Trump accidentally revealed a US spy hidden in the Kremlin
Trump accidentally revealed an important CIA spy embedded in the Kremlin?
On December 11, Russian media "Lenta.ru" disclosed a spy case, stating that during Trump's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in 2017, he accidentally leaked classified information, leading the Russians to realize there was a US spy hiding in the Kremlin.
Subsequently, an official suspected of being involved was removed from his post and fled Russia with his family before being further investigated by Russian security agencies.
In fact, this news from Russian media is not really new. In 2019, US and Russian media had already exposed this spy case: the suspect Russian official was Oleg Smolenkov, who worked in the Russian presidential office, and disappeared after going on vacation in Montenegro with his family in 2017.
The US media's account is that Smolenkov entered the United States through CIA channels in Montenegro and is suspected to have purchased a property in Virginia in 2018 (Figure 3). However, in 2019, when the news that Smolenkov was a US spy was exposed by CNN for several hours, the owner of the property immediately moved out, leaving the American media reporters who came for interviews empty-handed.
In summary, this incident was quite embarrassing for both the US and Russia: Although Russia uncovered a spy through Trump's "slip of the tongue," due to Smolenkov's work location (the Russian presidential office), the Russian side later tried to downplay the negative impact of this incident, claiming that Smolenkov's level did not have access to confidential information;
As for the United States, it initially did not want to admit that a CIA spy had been revealed by its own president - then-CIA Director Pompeo firmly denied that Trump "sold out" Smolenkov, saying that the media report "was not in line with the facts."
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1851390096611340/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.