LEAKING WORSE THAN THE WEST WING:

It appears that the Kremlin has been conducting an intensive hunt for moles within its security apparatus who might have leaked information about Russian efforts to influence the US presidential election. In mid-December 2016, following public assertions by leading US intelligence officials that Russia had intervened in the election, two high-level FSB officers, Sergei Mikhailov, deputy chief of the FSB's Center for Information Security, which oversees cyberintelligence, and his subordinate, Dmitry Dokuchayev, were arrested. (Russian authorities reportedly took Mikhailov away from a meeting of the FSB top brass after placing a black bag on his head.) The two men--along with Ruslan Stoyanov, who headed the Kaspersky Lab, a private company that assists the FSB in internet security--were charged with state treason. Russian independent media reported that the men had been responsible for leaks to Western sources, including US intelligence, about Russian cyber attacks against the US and also about Russian covert efforts to blackmail Donald Trump. Referring to Mikhailov, The New York Times noted: "If confirmed, the arrest would be one of the highest-profile detentions for treason within the F.S.B. since the breakup of the Soviet Union."

In addition to these arrests, the respected RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) analysis group reported Wednesday that at least one other high-level FSB official has been detained, along with possibly three other suspects. According to RFE/RL: "The news, [while] unverified and uncorroborated, is the latest in a growing number of remarkable leaks that hint at possible struggles and hidden agendas inside Russia's formidable security apparatus."

Also, the authoritative independent Russian business daily Kommersant reported two weeks ago that Andrei Gerasimov, chief of the FSB's cyberintelligence department, and Mikhailov's boss, would be fired, although Gerasimov's dismissal has yet to be officially confirmed. According to Russian security expert Andrei Soldatov, the upheaval in the FSB amounts to a purge of the entire Russian state security team dealing with cyber intelligence and cybersecurity.

The extent to which this crisis has reached the upper echelons of the Kremlin itself is suggested by the sudden death, on December 26, 2016, of Oleg Erovinkin, a top adviser to Igor Sechin, the CEO of the Russian oil giant Rosneft. Sechin is a central figure in the Steele dossier about Trump and is said to be the most powerful member of Putin's team. Erovinkin's body was found in his black Lexus near his home in Moscow on December 26; his death was officially reported as a heart attack, but the notoriously secretive Russian police authorities have not permitted a further investigation.

In fact, Erovinkin had played an important part in Russian intelligence matters for years. He worked for the KGB and its successor organizations for almost two decades before joining the staff of the Yeltsin administration, monitoring the compliance of government personnel with the laws on state secrets--a job he continued under the Putin administration. In 2008, he became the head of the office of then Deputy Prime Minister Sechin, presumably using his unparalleled expertise as the keeper of the Kremlin's secrets. Throughout his career, in other words, his job was to prevent leaks of highly sensitive information of the kind that apparently happened with the Trump dossier--and to make sure that leakers were punished.

Erovinkin would have known about Sechin's contacts with Americans. Trump's new secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who has just resigned as CEO of ExxonMobil, has long been on close terms with Sechin, as the two have partnered on oil deals. (Sechin has famously complained that US sanctions that have targeted him and other top Russian officials have prevented him from coming to the US to "ride the roads...on motorcycles with Tillerson.") The Steele dossier also mentions that Carter Page, a member of Trump's foreign policy team during his campaign, had a secret meeting with Sechin in Moscow in July 2016, in which the two reportedly discussed the possible lifting US sanctions against Russia, in exchange for a 19 percent stake in Rosneft.

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