Stolen National Security Agency cyber weapons and compromising information on President Donald Trump were offered by a Russian spy who conned U.S. spies out of $100,000 last year.
The New York Times published the story on Friday where while citing U.S. and European officials said that the money was delivered to a Berlin hotel room in September as the first part of the $1 million reward.
At that time the NSA was still trying to determine exactly which hacking tools have been stolen and to what extent the agency will be damaged.
A number of U.S. intelligence officials told the Times that they said they did not want the Trump information from the Russian, who was already labeled of having deep ties to Russian intelligence as well as other Eastern European cybercriminals.
According to the Times, the Russian claimed it has shreds of evidence that would link the president and his associates to Russia. But instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated material involving Trump and others, including bank records, emails, and purported Russian intelligence data, the paper cited the officials as saying.
Later the deal was terminated by the U.S. intelligence officials out of concern that it could involve them in a Russian operation set to create additional friction between departments in the U.S. government, as well as potential political fallout in Washington as a result of the perception that government agencies are trying to buy compromising material on Trump.
Reuters reported that the NSA, which produced the bulk of the hacking tools that the Americans sought to recover, said only that “all NSA employees have a lifetime obligation to protect classified information.”
After several requests for comments both CIA and NSA refused to explain their officials are not available out of regular business hours for comment.
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