An NBC News investigation reveals a business intelligence company with governmental contracts and a special department for politically motivated work.
As Rebecca Kahl remembers it, something felt odd about the initial email. It came in May 2017 from a woman named Adriana Gavrilo, who claimed to work for a London-based private equity firm. She was writing to Kahl with an offer: Her firm wanted to support the Washington public school where Kahl sends her daughter and helps lead a fundraising committee.
“I’m not sure how this woman found me,” Kahl said in a recent interview with NBC News. “I wasn’t employed by the school. I was not on the school’s website.”
Kahl responded by connecting Gavrilo with school administrators. But Gavrilo’s reply made it clear that she wanted to meet only with Kahl.
At that point Kahl mentioned the exchange to her husband, Colin, who had been an assistant to President Barack Obama and national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. They agreed that it smelled fishy, and Rebecca stopped responding. The exchange died.
A year later, it turns out that the Kahls were right: Something was amiss. Gavrilo was a fake identity, one of several assumed by an operative working for Black Cube, a shadowy Israeli private security firm.
Internal Black Cube documents obtained by NBC News and interviews of sources with direct knowledge of Black Cube’s operations reveal a business intelligence company with governmental contracts and a special department for politically motivated work.
A source familiar with Black Cube’s outreach to the Kahls told NBC News that it was part of an effort to discredit Obama administration officials who had worked on the Iran nuclear deal – and, by extension, the deal itself. Black Cube sought evidence of nefarious behavior, such as financial or sexual impropriety, by the deal’s architects, including Colin Kahl. Operatives hoped to obtain such evidence by befriending their targets or their targets’ associates.
Also targeted was Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser under Obama, whose wife, Ann Norris, was approached by a Black Cube operative about consulting on a political drama for TV. Norris had previously worked at the State Department.
The undercover campaign to discredit the Iran deal was first reported by the British newspaper The Observer and by The New Yorker.
In a statement to NBC News, Black Cube said it has no relationship to the Iran nuclear deal.
……..
In the end, Black Cube’s Iran-deal spying yielded no compromising information, and in early May, Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the nuclear deal. But the use of the shadowy firm continues to draw scrutiny. On Friday, Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee wrote to the founders of Black Cube requesting documentation related to its Iran work.
……..
“They would never work against Israeli interests,” said the source who was familiar with Black Cube’s Iran work. He likened the firm to an “almost privatized wing of Mossad.”
He also suggested there was little chance that the Israeli government or its intelligence agencies were unaware of Black Cube’s work to discredit the Iran deal.
The same source said the Iran operation was launched just days after President Donald Trump visited Israel in May 2017. The source said he was told that the work was being carried out “for Trump,” but there is no evidence that the Trump administration had anything to do with the operation, which may have been commissioned by an outside group or agency with no connection to the administration. The identity of Black Cube’s client on the Iran work remains a mystery.
………
- Discussion
-
A source familiar with efforts by Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube to get dirt on Obama aides tells NBC News that said the operation was launched just days after Trump visited Israel in May 2017.
The source said he was told the work was "for Trump." https://t.co/WOnCigKWcf
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 25, 2018
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.