Russia arrests its own cyber intelligence officers as U.S. election hacking scandal intensifies

| 6:58 pm EST January 26, 2017
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Russia has arrested three of its own intelligence officers in a move which appears to be connected to Russian hacking of the United States presidential election, a sign that the Russian government may be trying to head off the growing scandal which has rattled Americans on both sides of the political aisle, as the U.S. continues to grapple with Russia having essentially installed its compromised puppet Donald Trump into the White House.

The Russian government arrested Sergei Mikhailov and three other members of the FSB, which is the current version of the old Soviet KGB, the entity from which current Russian president Vladimir Putin himself emerged. State-controlled Russian media claims that at least some of these agents were arrested for tipping off U.S. intelligence about the Russian hacking. However this could easily be a cover story. It’s equally possible that these intel agents are the ones who hacked the U.S. election, and with the U.S. now ramping up its investigation into the scandal, Putin is having them arrested and disposed of now before they can blab about it.

This possibility would seem to be underscored by the fact that, according to a story from USA Today, Mikhailov was accosted by Russian authorities who “put a bag over his head and took him away” — which sounds like something out of a bad spy novel.