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As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, he continues to face a barrage of legal actions against him.  Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain has been following the criminal and civil cases.

In this article, Prof. Germain summarizes the status of all of the cases and discusses what happens next. If you’d like to schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

Criminal Cases

1. Falsifying Business Records, New York Law.  Trump has been convicted and is scheduled to be sentenced for a Class E felony for falsifying business records in the criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and pending before Judge Juan Merchan.  He faces potential prison time in the case.
2. Election Interference, Georgia Law.  Trump has been indicted in Georgia by District Attorney Fani Willis for election interference.  The case has been mired in controversy following revelations that Willis had an affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.  Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee allowed Willis to continue with the prosecution if Wade resigned, which he did, but the case has been derailed by an appeal from Trump and the other defendants.
3. Classified Documents – Federal Law.  Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith on federal charges for stealing, retaining, and making false statements about classified documents that he took from the White House after losing the 2020 election.  The case was assigned to District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, and was reversed by the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals for earlier rulings improperly taking jurisdiction and appointing a special master during the investigation of the document theft.  Judge Cannon dismissed the charges against Trump on a technicality, by finding that Jack Smith’s appointment under the Department of Justice’s special counsel regulation, and the regulation itself, violated the appointments clause of the Constitution.  Cannon did not give the government an opportunity to remedy the election clause deficiency, such as by appointing a Senate approved United States Attorney to supervise the case.  Cannon’s decision is on appeal to the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals.
4. Election Interference – Federal Law.  Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith for election interference in the 2020 election.  The case was delayed because of controversy concerning the standard for presidential immunity.  The trial court and the D.C. Circuit ruled that a former president has no immunity for crimes committed while in office.  The Supreme Court reversed that in Trump v. United States, ruling that a president has broad immunity for actions taken even in bad faith and for personal gain broadly connected with his official duties.  Prosecutor Jack Smith has attempted to limit the indictment to address the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, but serious immunity questions remain.  The case is pending before Judge Tanja Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee.

Civil Cases

1. Defamation – New York Law.  E. Jean Carroll recovered an $83,300,000 civil judgment against Trump in Manhattan for defamation.  Carroll claimed that Donald Trump sexually attacked her in a department store in the 1990s, and claimed that Trump’s denials and attacks constituted defamation.  Trump posted a bond and obtained a stay pending appeal, and the case is on appeal.
2. Financial Statement Fraud – New York Law.  New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned for election on promises to “get Trump,” brought civil claims against Trump for disgorgement of gains realized by using an inflated personal financial statement used when seeking insurance policies and obtaining secured claims for his subsidiary corporations from sophisticated lenders.  State court judge Arthur F. Engoron awarded the Attorney General $363,800,000 in damages, which now amounts to over $450,000,000 with interest.  The court also barred Trump and other executives from being officers of a New York corporation, and appointed a receiver to liquidate Trump’s company.  The Court of Appeals granted a special stay pending appeal upon the posting of a reduced $175,000,000 bond.  The liberal 1^st Department Appellate Division raised questions about the propriety of the judgment.

There seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated.

Gregory Germain

What happens to the Criminal Cases?

The Department of Justice has issued two detailed memorandum opinions, one in 1973 and another in 2000, discussing a sitting president’s scope of immunity from criminal and civil actions.  In both opinions, the Department determined that a sitting president cannot be indicted, prosecuted or jailed for a criminal claim while in office.  The Department based both decisions on the principles of separation of powers – holding that the indictment, prosecution or jailing of a sitting president would allow one branch of government (the judiciary) to interfere with another branch of government (the executive).  No other executive officers (including the Vice President – a matter of contemporaneous concern for Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973) would enjoy such immunity.  The opinions apply equally to federal and state prosecutions.

So it’s clear that the federal prosecutions brought by Jack Smith will not continue, even if Trump did not pardon himself or cause Smith to be removed from office and replaced with a loyal alternative.  And there is every indication from Trump that he will attempt to remove Smith or accept his resignation, or more likely will pardon himself.  While the Department has another opinion rejecting the President’s power to self-pardon, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling stated that a President’s pardon power is unlimited – even suggesting that the corrupt sale of pardons would not affect the validity of the pardons.  So I have no doubt that the Supreme Court majority would uphold a self-pardon.  So there seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated.

The President’s pardon power does not extend to state prosecutions.  However, the Justice Department’s separation of powers rulings apply to all criminal prosecutions, state and federal.  Under the Justice Department’s opinion, it seems clear that the state criminal prosecutions must be stayed while President Trump is in office.  There is even an argument under those opinions that the cases must be dismissed, because the opinions held that an indictment of a sitting president that was stayed from further prosecution while in office would interfere with the functioning of the presidency.  The same could be argued for a stayed sentence.  I also have no doubt that the current Supreme Court would agree with the separation of powers arguments made in the Justice Department’s rulings.  In its immunity decision, the Supreme Court adopted the broadest possible view of presidential immunity, and even the dissenting justices expressed concern about politically-based state prosecutions interfering with the functioning of the president.  So in all likelihood, the state criminal cases will be put on hold during Trump’s presidency.  If they try to continue with the prosecutions, or even to impose a stayed sentence, I suspect the decisions will be reversed on appeal.  It is even possible that the cases will be dismissed.

What Happens to the Civil Cases?

The continuation of the civil cases is far more uncertain.  There are two important civil precedents from the Supreme Court:  Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982), and Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997).  In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Court recognized that the sitting president is broadly immune from liability in civil actions for official conduct, both while in office or afterward.  The case has limited applicability to the three civil actions discussed above, because all of the alleged acts (defamation, falsifying business records, and inflating financial statement) had nothing to do with his official acts, not did the acts occur primarily while he was in office.

The second case, Clinton v Jones, involved civil charges by Paula Jones for alleged misconduct before Clinton was in office and completely unrelated to his official duties.  The Supreme Court held that the civil charges could continue, but that the court would have to make special arrangements from the president’s participation in the action so as not to interfere with the performance of his presidential duties, suggesting that any depositions would have to be taken in the White House, and that the president could not be compelled to testify live).  So the Clinton case suggests that the appeals in the civil cases can continue, because they are unlikely to require President Trump’s personal participation.  If, as I think likely because of legal errors and excessive awards, the civil cases are reversed on appeal and remanded for new trials, the courts on remand would have to be very careful to conduct a fair trial without interfering with the president’s official functions.

If the election shows anything, it shows that the public does not like politically motivated prosecutions and impeachments.

Gregory Germain

Thoughts on the Future of Politically Motivated Prosecutions

The Democratic Party and its politically motivated government prosecutors also need to reconsider their actions.  If the election shows anything, it shows that the public does not like politically motivated prosecutions and impeachments.  The argument that Trump was a convicted felon backfired, as the public saw him as a victim of biased and politically motivated prosecutions brought in Democratic strongholds.  Now the ball is in Trump’s court to see if he will carry through on his threats to “do unto others as they did unto him.”  If he does carry through on his threats, I suspect his support will quickly fade.

An alarming deterioration in recruitment standards for the FBI has been exposed in a report delivered to the House Judiciary Committee by an alliance of retired and active-duty agents and analysts. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements pushed by FBI Director Chris Wray have degraded recruitment standards in all areas including “physical fitness, illicit drug use, financial irregularities, mental health, full-time work experience and integrity,” and pose a threat to the FBI’s ability to protect America from harm, say the authors. 

The report cites cases of new agents who are so fat and unfit, they can’t even pass the new relaxed standards for fitness; who are illiterate and need remedial English lessons; who don’t want to work weekends or after hours; have serious disabilities or mental-health issues, and “create drama.” 

The FBI is no longer recruiting the “best and brightest” to be special agents, but selecting candidates based on “race, gender and/or sexual orientation.” 

The alliance of anonymous FBI reformers includes senior former executives and agents from the counterintelligence and counterterrorism branches who warn that today’s FBI “lacks the fortitude and skills warranted to defeat [existential] threats . . . 

“And if the current trajectory of FBI Special Agent recruitment and selection continues — using DEI as the primary and sole measure — our homeland security efforts will be significantly hampered.” 

An increasing number of “lower-quality candidates — described by one source as ‘breadcrumbs’ because they were rejected by other federal law-enforcement agencies” — are applying to become FBI special agents; and are being recruited because they “satisfy the FBI’s priority to meet Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mandates.” 

‘Fewer applying’ 

Flying in the face of Wray’s boast to Congress last year that recruitment numbers are soaring, especially in red states, the report finds that FBI’s special-agent hiring numbers are down, “likely due to the decline in the nation’s trust in the FBI and a corresponding decrease in the number of individuals interested in applying to the FBI for employment.” 

A former senior counterintelligence agent involved with writing the report said controversies engulfing the FBI in the Trump era have had the perverse effect of attracting recruits who want to be “agents of social change versus protecting the country.” 

Recruitment has become “self-destructive” and is setting up the FBI for “generational failure.” 

Another former agent who helped draft the report said: “Why are we funding a new FBI headquarters if you’re hiring second-rate people?” 

The report is written as if it were an official FBI intelligence product, with code names given to sources and sub-sources who anonymously provided firsthand knowledge of FBI recruitment and selection practices.

They include instructors and counselors at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., application coordinators and assessors from FBI field offices across the country, and supervisors and executives from FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. 

They reveal a farcical situation with new recruits: 

Veteran supervisor special agent SIERRA 72 disqualified a black female applicant because she was more than 50 pounds overweight using the FBI’s body-fat index and could not pass the physical fitness test.

But FBI HQ ordered SIERRA 72 to push the candidate through the recruitment process. 

Other supervisors say a high percentage of candidates fail the mandatory fitness test, despite the fact that standards have been relaxed.

They “simply quit in the middle of the 1.5-mile run.” 

One veteran agent who works as a recruitment coordinator, codenamed SIER­RA 87, said the drug policy for new agents has been “liberalized to include applicants who had a lifestyle of using drugs.” 

A candidate who “was arrested and fought with police officers” was not disqualified. Nor are candidates with driving-under-the-influence convictions, or people with “documented mental illness.”

Nor are candidates who lie during the recruitment process. 

SIERRA 72 disqualified a special-agent applicant because their only work experience was “working two years as a coffee-shop barista and having a bachelor’s degree in art history.”

But FBI HQ ordered SIERRA 72 to push the applicant through. 

SIERRA 23, a special agent for four years in counterterrorism, observed that most new agents “disappear during the day, go home early, or never want to work late for after-hours operations. SIERRA 23 does not trust most of the agents with his/her life since they have questionable competence, tactical abilities and work ethic.” 

SIERRA 22 said one applicant recently rejected by a local police department and one who was a long-term unemployed “gamer” were pushed through by FBI HQ for non-special-agent positions despite objections from the field office. 

Other recruits have to be given remedial English classes because they are not capable of writing basic reports “in a coherent manner [and] often fail to utilize proper capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure.” 

In one case, training agent SIERRA 11 “advised a new agent that his/her writing skills needed improvement and that the new agent needed to pay attention to detail.”

The new agent complained to the supervisor that SIERRA 11 was “too difficult and expecting too much.” 

A female minority recruit “could not compose a simple FD-302,” the standard FBI interview report,” said SIERRA 79, a criminal investigator of four decades.

“The agent never made a case or wrote an affidavit and had to be pulled along to support investigations [and] could not be trusted in court.”

During the agent’s probationary period, her supervisor went up the chain of command to request that her employment be terminated but was told “we need minority female agents.” 

An FBI-agent recruit “stuttered and appeared to have Tourette syndrome or other tic disorder that hindered [his/her] ability to communicate,” said SIERRA 32, a veteran supervisor at the academy who wondered how this recruit “would function in a high-threat, hostile environment.” 

Ivy League graduates were being hired fresh out of college and placed in high-level positions to do “strategic planning . . . responsible for establishing policy, procedures and goals with counterproductive results.” 

Recruiters are required to host “Diversity Applicant Recruitment” events based on race, gender and sexual orientation.

“Straight white males may not attend. If a recruiter chose not to attend a Pride Parade or fly the Pride flag . . . the recruiter would most likely be removed immediately.” 

The report urges the House Judiciary Committee to order a 90-day audit of the FBI’s recruitment practices, to introduce legislation to strengthen the oath of office for FBI special agents, and to call Director Wray to testify before Congress over whether he is “willfully lying to conceal significant deficiencies” in recruitment or has been misinformed by subordinates. 

A spokesman for committee Chairman Jim Jordan said the panel was evaluating the report: 

“We are thankful that these brave FBI officials have come forward with this report that described some of the ridiculous things happening at the bureau. We will continue to work with these officials . . . so we can further implement the proper legislative changes.” 

The authors want to remain anonymous because those still serving know they will be “crushed” like whistleblowers before them, says one of the authors. 

With Donald Trump threatening to retake the U.S. presidency next week in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine, it’s time to take stock of a deeply unsettling fact. After years of investigations by U.S. government bodies from the Justice Department to the FBI to Congress, the American public has no idea if Russian President Vladimir Putin has “something” on Trump—in other words, some compromising information about the would-be 47th president’s past, or what the Russians call kompromat.

Eight years after the FBI first began probing Trump’s Russia connections in mid-2016, national security officials are still puzzled by the former U.S. president’s unrelenting deference to Putin, as well as the enduring mystery of Trump’s decades-old relationship with Russian and former Soviet investors and financiers, some of whom helped save his failing businesses years ago.

So we’re asking the same questions we were asking eight years ago. Is Trump some sort of Manchurian candidate—or in this case, perhaps a Muscovian candidate—controlled by or beholden to Moscow in ways that we don’t know and likely will never know? Or is Trump’s persistently fawning treatment of Putin mainly just a manifestation of his often-expressed admiration of autocrats around the world, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and ​​Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban?

Trump himself has long denied that there is any collusion between him and the Kremlin. But among key U.S. officials who were involved in these earlier investigations, there is no small amount of frustration over this disturbing question.

What has emerged from interviews in recent weeks is an idea of just how ugly and unresolved the disputes remain among the investigators, some of whom are kicking themselves for not going deeper in their probes back then. In many cases, former senior officials at the FBI and Justice Department are still blaming each other for falling short—especially when it comes to the investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller of Russian election interference and ties between Trump officials and the Kremlin during the Trump administration.

“Here we are in 2024, and over the years since the special counsel started their work in 2017, all we have gotten is more questions, more evidence, more situations that point toward very serious questions about Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia and specifically with Vladimir Putin,” said Andrew McCabe, the former acting director of the FBI who first pushed for the Mueller probe, in a phone interview with Foreign Policy. “And none of those questions have ever been answered,” he added. “Likely because there’s never been a thorough and legitimate investigation of them.”

And that’s unlikely to change if Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.

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Russian interference in the November U.S. election—all apparently in support of Trump—is already more widespread and intense than in 2016, U.S. officials say. Deploying new methods such as deep fakes and paid-for news sources, Russia’s activities “are more sophisticated than in prior election cycles,” a senior official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters in September.

According to the Washington Post, the official cited the use of artificial intelligence as well as “authentic U.S. voices” to “launder” Russian government propaganda and spread socially divisive narratives through major social media and fake websites posing as legitimate U.S. media organizations. Moscow is targeting U.S. swing states “to shape the outcome in favor of former president Donald Trump,” the newspaper said.

Perhaps the most crucial swing state that could decide the election is Pennsylvania, and on Oct. 25, U.S. officials announced that “Russian actors” were behind a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed in a critical county of that state—in an apparent effort to justify Trump’s regular rants about election fraud.

In late September, the U.S. Justice Department accused two employees of RT, the Kremlin’s media arm, of funneling nearly $10 million to a company that media outlets later identified as Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company that has hosted right-wing pro-Trump commentators with millions of subscribers on YouTube and other social media platforms. The Biden administration also announced the seizure of 32 internet domains used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns called “Doppelganger.”

According to Attorney General Merrick Garland, “Putin’s inner circle, including [First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office] Sergei Kiriyenko, directed Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation and state-sponsored narratives as part of a campaign to … secure Russia’s preferred outcome in the election.”

“In some respects, this payment of media sources to put out stories is even more brazen than some of the activities we investigated,” said Andrew Goldstein, a former senior Justice Department lawyer and the co-author of a new book titled Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation.

“Americans should be concerned about the fact that Russia interfered in a very substantial way in 2016 on Trump’s behalf, and they’re doing it again by every measure we’ve been able to see publicly,” Goldstein added. “People should be continuing to try to get the bottom of that.”

The most urgent issue, these former officials say, is what might happen if Trump gets elected and follows through on his promise to resolve the Ukraine war quickly. Trump has hinted that he will give Putin at least some of what the Russian president wants—in particular, the parts of Ukraine that he has conquered as well as a pledge to keep Ukraine out of NATO.

“On a foreign-policy level, that is clearly the biggest concern,” McCabe said. “His promise to end it [the war in Ukraine] in one day can only possibly end it one way, and that will be an absolute travesty that could spell the end of NATO, and on and on. There’s a million other things, though. He’s the only president to ever have repeated one-on-one unmonitored, unwitnessed interactions with Vladimir Putin who then gets up in front of the world and tells them he believes Putin over his own intelligence agency.”

Those conversations with Putin continued after Trump left the presidency, according to a new book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, titled War. Woodward reported that Trump spoke to Putin as many as seven times after he left the presidency and that at one point, in 2024, Trump told a senior aide to leave the room at his mansion in Mar-a-Lago so “he could have what he said was a private phone call” with the Russian leader.

According to Goldstein, “given the difference in the candidates’ views of the war in Ukraine, there is an even greater incentive now for Russia to intervene, wanting Trump to win and not wanting [Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala] Harris to win.”

Trump himself, asked to confirm the Woodward account of his alleged conversations with Putin since he left the White House during an interview with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait in mid-October, responded: “I don’t comment on that. … But I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing and not a bad thing in terms of a country.”

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So what do we actually know about Trump’s ties to Russia? A great deal. But while there is a great deal of smoke, it’s still difficult to find any fire—that is, any kind of hard evidence of a tit-for-tat relationship that would cause Trump to side with Putin. The investigations simply didn’t go far enough to know if there is one.

What’s clear is that some three decades ago, when Trump’s businesses were buckling under failure after failure and repeatedly declaring bankruptcy—causing him to be toxic to U.S. banks—foreign money played a significant role in reviving his fortunes.

In particular, Trump benefited from investment by wealthy people from Russia and the former Soviet republics, some of them oligarchs linked to Putin. The overseas money came initially in the form of new real-estate partnerships and the purchase of numerous Trump condos—but Trump also benefited from help from the Bayrock Group, run by Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on unknown sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a massive stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Some of the overseas banks and investment groups that Trump used also had alleged ties to the Kremlin and Russian money launderers linked to Putin, according to U.S. officials.

Trump’s own family has acknowledged his dependence on Russian money, without ever saying where in Russia it came from. In September 2008, at the “Bridging U.S. and Emerging Markets Real Estate” conference in New York, his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said: “In terms of high-end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. … We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Trump’s former longtime architect, the late Alan Lapidus, confirmed this in a 2018 interview with me, saying that in the aftermath of Trump’s earlier financial troubles, “he could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything. It was all coming out of Russia. His involvement with Russia was deeper than he’s acknowledged.”

In the view of U.S. investigators, these historical connections to Russia looked suspicious and helped to explain why during the 2016 presidential campaign, some of the people in Trump’s orbit—including Trump’s son, daughter, and son-in-law—were contacted by at least 14 Russians at a time when it was clear that the Kremlin was interfering in the U.S. election in Trump’s favor. Parts of this relationship were hyped as open collusion by the so-called Steele dossier produced by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, which was later mostly debunked.

All those suspicions in turn led to the FBI probe and then the Mueller investigation, along with a massive bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee that identified a close associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort—Konstantin Kilimnik—as a Russian intelligence officer.

“Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of [Russian oligarch] Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” read the 2020 Senate report. The report also delved into Trump’s relationships with women in Moscow during his trips there starting in the mid-1990s.

But the Senate investigation was limited by partisan infighting and insufficient subpoena power, and the FBI and Justice Department never followed through fully as the narrowly focused Mueller probe got under way.

One key reason why we don’t know more about Trump’s ties to Russia appears to be that Trump and his lawyers aggressively interfered with the Justice Department investigation—and in particular, reports suggest that they pressured former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who was overseeing the Mueller probe.

Trump’s efforts to obstruct the investigation were extensively detailed in the Mueller report itself, which came out in April 2019. According to McCabe and others, Trump and his team were intent on ensuring that the president’s past financial ties to Russia did not become part of the probe, and they made that clear to Rosenstein, who was described in several accounts as rattled by the pressure and unsure what to do.

“I think Rod desperately didn’t want to get fired. I think Rod navigated a lot of those pressure situations with his first and strongest eye on self-preservation,” McCabe told me.

Some of these tactics were reported in a 2020 book by New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt, Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President. Schmidt wrote that Rosenstein quietly curtailed the investigation by making it strictly about whether Trump or his campaign officials committed criminal offenses through colluding with Russia or by covering up such collusion. Apparently bowing to pressure from Rosenstein, Mueller dropped the original counterintelligence probe into Trump’s long-term business ties to Russia—in other words, ignoring any questions about what might have motivated Trump to favor or collude with Moscow.

McCabe said he was unaware that Rosenstein was doing this. “Had I known at the time that there would be no investigation of the counterintelligence concerns, I would have continued that work at the FBI,” he said.

Andrew Weissmann, another member of the Mueller team and a former FBI general counsel, also wrote in a 2020 book that fears of dismissal—and unrelenting pressure from the White House—had a lot to do with the limits on the investigation. Trump had already fired then-FBI Director James Comey, partly for pursuing the Russia probe, and behind the scenes, the president was threatening to get rid of Mueller as well, according to several news accounts as well as the final Mueller report.

In his book Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation, Weissmann wrote that the Mueller team “was put on notice” that “a broad-based financial investigation might lead to our firing.” He wrote that at one point, Mueller told his investigators, “if the president were in the tank with Putin, ‘It would be about money’—that is, that Trump was motivated by money and his fawning behavior toward Putin could be explained by his seeking to make a buck in Russia. We all knew we had to dig deeper.”

They never did dig deeper, and even now, they are still arguing about why that never happened. Weissman blames Aaron Zebley, Mueller’s chief deputy and a co-author, with Goldstein, of Interference. Weissmann accused Zebley of fretting about retribution from Trump and the White House if the Mueller team dared, for example, to subpoena the president or his son Donald Trump Jr. as part of the inquiry. (They never did.) In the end, Weissmann wrote, the Mueller probe was doomed by its reluctance to fully examine Trump’s financial history and ties to Russia.

“The inability to chase down all financial leads, or to examine all crimes, gnawed at me, and still does,” Weissmann wrote. “Our investigation and report do not resolve those issues once and for all. But we, as a country, are entitled not to have to wonder what the facts would have revealed.”

In interviews with me in the past month, Zebley and Goldstein denied that they were ever directly pressured to narrow the investigation.

“There were definitely no red lines,” Zebley told me. “There was never any sort of decision not to examine something financial, or anything else, when there was cause to do so.” Nonetheless, those who worked with Mueller acknowledge that the special counsel was directed only to conduct a purely criminal investigation, dispensing with the counterintelligence component that McCabe wanted to pursue.

Rosenstein, who is now in private law practice, responded to a request for comment by indicating, in an email, that he did not wish to comment about the scope of the investigation. But he said that he “did what I thought was right and consistent with my oath to faithfully execute the duties of the office, which often angered Trump and some of his key allies.” Defenders of Rosenstein say he did his best to keep the investigation going—even as he was under constant threat of being fired by Trump.

“He was incredibly concerned about what Trump might be up to from both the counterintelligence and the criminal side,” said McCabe, who confirmed an earlier report that at several points during the probe, Rosenstein even offered to wear a wire to the White House to help the investigation into Trump. “That really says it all. Rod is a sphinx. He is a survivor, a guy who is capable one day of writing the memo that justifies the firing of Jim Comey and two days later asking me for Comey’s cell phone number because he desperately wanted to talk to him to get his advice on what to do.”

Early on, Rosenstein did defy Trump by appointing Mueller as special counsel, leading to angry reactions by the president and his GOP defenders, who called the probe a “witch hunt.” But in the end, Rosenstein also appeared to bow to the Trump administration’s wishes by endorsing Attorney General Robert Barr’s controversial statement on March 24, 2019—after the Mueller report was completed but before it was released the following month—saying that the Mueller team had found no evidence of crimes by the president.

As the journalist Jeffrey Toobin described it in his book True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump, Barr’s statement “was an obvious and unjustified act of sabotage against Mueller and an extraordinary bequest to the president.”

It is true that the 22-month investigation led by Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to justify criminal charges that the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow to tip the election, nor that Trump tried to cover up his own role. But the Mueller investigators were also explicit in saying that enough evidence existed to make it impossible for them to exonerate Trump.

That part of their conclusion was ignored by Barr and Rosenstein. Contradicting Trump’s claims that Russian interference on his behalf was a “hoax,” the Mueller report concluded that Russian interference was “sweeping and systematic” and “violated U.S. criminal law,” resulting in the indictment of at least 26 Russian citizens and three Russian organizations.

The Trump White House sought to quash other inquiries into his past as well. In 2019, when the House Financial Services Committee tried to subpoena Deutsche Bank’s records on Trump, the president sued and ultimately won a decision from the Trump-aligned Supreme Court saying the subpoena was not justified. Deutsche Bank, one of the few major banks that would still lend to Trump after his financial debacles, has been heavily fined by U.S. and U.K. regulators for sham trades that could have been used to launder billions of dollars out of Russia.

Most of these former officials believe that a second Trump term would certainly involve fresh threats of dismissal against any Justice Department or FBI officials who don’t fall into line, whether on Russia or Trump’s threats to use the Justice Department to go after his domestic political enemies.

“One thing we learned about Donald Trump in our investigation: What you see is what you get,” Zebley said. “There aren’t two Donald Trumps. If he says he’s going to behave in a particular way, that’s what he’s going to do.”

McCabe agreed. “He’s said it repeatedly many different ways,” he said. “He’s committed to this revenge tour. He’s committed to using the lever of power for his own purposes, whatever those might be, whether lawful or unlawful, now cloaked with immunity from the Supreme Court.” (In a historic but controversial July 1 decision, the Supreme Court granted Trump and future presidents broad immunity from prosecution.)

And that means the FBI and Justice Department will likely go along with whatever a newly elected President Trump wants, McCabe added. “The question is whether people will break within my old organization or the [Justice] Department. Of course they will. At some point they will.”

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During all this time, Trump has consistently defended Putin—or at least refused to criticize him. This goes back to that infamous moment at their first formal summit in Helsinki in July 2018, when Trump took Putin’s point of view after he was asked whether he believed the Russian president or his own intelligence agencies about the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election (which have since been amply documented).

“President Putin says it’s not Russia” that is meddling, Trump replied. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Later, in November of that year, when his own U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, condemned Putin’s violent intervention in Ukraine after Russian ships fired upon, wounded, and seized Ukrainian sailors—Haley called it “yet another reckless Russian escalation”—the then-U.S. president also declined to criticize Putin personally.

Instead, Trump appeared to blame both sides. “Either way, we don’t like what’s happening, and hopefully, it will get straightened out,” Trump said.

Even on the day of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years later, Trump actually praised the Russian leader for his aggression. “I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump told a right-wing radio program on Feb. 22, 2022.

And this September, asked at his only debate with Harris whether he wanted Ukraine to win, Trump answered simply: “I want the war to stop.”

Even Trump’s former director of national intelligence, Dan Coats—also a former conservative congressman—admitted that he was worried by the former president’s consistently positive views of the Russian dictator. “His reaching out and never saying anything bad about Putin. For me … it’s scary,” Coats told Woodward.

It is entirely possible, of course, that Trump’s fawning attitude toward Putin is simply another manifestation of his career-long habit of praising people who flatter him and buy his products, no matter what else they might have done, as well as his open admiration for “strong” autocrats.

By his own admission, Trump tends to favor anyone who invests in his businesses, including foreigners. As he said about the Saudis at a campaign rally in 2015: “Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them?”

It was hardly a surprise that even after the CIA blamed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump appeared to absolve the crown prince as readily as he often does Putin. In a statement, Trump quoted Saudi officials as describing Khashoggi as an “enemy of the state” and said only, “The world is a very dangerous place!”

“The problem with every one of these things is that there is, in the background, a reasonable or nonnefarious explanation,” said McCabe. “Like the massive inflow of Russian money buying up these high-priced condos, that’s also happening all over in places with safe currency, so it’s hard to disaggregate. Is it throwing him [Trump] a financial lifeline, or is it just him benefiting from this trend in high-end real estate?”

In other words, is Trump just a narcissistic former businessman who caters to his investors—some of whom may now represent the United States’ rivals and adversaries? Or is the explanation far more nefarious than that?

We may never know. And if Trump is elected, many new questions are likely to emerge.

“How on earth can we share human source-derived intelligence about Russia with a president who we think might have an inappropriate relationship with Russia?” said McCabe. “How do you do that without putting those people’s lives in jeopardy? But as president, he has the right to access any of that information. So how do we manage the potential risk there?”

CNN
 — 

Diddy’s legal troubles keep growing.

In the past 11 months, music magnate Sean “Diddy” Combs has faced crescendoing allegations of abuse and sexual assault, culminating in at least 10 civil lawsuits, a federal human trafficking probe and his arrest and indictment.

Prosecutors unsealed the three-count indictment against Combs on September 17, accusing the artist of orchestrating “a criminal enterprise” through his business empire that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping and decades of physical abuse against women, among other allegations.

Combs pleaded not guilty to each count: racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to life in prison. He remains in federal custody, held without bail, with his next court appearance scheduled for October 9.

Dozens of witnesses to Combs’ alleged abuses have cooperated in the federal investigation, which led to the dramatic raids of Combs’ Los Angeles and Miami homes in March, prosecutors said.

In addition to Combs’ legal troubles, he has been dealt several personal and public blows in reaction to the accusations, including being stripped of his honorary Howard University degree and symbolic key to New York City.

Here’s a timeline of the key events and allegations against Diddy over the past year.

November 16, 2023: Combs’ former girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, files a lawsuit against the producer claiming he raped and physically abused her. She also claimed Combs inflicted years of emotional abuse on her and sought to control all aspects of her personal life, according to the filing in New York City federal court.

The lawsuit accuses Combs and other defendants of sex trafficking, human trafficking, sexual assault, gender-motivated violence, sexual harassment, gender discrimination and a hostile work environment.

Combs’ attorney at the time, Ben Brafman, said in a statement that “Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations” and that the suit was “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies.”

The suit described an altercation in a hotel hallway in March 2016 in which Diddy allegedly “grabbed at her,” beat her and threw glass vases at her. Earlier this year, CNN published hotel surveillance video from 2016 which shows Combs grabbing and beating Ventura and throwing an object at her.

November 17, 2023: Just a day after it was filed, Combs and Ventura agree to settle the lawsuit. Both musical artists released statements saying the matter was resolved “amicably.”

Combs’ attorney, Brafman, said the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing.”

November 23, 2023: Two more women accuse Combs of sexual assault in lawsuits filed in New York Supreme Court on the eve of the expiration of the state’s Adult Survivors Act.

The first woman, Joi Dickerson-Neal, had appeared with Combs in a music video and alleged in her suit that the artist drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1991, when she was a Syracuse University student. She also accuses Combs of filming the assault and showing the video to others, in what the suit calls “revenge porn.”

The second woman, Liza Gardner, accused Combs and Aaron Hall, a member of the R&B group Guy, of battery and sexual assault in 1990, when she was 16 years old. Gardner initially filed the suit anonymously but later amended the complaint to include her name and additional allegations.

Combs denied claims made against him by multiple women in a December 2023 Instagram post, writing, “Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”

December 6, 2023: An anonymous woman using the name “Jane Doe” files a federal lawsuit against Diddy and two other defendants in the Southern District of New York accusing Combs of sex trafficking and gang rape, among other allegations. She was 17 at the time of the alleged assault in 2003.

The suit claims Combs involved the high school student in a sex trafficking scheme that involved “plying her with drugs and alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang raped by the three individual defendants at Mr. Combs’ studio,” Douglas H. Wigdor, her attorney, said in a statement, “The depravity of these abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our client for life.”

Combs posted a sweeping denial of the growing allegations against him in his December Instagram post, claiming the accusers who had stepped forward were attempting to “assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy.”

February 26: Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a former videographer and music producer for Combs, accuses Combs in a federal lawsuit of racketeering, sexual assault, sex trafficking and “grooming.”

Among other allegations, Jones claims Combs forced him to procure and interact with sex workers, threatened him and served alcoholic beverages laced with drugs to house party guests. He claims to have video and audio recording of the musician and his staff “engaging in serious illegal activity,” according to a complaint filed in New York federal court.

Combs’ attorney at the time, Shawn Holley, denied the allegations and called Jones’ accounts “pure fiction.” He added, “We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies.”

March 25: Heavily armed teams of federal agents – some in armored vehicles and tactical gear – execute dramatic raids of Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area.

The searches were carried out by Homeland Security Investigations as part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation, a law enforcement source told CNN at the time.

March 26: Aaron Dyer, a now-former attorney for Combs, criticizes the raids of the producer’s homes as a “gross overuse of military-level force.”

April 4: Combs is named as a defendant in a lawsuit brought against his son, Christian Combs, in Los Angeles. In the complaint, former yacht crew member Grace O’Marcaigh accuses Christian Combs of sexually assaulting her in December 2022, when she was working on a boat chartered by the Combs family.

Diddy is not accused of sexual assault in the lawsuit but is included in allegations of liability and aiding and abetting.

Dyer said in a statement they believe the lawsuit contains “manufactured lies and irrelevant facts,” and they will seek to “dismiss this outrageous claim.”

May 17: CNN publishes hotel surveillance video from 2016 that shows Combs brutally beating Ventura – a striking revelation following Combs’ repeated denials of Ventura’s past claims he had assaulted her.

The video, taken at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, shows Combs running down a hallway after Ventura with a towel wrapped around his waist. He grabs Ventura by the back of the neck, throws her to the floor and kicks her, video shows. The video goes on to show Combs dragging Ventura on the floor and throwing an object at her.

Ventura, who reached an undisclosed settlement with Combs in her lawsuit against him, declined to comment on the video.

Wigdor, an attorney for Ventura, told CNN: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behavior of Mr. Combs. Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”

May 19: Combs apologizes for physically assaulting Ventura in the video published by CNN two days prior. In a video statement, the producer calls his behavior “inexcusable” and says he takes “full responsibility” for the actions show in the surveillance footage.

“I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” he added. “I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry. But I’m committed to be a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.”

The apology video has since been removed from Combs’ Instagram.

The same day, Ventura’s attorney, Meredith Firetog, said in a statement that Combs’ apology was “more about himself than the many people he has hurt.”

“When Cassie and multiple other women came forward, he denied everything and suggested that his victims were looking for a payday. That he was only compelled to ‘apologize’ once his repeated denials were proven false shows his pathetic desperation, and no one will be swayed by his disingenuous words,” Firetog added.

May 21: Crystal McKinney, a former model and MTV competition show winner, files a federal lawsuit accusing Diddy of drugging and sexually assaulting her following a Men’s Fashion Week event in New York City. She was 22 at the time.

CNN sought comment from Combs’ attorneys but did not receive a response.

May 23: April Lampros, who met Diddy in 1994 when she was a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, files a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court accusing Diddy of sexual assault, battery, assault, negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of the victims of gender-motivated violence protection law.

Lampros accuses Combs of four instances of sexual assault from the mid-1990s to the early-2000s.

CNN sought comment from Combs’ attorneys but did not receive a response.

May 29: CNN reports federal investigators are preparing to bring Combs’ accusers before a grand jury, citing two sources familiar with the probe – a move that would mark a significant escalation of the government’s investigation into Combs.

Additional sources told CNN that most of the plaintiffs who had filed civil lawsuits against Combs had been interviewed by federal investigators. Some were handing over evidence they believed could assist investigators, one source said.

A spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations declined to comment on the existence of a grand jury at the time, but noted the investigation remained ongoing.

June 10: Combs returns his symbolic key to New York City after Mayor Eric Adams sent a letter to Combs requesting he do so. Adams wrote that he was “deeply disturbed” by the video published by CNN showing Combs physically assaulting Ventura.

June 7: Howard University’s Board of Trustees votes unanimously to revoke the honorary degree given to Combs in 2014, saying the artist is “no longer worthy to hold the institution’s highest honor.” The university said it would also return Combs’ $1 million contribution and terminate a $1 million pledge agreement from the Sean Combs Foundation.

July 3: Adria English, a former adult film actress, accuses Combs of sex trafficking and sexual assault in a federal lawsuit filed in New York. The suit alleges Combs and other defendants used English as “a sexual pawn for the pleasure and financial benefit of others” during parties at several of the producer’s homes.

The complaint also alleges Combs forced English to “engage in prostitution and sex work” between 2006 and 2009.

“No matter how many lawsuits are filed it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone,” Jonathan Davis, an attorney for Combs said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.

September 11: Singer Dawn Richard, a former member of the musical group Danity Kane, files a suit accusing Combs of sexual battery, sexual harassment and false imprisonment, among other allegations. She also claims to have seen Combs “brutally beat” Ventura while the pair were dating in the 2000s.

Erica Wolff, Combs’ attorney, denied the allegations in a statement to CNN and accused Richard of having a financial motive. “It’s unfortunate that Ms. Richard has cast their 20-year friendship aside to try and get money from him, but Mr. Combs is confidently standing on truth and looks forward to proving that in court,” the statement said, in part.

September 16: Combs is arrested in New York City after a grand jury voted to indict him on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Combs had relocated to New York several days before the arrest in anticipation of the charges, his attorney said. Negotiations for his surrender had been ongoing, according to a source familiar with the talks.

September 17: A wide-ranging indictment against Combs is unsealed, publicly revealing the three charges against him and accusing the music mogul of creating a “criminal enterprise” whose members and associates engaged in and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors allege Combs perpetrated decades of abuse and coercion against women and others in his network to “fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct,” the indictment states. In addition to allegations of physical abuse against women, prosecutors accuse Combs of orchestrating extended, drug-fueled sex performances called “Freak Offs” between victims and sex workers.

Combs appears in court hours after the indictment is unsealed and pleads not guilty.

He is denied bail and Judge Robyn Tarnofsky rules he will remain in custody as the case plays out, a decision that Combs’ attorneys appeals.

September 18: In a hearing appealing his detention, prosecutors ask the judge to keep Combs behind bars, telling the court he has attempted to tamper with witnesses. His defense asks him to be released until trial and submits a bail package that included a $50 million bond.

Judge Andrew Carter sides with prosecutors and agrees to detain Combs ahead of trial. “My bigger concern deals with the danger of obstruction of justice and the danger of witness tampering,” Carter said.

September 24: Thalia Graves files a lawsuit in federal court in New York accusing Combs and his bodyguard of drugging and sexually assaulting her and filming it in 2001.

The bodyguard, Joseph Sherman, denies the accusations and says he has never met her and was not working with Combs at the time. Combs has not yet responded to the suit.

CNN’s Nicki Brown, John Miller, Eric Levenson, Alli Rosenbloom, Kristina Sgueglia, Lisa Respers France and Sandra Gonzalez contributed to this report.

Regardless of who is leading their governments, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies maintain a quiet, steady relationship, as that link remains a vital part of national security for both countries.

During a talk last Thursday as part of a Harvard global youth conference on foreign affairs, former CIA director John Brennan and Tamir Pardo, former head of Mossad, spoke about the close ties between the CIA and Mossad, the far-reaching “nuclear” threat posed by cyber, and state-sponsored assassinations, which both generally condemn but view as defensible in the case of “terrorists” who pose an “imminent” threat.

“As good as CIA is, the world is a very, very big place, and we need to work with our partners, such as Israel and Mossad. They have eyes and ears in places and capabilities that we depend on. Because we can’t be everywhere, all the time, that information-sharing is important,” said Brennan, who served as CIA director during President Barack Obama’s second term, from 2013 to 2017. “Tamir and I would share the most sensitive intelligence because our agencies trusted one another.”

Even without the kind of network of global partners that many larger nations have, Israel manages to punch far above its weight in intelligence with the CIA as a partner.

“We managed to do things that no one thought before that can be done in cooperation between agencies like us,” said Pardo, who joined Mossad in 1980 and served as its head from 2011 to 2016. “We never thought that [we] would be able to achieve that degree of cooperation.”

Even though the two heads of state at the time, Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had a strained relationship at best, Pardo said “it never, never stopped the cooperation between the two agencies.”

The two former intel chiefs spoke as part of a three-day virtual conference hosted by the Harvard Undergraduate Foreign Policy Initiative last week. The event provided 615 high school and early college-age students in 62 countries, many of them thinking about future careers in foreign policy, an opportunity to hear from and speak directly to nearly 150 global figures and experts in intelligence, national security, and diplomacy. Speakers included Leon Panetta, former U.S. secretary of defense and former CIA director; Michèle Flournoy, former U.S. under secretary of defense for policy; and Henry Kissinger ’50, A.M. ’52, Ph.D. ’54, secretary of state and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations and an informal adviser to the Trump administration.

Moderator John Ferguson ’22 asked Brennan and Pardo about their views on state-sponsored assassinations, an ethical concern with which many students interested in the field of intelligence wrestle, he said.

Brennan said he “strongly condemn[ed]” the involvement of country, including the U.S., in assassination, an act he defined as the targeted killing of officials of sovereign countries for political or ideological reasons outside of wartime. He criticized the January 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, a top general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which the Trump administration hailed as a major battlefield success. But Brennan said killing members of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups was “far different in my mind” than assassination because such groups were not sovereign nations and were plotting deadly attacks against the U.S. and others. “I do believe that there is an obligation on the part of governments to do what they can to protect the lives of their citizens.”

“Cyber is a very soft and silent nuclear weapon. You can destroy a country without shooting one bullet, without launching any rocket, and you can really create a lot of damage for a very cheap price.”

Tamir Pardo

Assassination is a criminal offense and “something that should never be done,” said Pardo.

But “if you have to do it, it is because you are in a state of war with that country or with that organization, and the threat … is enormous, and there is no other way to deal with it.”

“Israel never, never killed anyone for things that he did in the past,” he added, claiming that even terrorists who had caused harm at one point but were not presently a danger would not be targeted. “We are taking those actions only if there is imminent threat of this person for the coming days, for the future.”

Cyberintelligence has become a critical and higher-profile component of national security, as cyberattacks by groups inside Russia and elsewhere hit civilian targets like private companies and city governments, and disrupt economies and public safety. Once a tactic available only to state-run intelligence agencies, today virtually anyone, even criminals, can launch cyberattacks to inflict significant economic, social, and political harm.

“Cyber is a very soft and silent nuclear weapon. You can destroy a country without shooting one bullet, without launching any rocket, and you can really create a lot of damage for a very cheap price,” including the “exceptional power” to change government policies and administrations, said Pardo.

Asked by a student whether the greater reliance on data can restore public trust in the soundness of intelligence community decisions, Brennan and Pardo suggested that negative perceptions are being shaped by a torrent of false information online and in the news. “So, I think there is the basis for that distrust,” said Brennan.

Despite greater public awareness that state and non-state actors around the world are using the internet and other digital tools to manipulate people, “I don’t think the politicians and others and even news organizations have learned the lessons” from the last several years, said Brennan. “There seems to be a total absence of integrity, honesty, and truthfulness, which I think is leading … not just to distrust, but an ignorance of the facts and misunderstanding of world events. And, with the technological developments that are underway, I think we’re going to see more and more of this proliferation of false information, unfortunately.”

Less than a decade ago, telling truth from falsehoods was fairly easy. Today, it has become much harder to separate fact from fiction in both Israel and the U.S. in part because some politicians are deliberately misleading their citizenry, said Pardo.

During the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, “Fake news was so common that no one was able to [detect] the difference between truth and lie. I think it’s your job, the young people, to make the change — and it won’t be easy,” Pardo said, noting a new wave of younger politicians who have embraced and polished these tactics.

“We did our best to prevent it for many years. But we are out of the system today. It’s your turn now.”

Israel is widely recognized as having highly sophisticated intelligence capabilities, both in terms of its ability to collect information about potential threats within its own country and outside of it. And so as details unfold about the full extent of Hamas’ unprecedented and surprise attack on 20 Israeli towns and several army bases on Oct. 7, 2023, the question lingers: How did Israel fail to piece together clues about this large-scale and highly complex plot in advance?

Israeli intelligence did detect some suspicious activity on Hamas militant networks before the attack, The New York Times reported on Oct. 10, 2023. But the warning wasn’t acted upon or fully understood in its entirety – similar to what happened in the United States shortly before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Intelligence analysis is like putting a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle together from individual pieces of intelligence every day and trying to make judgments for policymakers to actually do something with those insights,” said Javed Ali, a counterterrorism and intelligence scholar who spent years working in U.S. intelligence.

We spoke with Ali to try to better understand how Israeli intelligence works and the potential gaps in the system that paved the way for the Hamas incursion.

1. What questions did you have as you watched the attacks unfold?

This took an enormous amount of deliberate and careful planning, and Hamas must have gone to great lengths to conceal the plotting from Israeli intelligence. This plotting may indeed have been hidden as the plot was being coordinated.

Because of the attack’s advanced features, I also thought that Iran almost certainly played a role in supporting the operation – although some U.S. officials have so far said they do not have intelligence evidence of that happening.

Finally, Hamas is on Israel’s doorstep. One would think Israel could better understand what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, as opposed to 1,000 miles away in Iran. How did Israel not see something this advanced right next door? Some Israeli officials have said they believed Hamas was already deterred by recent Israeli counterterrorism operations, and that the group lacked the capability to launch an attack on the scope and scale of what occurred.

2. How does Israeli intelligence work, and how is it regarded internationally?

Israel has one of the most capable and sophisticated intelligence enterprises at the international level. The current design and functioning of Israel’s intelligence system broadly mirrors that in the U.S., with respect to roles and responsibilities.

In Israel, Shin Bet is the Israeli domestic security service, so the equivalent of the FBI, which monitors threats within the country. On the foreign security side, Israel has Mossad, which is equivalent to the CIA. Third, there is an Israeli military intelligence agency, similar to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency – and there are other, smaller organizations within military intelligence that are focused on different intelligence issues.

Like most Western countries, Israel relies on a combination of different intelligence sources. This includes recruiting people to provide intelligence agencies with the sensitive information they have direct access to, which is known as human intelligence – think spies. There is what is called signals intelligence, which can be different forms of electronic communications like phone calls, emails or texts that the Israelis gain access to. Then there is imagery intelligence, which could be a satellite, for example, that captures photos of, say, militant training camps or equipment.

A fourth kind of intelligence is open source, or publicly available information that is already out there for anyone to get, such as internet chat forums. While I was winding down my work in intelligence a few years ago, there was a shift to seeing much more publicly available intelligence than other kinds of traditional intelligence.

3. How does Israel’s intelligence system differ from the US system?

Unlike the U.S., one thing that Israel doesn’t have is an overall intelligence coordinator, a single representative who knows about and oversees all of the different intelligence components.

The U.S. system has a director of national intelligence position, who runs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was created in 2004. These were both recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, after it found that the U.S. approach to intelligence was too fragmented across different agencies and offices.

So, when there are tough issues that no one agency could resolve on its own, or analytic differences in intelligence, you need an independent office of experts to help work through those issues. That’s what this office does.

I spent several years working within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In one of my jobs there, I reported to the director of national intelligence.

There is no equivalent to that central office and function in Israel. In my opinion, Israel might consider down the road how a comprehensive intelligence coordinator could help avoid this challenge in the future.

4. What role does the US have in monitoring threats to Israel, if any?

The U.S. and Israel have a very strong intelligence relationship. That partnership is bilateral, meaning it is just between the two countries. It is not part of a larger international group of countries that share intelligence.

The U.S. also has a broader intelligence partnership, known as “Five Eyes,” with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Nevertheless, the general rule in these strong bilateral relationships is that when one side picks up intelligence about threats to the other, it should automatically get passed on.

This may be a case where the U.S. is shifting its intelligence priorities to other parts of the world, like Ukraine, Russia and China. As a result, we may not have had significant intelligence on this particular Hamas plot, and so there was nothing to pass to Israel to warn them.