let s talk about this with steve morris. retired supervisy special agent with the fbi. thanks for joining us. is there any part of this story that has you thinking that mr. whelan could have been a spy? his unique interest to russia? involving larceny and receiving a bad conduct discharge. is his story curious to you? it s very curious. because while he seems to be having cultivating relationships with people in russia, he doesn t have the access or the background. so while his behavior is somewhat strange, i don t think he s an operative. the u.s. would use someone
already moving to help him as he is already a citizen of all four countries. the question is what can the diplomats working on this story do for whelan? his family is saying russia just got it wrong. he s just an innocent traveller. but what has russia said if anything? well, they re being very silent, unusually silent, officials from the kremlin outwards in moscow. the only information such as it is has been reported in the local news website, siting unnamed officials, saying mr. whelan was caught red handed in receiving some kind of memory disks that had on it confidential information. we don t know that is even the evidence being used against him
show your gut some love. only activia has billions of our live and active probiotics. a delicious way to enjoy probiotics every day. with 20 years of devotion to gut health. activia. like no other. the state department revealing that u.s. ambassador to russia jon huntsman visited paul whelan in moscow on espionage charges. paul spoke to huntsman by phone as well as huntsman speaking with whelan s family. we have more from moscow an and nathan hodge. reporter: dave, that is not unusual to have an ambassador to visit a citizen in prison.
spying by the fsb. russian s main counter espionage agency. one private russian news agency says an intelligence source says he was arrested in his room five minutes after he accepted a flash drive with a list of employees working at a classified security agency. the report makes reference to his presence on russian social media. the security consultant sought out russian internet users, tracked and selected in advance by american intelligence. cnn can t independently verify the report and the unnamed intelligence source may have an incentive to build this narrative around it. if whelan is convicted of this, true or not, he faces up to 20 years in a russian jail.
the fsb earlier this week detained whelan accused him of being involved in espionage. giving few details. whelan s family said he was here to attend a wedding. this was a personal visit. he visited russia in the past. he has friends in russia through social media. cnn was able to speak to his brother, david whelan, yesterday and here is what he had to say. i don t believe paul s a spy. i don t believe there are charges to support him being a spy. paul traveled for personal reasons and for business. russia was one location he went to and he gathered friends on social media and some are russian. he visited them while in russia. reporter: whelan s arrest has sparked intense speculation in washington about what the agenda