Fourteen former national security, intelligence, and foreign policy officials who have served at senior levels in Republican and Democratic administrations recently wrote an amicus brief as part of a lawsuit brought against President Donald Trump’s campaign and Roger Stone, his longtime confidant.
The lawsuit was filed in July by three private citizens — Roy Cockrum, Scott Comer, and Eric Schoenberg — whose personal information was stolen in hacks of the Democratic National Committee and published by WikiLeaks. The plaintiffs have argued that the Trump campaign, Stone, “and those they conspired with arranged for the hacked information to be provided to WikiLeaks.”
The Trump campaign and Stone have filed motions to dismiss the complaint. The plaintiffs responded on December 1, laying out, among other things, a “motive to collaborate” between the campaign and Russia, as well as points of contact.
Among the former officials who filed the amicus brief on December 8 are John Brennan, a CIA director; James Clapper, a director of national intelligence; and Michael Hayden, a director of the National Security Agency; Avril Haines, a deputy national security adviser; Michael McFaul, a US ambassador to Russia; and Michael Morell, an acting CIA director.
The former officials emphasized in the neutral brief that they could not disclose classified information. But their message was clear: The Kremlin uses local actors to help amplify the scope and impact of its influence operations, including the one targeting the US election in 2016.
The cutouts can range from “the unwitting accomplice who is manipulated to act in what he believes is his best interest, to the ideological or economic ally who broadly shares Russian interests, to the knowing agent of influence who is recruited or coerced to directly advance Russian operations and objectives,” the former officials wrote.
Cutouts can be anyone, they explained, from journalists and academics to “prominent pro-Russian businessmen.”
These local actors help the Kremlin further its foreign influence operations and “active measures” campaigns, they wrote. Those operations often involve the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories and cyberattacks — all in an attempt to “undermine confidence in democratic leaders and institutions” and “discredit candidates for office perceived as hostile to the Kremlin.”
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New: Former high-level intel officials — including John Brennan, Jim Clapper, Michael Morell and Michael Hayden — recently submitted an amicus brief about Russian "cut outs" as part of a lawsuit brought against Trump and Roger Stone. https://t.co/DIDEeq3dl1
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 14, 2017
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