"As the Guardian learned, American counterintelligence agents have discovered that the alleged Russian spy worked for more than 10 years in the heart of the US embassy in Moscow," said journalist Nick Hopkins, without raising suspicion.. According to the author, it is a Russian citizen who was hired by the US Secret Service, an agency that is responsible for protecting existing and former leaders of the United States and their relatives, as well as important US infrastructure facilities.
She "worked for many years in the Secret Service until, in 2016, she assumed suspicion during a routine check conducted by two inspectors from the US Department of State's Regional Security Division (RSO). They found that she had regular and unauthorized meetings with FSB officers, "reads the article.
"As The Guardian learned, RSO began to sound the alarm in January 2017, but the Secret Service did not launch its own full-scale investigation. Instead, she decided to lay off this woman a few months later, without making a fuss; perhaps it was done so that the department was not in an awkward position. A source in intelligence said that the woman was fired last summer after the State Department annulled her access to classified information, "the newspaper writes..
The source also stated that "the Secret Service leadership did not conduct any official investigations to assess the extent of the damage and to ascertain whether it recruited someone else from the staff to provide it with additional information".
For its part, the US Secret Service, in response to journalists' questions about this case, stated: "At no time in any department of the US Secret Service, foreign personnel of the diplomatic corps were provided with information related to national security, and they themselves were not put in a position, in which they could get it ".
The US State Department refused to comment.
"The Guardian newspaper was revealed the name of the alleged spy and the name of her post in the department. She did not respond to numerous e-mails sent to her to discuss her role in the embassy and the allegations about her, "the article's author writes..
"According to some reports, she was under suspicion two years ago during a standard check of the Secret Service personnel in the so-called" Paris County "department, which includes Moscow, London and Frankfurt. RSO conducts audits every five years. This woman, who, due to her role, could get acquainted with the ongoing investigations of the Secret Service, had access to the internal network of the Secret Service, its internal email system and its system of tracking counterfeit money, "reads the article.
An unnamed source stated: "She was given her frequent contacts with the FSB (. ), numerous unauthorized meetings and communication ".
The alleged spy "had access to the most dangerous database - to the official mail system of the US Secret Service," the source said.. - Part of (the materials to which she had access. - Prim. red. ) were graphs of the president - current and former, vice-president and their spouses and spouses, including Hillary Clinton ".
The newspaper cites the words of an unnamed source: "The US Congress is focused on Russian hackers, but perhaps all the information that they needed to penetrate the system came through an internal gap in the Secret Service".