administration repeatedly mishanded classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy. now, that is shocking. and many pro-trump allies and commentators tried to tear down that reporting and say it might not be true. do you stand by that reporting now a week later? 100%. we would not have gone there if we didn t trust the source s involvement, information, and level of involvement in that those discussions. this is an important story. any story involving intelligence, particularly the sensitivity of an overseas spy whose safety was of concern, and therefore led to an extraction is going to be particularly difficult. so the way we approached it was, no one question, we talked to multiple people that this extraction of infiltration had taken place. we did speak to someone high-level who said that trump s handling and his administration s handling of informati factored into that decision. the agency disputed that, but the agency s explanation for the ex
simple to us, but to half a dozen current and former intelligence officials that i ran it by, that this exfiltration decision was driven purely by speculation in the media. so the way we approached the story was lay it out as it was told to us. the exfiltration took place, multiple people involved told us. a person involved in the discussion said that the president s mishandling of intelligence contributed. and by the way, the final decision to do this took place immediately after that famous oval office meeting, in which the president shared and discussed other sensitive intelligence with russian officials. you ll remember, in may 2017. so the timing also indicative. and then we played the cia s disputes, laid it out there for the world to sea, but then tested its dispute against other information that we had. and how do you handle a situation where in this case, the white house press secretary, says that you could be endangering people s lives by reporting this story? it s someth
leading up to the story. and again, this was weeks in the works. so our approach was twofold. one, this exfiltration had taken place more than two years ago. the spy was not in a plane, in the air, on the way to some undisclosed location, as we were reporting it. two, it was my information that the russians, once that happened, were aware of what had happened and therefore we were not letting the russians know something that they didn t already know. that was a factor. beyond that, there s the news value question here, right? that in one of america s most perhaps its most contentious national security relationship, that is with russia, the u.s. had lost very significant eyes and ears, and that has news value today. finally, we took a number of steps to withhold details that we thought might lead people down the path to identifying this person. now, the times and others, of course, reported things after us, and even went so far as to cite, as you said, a name and an address, informa
interested in providing intelligence to the united states government. rolf, president trump doesn t have a career in diplomacy or intelligence. if somebody doesn t have a lot of experience with intelligence. they can inadvertently reveal information that they shouldn t even if they aren t intending to. i m wondering again, rolf, i know there s probably a lot you can t say on the details of this. but the removal of a high-level russian asset, i mean if it s true that the person had been in place for ten years, that seems like an extraordinary amount of time, and i imagine the danger just increases with each passing year. does it leave a void if somebody like that, you know, is exfiltrated? yeah, of course it would leave a void, anderson. but i prefer to focus on three important successes of this reported exfiltration. and like steve, i can t confirm it because i simply don t know, which is also good news. if someone like i were aware of this operation, that would be a
of this, but the removal of a high-level russian asset, does i mean, if it s if it s true that the person had been in place for ten years, that seems like an extraordinary amount of time, and i imagine the danger just increases with each passing year. does it leave a void if somebody like that -ion, i ioyou know, exfiltrated. yeah, of course it would leave a void, anderson. but i prefer to focus on three important successes of this reported exfiltration. and like steve, i can t confirm it, because i simply don t know, which is also good news. if someone like i were aware of this operation, that would be a bad thing. but first, the fact that we had a source like this. i sometimes questions whether we continue to be as successful against russia in the counterterrorism age, and apparently, we have been. and so i think we have to first salute this success of this operation to go on as long as it did in such extraordinary,