The November 1994 Matrix Briefing and the 4th Man
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Mr. Baer reports Ms. Bannerman’s firm belief that the leads she presented pointed to one man—Mr. Redmond—and when she presented her evidence Mr. Redmond stormed out of the briefing. (Page 177-180)
Bannerman and her two colleagues looked at each other and all three were thinking the same thing… “there’s our mole.”(Page 220)
This is false, highly defamatory and completely misses subsequent investigative activity.
Specifically, Mr. Baer’s thesis of a fourth man and Bannerman’s alleged matrix briefing incorrectly conflate the 1994-95 lead to a senior spy in the CIA (provided by a source identified in Mr. Baer’s book as “Max”) with the actual spy who was identified in 2000 as senior FBI agent Robert Hanssen.
This key fact Mr. Baer leaves out is that forensic evidence identified Hanssen in 2000 as a match to the main lead information on Ms. Bannerman’s 1994 Matrix —known to FBI and CIA investigators as Grey Suit—which she incorrectly claims and Baer reports in his book, “pointed to one person—Mr. Redmond.”
As is often the case with clandestine sources, “Max” did not have direct access to the information he provided on what he thought was a spy in the CIA. Lead elements Ms. Bannerman claims to recall in 1994-95, proved to be incorrect, incomplete and changed over time.
Ultimately a FBI and CIA operation in 2000 resulted in forensic evidence identifying FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen, NOT a CIA officer.
Moreover, the many senior managers and investigators involved in the 1994-95 investigations do not remember Ms. Bannerman giving any briefing or providing any other documentation laying out evidence pointing to “only one man, Mr. Redmond’—and they were following and documenting these investigations very closely.
Of course, one also has to ask the obvious question Baer ignores: what competent investigator would have a suspect present for a briefing which allegedly lays out evidence pointing only to him?
If you get past that, why did Bannerman fail to document that in writing for her immediate managers including senior FBI Agent Edward Curran for passage to FBI Headquarters and Washington Field Office agents intensely working this case?
There were other leads from the source Mr. Baer identifies as Max in the fall of 1994 to spies that were later identified in CIA and elsewhere in the US Government and other leads that were yet to be resolved. Any experienced espionage investigator knows there might well be a fourth, fifth, sixth man and beyond.
However, an honest, accurate review of the specific 1994-95 lead elements Mr. Baer’s book says Ms. Bannerman used in the matrix briefing would have shown that the initial lead to a high-level CIA officer was later conclusively determined to be Hanssen at the FBI. No doubt.
Mr. Curran oversaw the intense FBI and CIA focus on multiple espionage investigations at the time, including attending SIU briefings. He certainly would have ensured aggressive investigation of Mr. Redmond or anyone else he thought could be a spy.
In contrast to Ms. Bannerman’s claim as described in Mr. Baer’s book, the dozens of CIA and FBI investigators and managers in the 1994-95 time frame did actually pursue other CIA candidates—with agreement of Ms. Bannerman and Mr. Milburn—and certainly did not indicate a match to “one person–Mr. Redmond.” This is documented in CIA records.
Had there been any credible suspicion Mr. Redmond matched the lead he would never repeat never have been included in the briefing—unless maybe it was part of a carefully scripted investigative strategy with the FBI—which it was not. Nor would he have been able to hold such a sensitive position overseeing the CIA’s most sensitive operations.
Importantly, by late 1994-early 1995 Mr. Curran, his Deputies Ms. Webb and Mr. Turnicky, and FBI agents had lost confidence in Ms. Bannerman’s ability to manage the SIU as we moved from CI case reviews to multiple major espionage investigations.
Mr. Redmond—and frankly many other managers—could well have stormed out of a briefing in frustration; not because he was a spy but because of growing irritation with Ms. Bannerman’s flawed assumptions, reluctance to share full information and inability to work with the FBI to build espionage investigations.
Worthy of review is the unclassified Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s Report on the Penetration Investigations and the Search for Hanssen 1993-2001 which provides an open source review of facts in stark contrast to the many inaccuracies from Mr. Baer and his sources. (More information was included in the classified versions.)
Specifically, that report confirms the intense investigative focus at the time and that the lead to a high-level CIA spy was in fact determined to be in the FBI—Robert Hanssen. It states:
“The years between 1993-2001 marked one of the most active and productive periods in espionage investigations in the FBI’s history. The FBI greatly expanded its counterespionage effort and successfully apprehended a number of significant Russian spies.
This period was dominated, however, by the search for a KGB mole who was reportedly more damaging than Ames. The FBI poured enormous resources into this search.
The FBI believed early on, however, that the mole was a CIA employee and did not change that view. We now know that the FBI was on the wrong track from the beginning, because the mole the FBI was looking for was Hanssen, an FBI employee.
As the investigation unfolded, the FBI focused on a specific CIA employee (Note—this was Brian Kelley not Mr. Redmond). Given the information it had at the time, the FBI’s initial selection of this CIA employee as the lead suspect was understandable.
Although an extensive investigation of this CIA suspect failed to yield any conclusive evidence of espionage, the FBI became convinced that he was a KGB mole. This was due in part to the suspects ambiguous and sometimes suspicious behavior and in part to a belief this individual had emerged as the lead suspect as the result of an objective and scientific process.
Despite its lack of success in the investigation, the FBI, in a 70-page investigative report, informed the Justice Department that the CIA suspect was a significant KGB mole, and sought an opinion as to whether he could be prosecuted for espionage.
The FBI should have more seriously questioned its conclusion that the CIA suspect was a KGB spy and considered opening different lines of investigation. The squad responsible for the case, however, was so committed to the belief the CIA suspect was a mole that it lost a measure of objectivity and failed to give adequate consideration to other possibilities.
In addition, while FBI management pressed for the investigation to be completed, it did not question the factual premises underlying it. Similarly, the CIA’s SIU did not serve as an effective counterbalance to the FBI because it was not an equal partner in the mole hunt.
The supervisory failures in connection with the espionage investigation of the CIA suspect are most apparent in the context of the Investigative Report that the FBI presented to the Justice Department.
Although several senior FBI managers had serious doubts that the CIA suspect was the correct target and expected the Justice Department to decline prosecution for lack of evidence, the Investigative Report was written as if the FBI had no doubt that the CIA suspect was a KGB mole who was the most damaging spy since Ames.
Fortunately the Justice Department never brought charges against the CIA suspect, because while prosecutors were reviewing the case the FBI determined that Hanssen was in fact the KGB mole. In late 2000, the FBI opened an investigation of Hanssen, and on February 18, 2001 he was arrested for espionage. The FBI later exonerated the CIA suspect.” (Page 14 of the DOJ Inspector General’s Report)
While most of the lead elements in Bannerman’s 1994 briefing turned out to be Hanssen, there were two significant lead elements discussed in Baer’s book which she thought added to her suspicion of Mr. Redmond—the 3×5 cards on Moscow operational sites because he was Chief of the USSR Branch at one point, and the attendance at Division Chief staff meeting which she thought must point to a senior level officer: a Division Chief or above.
The SIU after Bannerman’s departure continued to investigate with the Bureau the remaining anomalies or lead elements. Officers with whom we spoke do not recall the 3×5 cards in the USSR Branch or the Division Chief staff meeting as leads—including Max’s two case officer at the time of the leads being passed. Here is what we did find:
Mr. Baer’s says a major lead element from the source he identifies as “Max” claimed the major CIA spy was someone who attended Division Chief staff meeting (indicating it was a very senior officer in the Directorate of Operations). That, in turn, appears to be a key factor in why Ms. Bannerman now claims she focused on Mr. Redmond.
In fact, this is highly flawed analysis and should not have been considered an indicator of a senior officer as the spy. Officers who attended those staff meetings know that they included dozens of people below the Division Chief level. Those meetings covered management and administrative issues for the workforce and did not include discussion of operations. Notes from those meeting were typed up and put in a database and also shared broadly in Division staff meetings with hundreds of people across the organization.
Max—a Russian intelligence officer in Moscow— if he did indeed provide such lead information, incorrectly concluded that reporting from a Division Chief staff meeting meant it was a high-level CIA officer in Operations.
To anyone who knew of and attended those meeting that was ridiculous. Ms. Bannerman apparently did not understand the CIA’s Directorate of Operations well enough to know the broad circulation of that information to hundreds of people and therefore made another flawed assumption that it had to be a very senior officer—Mr. Redmond. Of course if such a lead existed it most likely would have been associated with Robert Hanssen—who is known to have attended senior FBI staff meetings—not Mr. Redmond.
None of the investigators and operators with whom we spoke, including Max’s case officers, recalled the 3×5 cards as a lead element from Max or as a standard record keeping technique. If it was a lead, many people over time in Moscow or in Washington—other than Mr. Redmond—could have put meeting sites in Moscow on 3×5 cards.