testimony.
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however this Tuesday in 1984 become distinct. always, there have been handiest two Soviet officers meeting the Seattle diplomats at the airport, not three. and also to the usual FBI surveillance crew, the Bureau had assigned 20 more agents to track the circulate of the third man, Aleksander Grishin, an accepted diplomat—and a Soviet intelligence officer.
When the Soviet officers entered the airport, with FBI brokers staring at, Grishin detached himself to make a name at a pay cell. lots of of miles down the coast, FBI counterintelligence agents understanding of a makeshift base of operations in a l. a. inn listened as Svetlana Ogorodnikov, a 34-year-ancient Soviet émigré who had been on the FBI's radar, picked up the phone in her Hollywood house. It became Grishin. talking in coded Russian, he asked if she had made preparations with an "acquaintance" to fly to Europe that October. Ogorodnikov validated she had.
This was no regular FBI surveillance operation: The "acquaintance" Grishin said turned into himself an FBI agent—a person who, out of greed, desperation, and spite, had begun an affair with Ogorodnikov and agreed to promote categorised assistance to the Soviet executive. at last, this man—Richard W. Miller, a forty seven-yr-old l. a.-based counterintelligence agent on the Bureau's Soviet squad—would develop into the primary FBI agent ever convicted of espionage.
And the person who would at last at ease Miller's conviction in 1990—after three trials over the direction of six years—changed into a young U.S. legal professional in l. a.: Adam Schiff.
these days, Schiff is greater regular as the Democratic chairman of the apartment Intelligence Committee, and one of the country's most vocal critics of the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia-related figures all through the 2016 presidential race—entanglements Schiff called, in a telephone interview, "deeply unethical" and in some instances "fundamentally compromising." to some observers, Schiff's vehemence—he generally appears on tv, and infrequently receives attacked by way of President Donald Trump on Twitter—seems politically opportunistic, or misplaced. but his durability on Russia and his wariness of Moscow's intelligence equipment a ways predate Trump. In key techniques, Schiff's perspective on Russia turned into shaped decades past, throughout his prosecution of Richard Miller.
"I learned lots about Russian tradecraft: how the Russians operate, who they target, the vulnerabilities they seek," Schiff recalls. "They want individuals with access to assistance it is of use to them. They seek people who're kind of at the margins at what they do, that have fiscal problems, who have marital complications that they can make the most. and they discovered a pretty good target with Richard Miller."
all through his work on the case, Schiff turned into also in usual contact with FBI agents investigating Miller—giving the long run congressman an intimate examine, and admire for, the Bureau's counterintelligence mission.
At left: FBI particular Agent Richard W. Miller. At correct: Miller's Lynwood, California, domestic, where authorities found classified FBI documents. | Bettman/Getty photos
due to the fact the unencumber ultimate month of special information Robert Mueller's document on Trump and Russia, Schiff has made an more and more assertive push for the counterintelligence counsel the FBI and Mueller's group gathered about Trump-Russia, which became mostly excluded from the redacted Mueller record. In a may 8 subpoena to attorney prevalent bill Barr, Schiff demanded "all documents and materials, despite kind or classification," relating to the counterintelligence or overseas intelligence facet of the investigation. (On may additionally 21, Schiff and the Justice department reached a tentative deal for Schiff's committee to access these substances.) Schiff has also asked for a briefing by using Justice branch officials on the FBI's counterintelligence probe into Trump-Russia, which began earlier than Mueller's probe however whose existing popularity is doubtful.
Schiff accepts that Mueller didn't discover a criminal conspiracy between Trump acquaintances and the Russian executive (even though he has observed there is "a variety of proof of collusion.") For the congressman, the Trump-Russia affair goes beyond the domain of the probably prosecutable, and broaches the broader query of compromise—even if, say, one's fiscal or very own entanglements can create improper levers of have an impact on for a adverse overseas state. in the counterintelligence world, behavior need not be crook to signify a hazard to the nation's national safety interests.
Schiff, strangely for somebody in Congress, first discovered this lesson a long time ago. To completely take note why he has persisted to ring the alarm on Trump-Russia, we should trip returned to l. a. in 1984, and the extraordinary, sordid saga of Richard Miller.
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just about everyone who interacted with him professionally appeared to agree: Miller should on no account have turn into an FBI agent.
in response to contemporaneous reporting and up to date interviews with former FBI officials, Miller turned into slovenly and obese, which earned him sanctions from his FBI superiors, designed to result in him into stepping into shape. He turned into chastised by means of his bosses for selling Amway items out of the trunk of his vehicle. He changed into customary to pilfer comic books and candy bars from 7-Eleven, and devour them with abandon. At one element, he admitted to skimming from funds he was purported to give to Bureau informants, and to promoting FBI statistics to a local deepest investigator.
Miller's domestic existence changed into advanced. He lived on my own right through the workweek in a rundown condominium in l. a. and commuted lower back on the weekend to San Diego County, the place his spouse and eight children lived near a small avocado ranch that he tended. With Miller's modest government revenue, money was tight. His marriage become also struggling: In 1983, Miller, a practicing Mormon, became excommunicated from the church over an ongoing affair.
John Libby, a former federal prosecutor who labored with Schiff on the 1990 conviction, referred to as Miller "a complete mess." He turned into a "goofball" and an "idiot," says a former FBI counterintelligence agent who worked the Miller case. another former FBI agent who become worried in the investigation described Miller to me, variously, as a "moron," a "misfit," a "putz" whose "clothing looked like he slept in them," and an all-round "bad person."
Miller "turned into a case of the FBI carrying its wounded too some distance," recollects this adult. "He screwed up everything he did."
Miller got here to the Soviet squad with no history in Russian language or lifestyle, and no prior adventure in counterintelligence. many of the Bureau's senior-most officials in la, besides the fact that children, were essential figures in the local Mormon community; re-assigning Miller to the Soviet squad was, sarcastically, a part of an effort to retain a watch on him—to bring him returned "into the FBI fold, and the Mormon fold," Libby remembers.
It didn't work. Miller once once again failed to distinguish himself. Then, in may additionally 1984, he met Svetlana Ogorodonikov.
Ogorodonikov was regarded an outré and not entirely faithful determine in the local Soviet émigré group, which become generally populated through "refuseniks"—Jews who had fought for exit visas, and who had been stripped of their Soviet citizenship upon leaving the nation and banned from returning. according to napping With The FBI, a 1993 ebook concerning the Miller case with the aid of Russell Warren Howe, Ogorodonikov's husband, Nikolay, turned into Jewish, and the household used an exemption enabling Jews to depart the Soviet Union completely to re-settle in l. a..
Svetlana expert to become a medical technician; Nikolay worked in a sausage manufacturing unit. however for the Ogorodnikovs, los angeles was extraordinary and desiccated. the marriage soured. They had been poor. They fought. They drank, certainly Svetlana. Homesick, she decided she wanted to discuss with her family unit lower back in Russia, and to send the couple's son to a Crimean summer time camp favored via the infants of Soviet apparatchiks. both required particular dispensation from Soviet officers, so, in keeping with stories within the L.A. times and conversations with former FBI officers, she started serving as a kind of social host and fixer to Soviet diplomats touring from San Francisco to l. a.—and to intelligence officers working undercover as diplomats, like Aleksander Grishin.
by way of the early Eighties, Ogorodnikov became working a Soviet movie sequence that catered to local Russian audio system in los angeles. This half-time job not handiest helped her retain tabs on the group but allowed her to trip every now and then to the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco—the USA's West Coast secret agent base—where she picked up the movies. Ogorodnikov served as a sort of clearinghouse for information about contributors of the Soviet émigré group in los angeles, which she passed on to her to consular contacts. in accordance with the L.A. instances, she became once dispatched through Soviet consular personnel in San Francisco to support quash a mutiny of Soviet sailors at the Port of los angeles and even in brief initiated a look for a Soviet defector who was believed to reside in Southern California.
In an FBI surveillance photograph released June four, 1985, former FBI agent Richard Miller, pictured right here in a white shirt with dark pants, become pictured strolling with Svetlana Ogorodnikov. | Bettman/Getty pictures
by using 1980, Ogorodikov's customary trips to the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco had piqued the hobby of the FBI's los angeles office. In 1982, she was approached with the aid of the Bureau, meeting continuously with FBI counterintelligence agent John Hunt, however he ended their relationship early the next yr, claiming it wasn't leading to any constructive assistance. there have been also questions about the place her most advantageous loyalties lay. And there may were a different component at play: Ogorodonikov would later claim that she and Hunt had been napping together, and Hunt would retire quietly around the time of Miller's arrest in 1984. (Hunt denied the affair.)
Ogorodnikov wasn't a knowledgeable undercover agent, but U.S. officials believed her work confirmed she was acting as a Soviet intelligence asset. ("The Svetlana equal [today] is Maria Butina," says Libby, referring to the U.S.-based mostly Russian gun-rights activist, who in April turned into sentenced to 18 months in prison for being an unregistered Russian agent. "It's literally the equal MO.")
in the spring of 1984, Ogorodnikov once again reached out to Hunt at the leading FBI workplace in la, in all probability in an attempt to re-light their relationship. Hunt continued to stay away from her. but Miller, it looks, acquired wind of her calls and made contact. the two began assembly regularly; part of Miller's job became to improve sources within the local Russian-talking community. issues immediately moved from the knowledgeable to the own.
based on studies within the L.A. instances, their first rendezvous, in may additionally 1984, was at a beach in Malibu. They met once more, quickly in a while, at a park in Westwood—and this time had sex, in Miller's vehicle, which was parked next to a bit League baseball container. Miller and Ogorodnikov persevered to sleep together thereafter, often at Miller's domestic far from his spouse and kids.
In August 1984, Ogorodnikov made her pitch, telling Miller that she labored for the Soviet govt, and that it will pay him for classified FBI documents he might give, given his position on the Soviet counterintelligence squad. Miller requested for $50,000 in gold and $15,000 in money, put in three separate defense-deposit boxes in distinct banks as fee, according to the L.A. times.
The Soviets wanted proof that Miller may carry. So later that month, Miller and Ogorodnikov drove north, to San Francisco, where her contacts at the consulate were based mostly. It turned into a wild journey up. Ogorodnikov brought a container of cognac and margarita mix, taking slugs on the drive, and plied Miller—who never drank—with the cocktail. by the point they arrived within the Bay enviornment, both Ogorodnikov and Miller later observed in court, they have been well lubricated.
Miller deposited himself at a cafe near the consulate, while Ogorodnikov walked inner. earlier than they separated, prosecutors later spoke of, Miller gave her his FBI credentials, to show his id to the Soviets, and a duplicate of a classified FBI counterintelligence reporting manual, to show his access to files. After meeting regional, Ogorodnikov and Miller drove to a hotel out within the East Bay to proceed their boozy rendezvous.
The trip spark off, for the Bureau, the counterintelligence equal of a 5-alarm hearth. Miller's bosses in l. a. and FBI officials in San Francisco had now not been aware about Miller and Ogorodnikov's dalliance—let alone his skills recruitment—but the San Francisco FBI officials at once pieced the picture collectively. "every thing in the Soviet consulate was bugged," remembers the 2d former FBI agent. "You couldn't go into the bathroom there with out us realizing about it. We instantly opened an investigation."
FBI agents swarmed onto the case. Separate groups from San Francisco and Washington, D.C., headed right down to la to work with agents there. taps went up on the Ogorodnikovs' apartment phone and Miller's phones. Bugs have been surreptitiously positioned in Miller's vehicle, based on media reports on the time.
Yet Ogorodnikov and Miller's involvement deepened. After their go back and forth to the Bay area, Ogorodnikov, at the path of KGB handler Grishin, begun coaxing Miller to agree to meet with Soviet officials remote places—ideally a city in a impartial location, like Vienna, or greater yet, one within the japanese Bloc, like Warsaw, to deliver greater documents. Ogorodnikov even took the unkempt Miller looking for more dapper outfits, including a $675 Burberry trench coat and Italian gown footwear, the L.A. times mentioned.
He by no means made the experience. In late September, Miller noticed the FBI surveillance that had been placed on him. Now ensnared, he went to his superiors and claimed that he turned into truly acting as a double agent—an explanation that became absolutely unconvincing to his FBI colleagues. In early October, Miller changed into arrested at his domestic in San Diego County. He broke down and confessed, at length and in detail, to his betrayal—but walked lower back his story days later, returning to his "secret double agent" alibi.
FBI brokers additionally unexpectedly arrested Svetlana and Nikolay Ogorodnikov at their Hollywood condominium. "At one element," remembers the primary former FBI counterintelligence agent, hours into her put up-arrest interview at the FBI's la places of work, "Svetlana asked, 'Are there two FBIs?' and i observed, 'What do you suggest?' and she or he mentioned, 'smartly, you guys are very critical,'" in contrast with Miller.
The FBI agent told Ogorodnikov that they were critical certainly.
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FBI particular Agent Richard Bretzing makes an legitimate statement to the media following the announcement that Miller had been arrested on fees that he funneled American secrets and techniques to Soviet KGB brokers. | Bettman/Getty images
each Ogorodnikovs pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage midway via a June 1985 trial; prosecutors mentioned Nikolay helped to support Svetlana's scheme to ensnare Miller. Grishin, Svetlana's KGB handler—who become named an unindicted co-conspirator—quietly left the nation, shielded through diplomatic immunity. (Svetlana later recanted her confession, however in no way formally challenged her conviction.)
Miller, although, fought on. His first prosecution, which resulted in November 1985, concluded in a mistrial, devastating the FBI. In 1986, at his 2nd trial, he changed into convicted and given two consecutive existence phrases, plus an extra 50 years. but the conviction was later reversed on attraction; a better court dominated that his polygraphs, which prosecutors drew on, were inadmissible as facts.
a lot had modified via 1990, when the third trial was set to start. The choose who had overseen the primary two trials had decided to recuse himself. The long-established prosecutors had additionally moved on from the U.S. lawyer's workplace. (One was later chosen to steer the Drug Enforcement agency and tapped his former co-prosecutor as his deputy.) The Soviet Union turned into wobbling toward fall down. The cold battle changed into just about over. however the prosecution of a significant episode of bloodless conflict espionage became now not.
Schiff, then a l. a.-primarily based assistant U.S. attorney in his early 30s, turned into chosen with the aid of his superiors to lead the prosecution for the third trial. Libby approved his request to take part prosecuting the case. it would be the longer term condo Intelligence Committee chairman's "first introduction to Russian tradecraft," Schiff remembers.
Schiff had under no circumstances discovered Miller's double-agent story convincing. "It could be that Miller entered into this relationship at the beginning feeling that he knew exactly what Svetlana changed into doing and why she changed into doing it. however he changed into happy to exploit the condition, and only later, as he grew to be entangled along with her, changed into willing to deliver categorised assistance [to her]," the congressman says now. Miller may have come throughout "in a clownish approach," Schiff argues, however was "definitely somewhat manipulative."
This time, Miller had waived his correct to a jury trial, hoping the brand new choose overseeing the case, who was established for his seasoned-protection views, could impose less jail time, or possibly even acquit him totally. Schiff and Libby, meanwhile, sought to be sure a lifestyles sentence for Miller, given what they perceived as the seriousness of his crimes.
The case turned into a "titanic engaging in," remembers Schiff, and "definitely essentially the most critical one for the FBI at the time." all over preparations for the trial, he says, he came in touch with "dozens and dozens" of FBI agents who had investigated Miller or labored alongside him, as part of what became, in essence, a crash course for Schiff within the Bureau's counterintelligence mission and Russian espionage extra widely.
The FBI provided Schiff with a primitive transportable cell ("which looked like . . . the nuclear football"), and the younger prosecutor became in steady contact with his Bureau counterparts. "they'd joke with me that they could inform when I bought domestic at night," remembers Schiff. "we might work together within the office, then i might be on the telephone with them, using domestic, with that transportable. after which there can be a respite before i'd call once more after dinner."
The trial commenced in the summertime of 1990, under a year after the Berlin Wall had fallen. each Schiff and Libby recall the value the Bureau connected to securing a conviction, and the consideration and materials the case received from the FBI. notwithstanding the evidence towards Miller became effective, the prosecution offered some odd challenges. "FBI agents are knowledgeable to observe after they're being surveilled," Schiff says. "Miller figured that he become below investigation, and earlier than he may well be arrested, he went to his supervisor and laid out what could be his defense."
In Schiff's closing argument, recounted in drowsing With The FBI, he painted a damning portrait of Miller, enumerating the disgraced FBI agent's compromise step-by way of-step. anything his initial motivations, Schiff said, within the conclusion, Miller—scorned, resentful, sexually "infatuated" with Ogorodnikov—"betrayed his job, his family unit and the whole community that positioned its believe in his fingers" by way of passing labeled files to the Soviets. "here's a case of government misconduct and government corruption of the highest and most annoying order," he mentioned during this remark, in keeping with the los angeles instances.
The decide agreed, partly. despite the fact Miller changed into found responsible of espionage, the new sentence—20 years—become some distance less punitive than on the 2d jury trial, or what Schiff and Libby had hoped. "We fought against it," Libby recalls. "I did not feel it changed into reasonable at the time, and that i nevertheless don't think it become reasonable, given what Miller had executed." nevertheless, Miller's fate changed into secured. He changed into now the primary FBI agent in U.S. background convicted of espionage.
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Assistant U.S. legal professional Adam Schiff during the Richard Miller trial in 1990. | court sketch courtesy Adam Schiff's workplace
Miller served a total of 9 years and became launched in 1994. according to Stanley I. Greenberg, one in all Miller's former legal professionals, Miller educated to turn into a laptop technician while in jail, moved back to Utah and remarried. He died about three or four years in the past, Greenberg advised me.
Svetlana Ogorodnikov was also launched from penal complex in 1994. She later moved to Mexico and married a convicted drug trafficker she had met in detention center, re-entered the us illegally in 1999, and changed into later a witness in a bizarre torture and murder case, in keeping with the associated Press. Nikolay Ogorodnikov became released from prison in 1990.
Schiff has idea returned to the Miller case during the last two and a half years. As within the 1980s in los angeles, all over the 2016 presidential campaign the Russian executive made a transparent attempt to profit leverage over key figures, Schiff says—this time in Donald Trump's orbit. "similar to in the Nineteen Eighties with Miller, the Russians looked for americans with entry to counsel, and that they used lots of diverse modalities to entangle them," Schiff says. "They'll dangle financial opportunities; they'll use other ways to exact counsel. … It does suppose like an echo of the past."
The present by using Russia-connected figures of politically destructive counsel concerning the Hillary Clinton campaign proffered to Donald Trump Jr.; former Trump crusade manager Paul Manafort's gambit to feed the Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin confidant Oleg Deripaska private updates in regards to the Trump campaign; the discussions, led via Trump legal professional Michael Cohen and with the candidate's advantage, concerning the building of a Trump Tower in Moscow, which persisted neatly into the 2016 campaign: These have been facts, Schiff says, of the Russian govt's latent potential for leverage over key figures in the Trump orbit, together with the president himself.
whereas some Trump pals could now not have at the beginning realized the highway they have been embarking on in attractive with Russian brokers, to Schiff, their pleas of lack of expertise—like Miller's—subsequently ring false. for instance, Manafort, who spent years representing seasoned-Russia politicians in Ukraine, "had satisfactory event working with Russian hobbies to take into account how they do enterprise," Schiff says. Manafort's longtime company affiliate Konstantin Kilimnik, who supported Manafort's actions in Kiev and whom the FBI says has longstanding ties to Russian intelligence, "had his personal adventure to draw on," Schiff continues. "So, I don't feel this was, in both circumstance, the case of a naïve person who turned into come what may duped." (As part of the Mueller investigation, Manafort became convicted on bank fraud and tax fraud charges, and later pleaded responsible to fees stemming from his lobbying work in Ukraine. Kilimnik, who's believed to be in Moscow, became additionally indicted by the particular information's workplace on obstruction of justice costs regarding his work with Manafort.)
however Schiff argues that an motion don't need to be criminally prosecutable—as in Miller's case—to characterize a hazard to the national safety hobbies of the USA, and therefore be value investigation. here's why he has demanded that his committee receive the entire documents tied to the underlying Trump-Russia counterintelligence probe. The broader matter, he says, is "even if americans were appearing as witting or unwitting brokers of a overseas power."
For Richard Miller, avarice and ethical turpitude cracked the door ajar for future compromise. It became pried open via a Russian intelligence agent, who, sensing a straightforward mark, proceeded to ensnare Miller, unless that compromise shaded into outright conspiracy.
The Mueller investigation could not set up that the Trump crusade took that momentous second step. however compromise takes region in a continuum. The counterintelligence world, not like that of criminal justice, hardly traffics in absolutes. This is frequently, for Schiff, the paramount lesson of the Miller case, as the investigation of the Trump-Russia affair moves from the smartly-ordered confines of the prosecutor's workplace and into what longtime former CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton called the barren region of mirrors.
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