<\/p>\n
By Philip Giraldi<\/p>\n
The most recent claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin\u00a0is \u201crunning\u201d\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0as if the U.S. president is a Russian intelligence asset\u00a0comes from<\/a>\u00a0former Director of National Intelligence (DNI)\u00a0James Clapper. \u201c[Putin] knows how to handle an asset, and that\u2019s what he\u2019s doing with the president,\u201d Clapper told CNN last Monday.<\/p>\n Clapper, who served as DNI under President\u00a0Barack Obama,\u00a0and who has repeatedly disparaged Trump both before and since the 2016 election, called the Russian president a \u201cgreat case officer,\u201d which might be the only nice thing said about Putin by a former senior U.S. official in quite some time.<\/p>\n Clapper was asked by CNN\u2019s Jim Sciutto, \u201cYou\u2019re saying that Russia is handling President Trump as an asset?\u201d He responded \u201cThat seems to be… that\u2019s the appearance to me.\u201d Later in the conversation, Clapper backtracked slightly, clarifying his remarks by adding \u201cI\u2019m saying this figuratively.\u201d<\/p>\n It was not the first time that a former senior intelligence official rendered a judgment that Trump is an intelligence asset being exploited by the Russians. Back during the campaign, former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell wrote\u00a0an op-ed<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0entitled \u201cI Ran the CIA: Now I\u2019m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n Morell reasoned that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, is \u201ctrained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them\u2026 In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.\u201d Morell went on to explain that he based his critique on his assessment that \u201cMr. Trump has\u2026taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Having actually been a Case Officer, unlike \u201cexperts\u201d in tradecraft Clapper and Morell, I am not sure what figuratively or unwitting really mean. But I will accept the Morell definition that acting for a foreign power fits the definition of an \u201cagent of influence.\u201d Based on that, I do think that there are some individuals in the Trump administration who are more-or-less being directed by a foreign government and its intelligence service and that government would be Israel.<\/p>\n I would like to know more, for example, about the ties that the President\u2019s son-in-law and family have to Israel and to its leadership. The Kushners are reported to be extremely close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, if media reports are correct, they have engaged in the financial support of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which the United States as well as the rest of the world consider to be illegal. And then there is America\u2019s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who is known to be a supporter of the settlers and Jason Greenblatt, the designated regional \u201cnegotiator.\u201d What exactly is their relationship to Israel? Do any of them have dual nationality? Shouldn\u2019t U.S. taxpayers who pony up their salaries and expenses while also having to suffer the damage they are doing to America\u2019s reputation through their identification with an apartheid regime know who they are really loyal to? Maybe a little transparency is in order.<\/p>\n Per Morell\u2019s model, Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt might all be considered agents of influence since their brief as U.S. officials seems to include making sure that Israel is both happy and in the loop on everything they do. How often do they meet privately with Israeli officials? Are intelligence officers involved in their meetings? What do they not report back to Washington?<\/p>\n Nevertheless, my candidate for most likely to be a\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0Israeli agent of influence is\u00a0America\u2019s United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley<\/a>. Haley has from the start made it clear that she is all about Israel and she has done nothing since to change that impression, most dramatically so over the past week when she was \u201ctaking names\u201d and threatened retaliation against any country that was so \u201cdisrespectful\u201d as to dare to vote against Washington\u2019s disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, which she also helped to bring about.<\/p>\n As governor of South Carolina, Haley first became identified as an unquestioning\u00a0supporter of Israel<\/a>. Immediately upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that \u201cnowhere has the U.N.\u2019s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel\u201d and vowed that the \u201cdays of Israel bashing are over.\u201d On a recent visit to Israel, she was applauded\u00a0honored<\/a>\u00a0by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n In February,\u00a0Haley blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a\u00a0congressional hearing<\/a>\u00a0this past week, she was asked about the decision: \u201cIs it this administration\u2019s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?\u201d Haley responded yes, that the administration is \u201csupporting Israel\u201d by blocking every Palestinian.<\/p>\n Haley is inevitably a hardliner on Syria and Iran, reflecting the Israeli bias. She has said that\u00a0regime change in Damascus<\/a>\u00a0is a Trump administration priority. A recent foray involved the White House\u00a0warning that<\/a>\u00a0it had \u201cidentified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime.\u201d\u00a0Haley elaborated<\/a>\u00a0in a tweet, \u201c\u2026further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.\u201d At one point,\u00a0Haley warned<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n I would point out that none of these positions taken by Haley is an actual American interest, but they all involve Israeli preferences. As in the cases of Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt, I would like to know how frequently she meets alone with Israeli officials and, most particularly, intelligence officers. Is she taking direction from the Israeli government? Is she an Israeli agent of influence or just a gullible fool? The American public, which pays her, and has to bear the consequences of her actions need to know.<\/p>\n Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001.<\/em><\/p>\n *(U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikki Haley meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem, June 7, 2017. Image credit:\u00a0U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv\/ flickr<\/a>)<\/p>\n