Trump associates "presented attractive targets for foreign influence, creating notable counterintelligence vulnerabilities," according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in August. But Trump has refused to change his own behavior -- let alone tell his team to clean up their counterintelligence posture. That's why new reports that US intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was being targeted by Russian intelligence come as no surprise.
US intelligence officials-- according to four former officials, cited by the Washington Post as familiar with the matter-- were concerned that Giuliani, who was interacting with people linked to Russian intelligence, would act as a foot soldier in Moscow's information warfare against the US and feed misinformation back to Trump. Despite these direct warnings, however, Trump didn't tell Giuliani to cease and desist. Instead, Trump simply shrugged and kept him close. Every American should remember what this means: Trump has given Russia a free pass to attack our democracy.
Trump should know full well what Russia is up to. For four years, the President has been briefed on malign Russian activities. He has access to detailed, classified information, and the FBI alerted Trump to foreign intelligence threats back in 2016, when he was still a candidate. His own administration has publicly imposed sanctions against Russian entities and individuals for their election interference. The Special Counsel report also detailed ways Russia targeted Trump campaign officials as part of a wider influence campaign, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report did the same in even greater detail.
Last year, news reports indicated that Rudy Giuliani was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence probe, which reportedly looked into whether foreign governments were trying to take advantage of his business ties in Ukraine and with wealthy foreigners. While we don't know the status of this investigation, we do know one thing: If the FBI was investigating Giuliani as a potential counterintelligence risk, he should not have gone anywhere near the President or the White House. Any patriotic President would want to steer clear of an individual who could be doing double duty for a foreign government, including Russia. We also learned just this week that the FBI is now investigating whether unverified emails, which the New York Post said were provided to the paper by Giuliani, about Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden are linked to a foreign intelligence operation.
To make matters worse, Rudy Giuliani has had close ties to Andrii Derkach, a Russian intelligence agent, and acted as a megaphone for Derkach's anti-Biden campaign late last year. In a statement announcing new sanctions against Derkach in September, the Treasury Department said he waged a "covert influence campaign" centered on "cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning US officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election." Well before this public an
