Washington (CNN)Somewhere
in the halls of the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, a closely
held number of FBI agents face the daunting task of determining how the
Russian government sought to manipulate the US presidential election.
It's a case that's been the subject of endless speculation in Washington and beyond.
But
to those tasked with getting to the bottom of the allegations and
innuendo, it's just another "standard counterintelligence
investigation," as one highly placed US official put it. Add to that the
freshly assigned task of determining how a huge cache of what appear to
be authentic CIA documents ended up on the WikiLeaks website.
Welcome to the super-secret world of the Counterintelligence Division, home to the spy catchers of the FBI.
It's
a shadowy world that's closed off even to those typically in the know
in bureau headquarters, a silo of secrecy in which agents are valued as
much for their ability to keep quiet as they are for their investigative
skills.
"They keep that (stuff) locked down tight," one veteran FBI agent said.
One
source familiar with the Russia investigation resorted to a
mathematical equation to divulge -- sort of -- the number of agents
assigned to the matter.
It's
five to 10 fewer than were assigned to the Hillary Clinton email
investigation, said the source, who is not authorized to speak publicly
and did so on the condition of anonymity. There were about two dozen
dedicated to that case, so that makes 15 to 20 on the Russia
investigation.
The
resources assigned to the Clinton investigation were in response to
agents having to sort through a vast amount of electronic data in a
finite period of time before the then-looming presidential election, the
source said. With the Russia probe, there is no such time pressure and
efforts are more focused on interviews with human sources.
The
smaller number of agents assigned to the case should not be interpreted
as a lack of interest, the source said. Developments in the case are
sent up the chain to the highest levels on a regular basis.
Known
simply as CD within the bureau, the Counterintelligence Division is
responsible for protecting the secrets of the US intelligence community,
the advanced technologies of American institutions both public and
private, keeping weapons of mass destruction away from US enemies and
countering the activities of foreign spies, including cyberintrusions.
Their
cases sometimes go on for years amid careful, tedious,
behind-the-scenes work aimed at recruiting or neutralizing foreign
spies.
One reason for the long, drawn-out investigations is that their cases rarely are as cut and dried as bank robbery or kidnapping.
In
the Russia investigation, for instance, there's been abundant
speculation about the significance of meetings between people connected
to President Donald Trump and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey
Kislyak.
A meeting in itself means nothing, said Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and Republican congressman from Michigan.
"First of all, they have to find a crime," Rogers, a CNN national security commentator, said of the agents.
"I have met with Kislyak twice, as a congressman," Rogers said. "That's not a crime".
Rarely do they result in criminal prosecutions. Rarer still are headlines.
There
was an exception in 2015, when the Counterintelligence Division was
publicly credited with the disruption of a Russian spy ring operating in
New York City. It was lead by a man working in a Russian bank in
Manhattan, according to federal authorities. The man, Evgeny Buryakov,
also happened to be an agent of Russia's SVR, their equivalent of the
CIA. It was a spy-novel-worthy case involving electronic intercepts,
surveillance and coded messages. Buryakov pleaded guilty last year and
was sentenced to two and half years in prison.
Ironically,
the division's most enduring publicity came in the wake of the massive
betrayal of one of its longtime agents: Robert Philip Hanssen.
Hanssen
was arrested in 2001 and charged with selling secrets to the former
Soviet Union and Russia over the course of two decades. He was paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and diamonds in exchange for
secrets that he often left at a "dead drop" location for his handlers to
retrieve. He was arrested following what would be his final drop,
pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence in prison. He is
considered the most damaging spy in FBI history.
But
following his arrest, then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh singled out
Hanssen's colleagues in the Counterintelligence Division for confronting
"the most traitorous actions imaginable".
"Their
actions represent counterintelligence at its very best and under the
most difficult and sensitive of circumstances," Freeh said. "Hanssen's
colleagues and coworkers at the FBI conducted this investigation and did
so quietly, securely and without hesitation. Much of what these men and
women did remains undisclosed but their success and that of their CIA
counterparts represents unparalleled expertise and dedication to both
principle and mission".
CD is so secretive that even former agents are reluctant to speak publicly about their tenure there.
One
former supervisor said agents need the seemingly disparate skill set of
being good talkers who can recruit and maintain sources while also
being able to keep their mouths shut -- about everything.
"Ninety-five percent of the cases are classified information or above," the source said.
"You
have to be very disciplined about what you share with whom," he said.
"My wife knew where I worked. She did not really know what I did".
He
said counterintelligence work would not appeal to someone with the
stereotypical macho cop persona or someone who wants to be the center of
attention.
"It's more
subtle. You're working in the shadows. You don't want to be noticed,"
the source said. "It's very different than kicking down doors or doing
drug raids".
CNN