Hanssen Indicted As Spy for Moscow
washingtonpost.com
Hanssen Indicted As Spy for Moscow
Security Damage Cited in 21 Counts
By Brooke A. Masters and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 17, 2001; Page A01
A federal grand jury indicted Robert P. Hanssen yesterday on 21 counts of spying, alleging that the former FBI counterintelligence officer betrayed to Moscow nine double agents, several top-secret communications programs and U.S. preparations to keep the government running in case of nuclear attack.
The 57-page indictment handed up in Alexandria provides new details of the damage that Hanssen allegedly caused to national security during 15 years of spying and begins to lay out the evidence prosecutors might use to seek the death penalty.
The grand jury charged Hanssen with conspiracy to commit espionage, attempted espionage and 19 specific acts of spying. The indictment also demands that he turn over $1.43 million in alleged proceeds. The conspiracy count and 13 of the specific acts make Hanssen eligible for the death penalty, federal prosecutors said.
"This indictment alleges that Hanssen betrayed his country for over 15 years and knowingly caused grave injury to the security of the United States," U.S. Attorney Kenneth E. Melson said in a statement.
Plato Cacheris, Hanssen's lead attorney, said he would not discuss the indictment. "We are withholding all comment until court appearances," he said.
The indictment moves Hanssen, 57, who was a 25-year veteran of the FBI, one step closer to trial -- a rarity in major espionage cases. It also offers new details about the dozens of programs, documents and people Hanssen allegedly imperiled for $600,000 in cash and diamonds and $800,000 escrowed in Russian bank accounts.
Among the allegations:
• In 1986, Hanssen told Moscow that the United States was "exploiting" a technical weakness in Soviet satellites to intercept transmissions.
• Two years later, he helped the Soviets protect their communications by disclosing a limitation on what the National Security Agency could read.
• In 1989, he turned over a top-secret analysis of U.S. plans to "ensure the continuity of government in the event of a Soviet military attack."
• He betrayed six Soviet citizens and agents who were secretly working for the United States, in addition to three KGB double agents mentioned in earlier filings.
James Bamford, an intelligence expert and author of two books about the National Security Agency, characterized the alleged compromises as "one of the worst espionage losses by NSA ever."
Hanssen, of Vienna, will be arraigned June 1 in front of U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton. He has been held without bond since his Feb. 18 arrest. FBI agents picked up the father of six after observing him allegedly leaving a package for his Russian handlers in a Fairfax County park.
The indictment comes after plea negotiations between Hanssen's attorneys and the government broke down. The sticking point, sources said, was over Justice Department officials' unwillingness to take the death penalty off the table before knowing what Hanssen would tell them about his alleged spying. Some high-ranking members of the Bush administration also believe that Hanssen's alleged treachery was so vile that execution is the only acceptable punishment, sources said.
Former CIA official Jack Devine said he supported use of the death penalty as both a bargaining tool and legitimate punishment. Calling the damage Hanssen caused "massive," Devine, who retired in 1999 as London station chief after serving as associate deputy director of operations, said that treason "meets my threshold" for use of the death penalty. "We can tick off enough traitors that there needs to be a counterweight to the monetary temptations," he said.
Facing a Monday deadline for an indictment, prosecutors went to the grand jury yesterday after Cacheris refused to agree to a 30-day extension that would have allowed plea negotiations to continue.
However, the indictment does not rule out a deal. Harold James Nicholson, a CIA case officer, and Earl E. Pitts, an FBI counterintelligence agent, pleaded guilty to espionage after their indictments.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told some senators Tuesday that prosecutors "were within a hair's-breadth" of an agreement, according to a congressional source. A senior intelligence official said that an agreement had been expected this week but that "Justice just waited too long."
Many counterintelligence professionals continue to argue that the United States would be better served by a full debriefing that would reveal exactly what programs and people were compromised.
Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he still expects a deal. "You want to bring the man to justice," Goss said. "But you want to get the maximum amount of cooperation from him."
In plea discussions, Hanssen's best bargaining chip may be his activities from 1992 to 1999. The indictment and other court filings contain no information on that period.
The timing of Hanssen's activities also poses a hurdle for prosecutors, should they choose to seek the death penalty. Operations described in the indictment date from 1985 to 1991, a period when the federal death penalty process had been declared unconstitutional. Congress fixed the espionage statute in 1994, but it is unclear whether the law, which has never been tested, can be applied retroactively.
Moreover, the indictment does not address another death penalty issue. Federal officials have previously said that Hanssen could qualify for execution because two of the KGB double agents he allegedly betrayed were put to death by the Soviets. However, those two men also were compromised by Aldrich H. Ames, a CIA counterintelligence officer convicted of espionage, forcing prosecutors to prove that Hanssen's information, rather than Ames's word alone, caused the agents' deaths.
Prosecutors also are invoking the part of the espionage statute that permits the death penalty if a spy discloses classified information about, among other things, satellites, "communications intelligence" and "means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack."
Ten of the 14 death penalty-eligible counts in the indictment appear to stem entirely from electronic intelligence. They include betrayal of satellite interceptions and nuclear war preparations. The grand jury also cited eight examples of compromised "communications intelligence," including Hanssen's very first letter to a KGB official's home in Northern Virginia.
In that letter, Hanssen named the two agents who were later executed and told Moscow of the existence, location and methods of "an FBI technical penetration of a particular Soviet establishment." Sources said this appears to be the multimillion-dollar tunnel beneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington.
"It's all serious stuff," said one intelligence official. Hanssen's technical compromises cost the government millions and rendered entire eavesdropping operations "useless -- or worse," he said.
During the Cold War, Bamford said, the U.S. intelligence community -- always concerned about traitors -- considered intercepts of electronic communications to be beyond compromise and, thus, far more authoritative.
But since the programs allegedly compromised by Hanssen would have given the Russians opportunities for feeding disinformation, Bamford said, that confidence now seems misplaced.
"They had a great opportunity to deceive the U.S. on what they were actually doing," Bamford said. "So if we went to war, there's a good chance we would have had false information."
Based on the indictment, former CIA director R. James Woolsey said that Hanssen appears to rank behind Ames in terms of "the people he got killed."
"But in terms of technical compromise, he may rank with, or ahead of, the Walkers," Woolsey said, referring to a family spy ring, headed by former Navy warrant officer John A. Walker Jr., that told the Soviets about spy satellites and provided keys that enabled Moscow to break U.S. codes.
The current official declined to rank Hanssen among recent spies, but he said, "He's right up there."
Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report. |
