RUTHFULLY YOURS

For much of Preet Bharara’s first year as an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, your humble correspondent was his supervisor. I have always thought highly of him, personally and professionally, so I’m sorry to see him end a memorable tenure leading our former office with a politicized prima donna schtick.

One of the great things about law enforcement done right is that I didn’t know Preet’s politics back then. The SDNY is headquartered in Manhattan and its prosecutors and alumni tend to come from the nation’s top law schools (Bharara went to Harvard, then Columbia Law). Naturally, they tend to lean left. But political predisposition is irrelevant to a job that is principally about figuring out facts and applying legal principles to them.

It wasn’t until he emerged, in the mid-oughts, as Sen. Chuck Schumer’s chief counsel that I realized Preet was a partisan Democrat. I wasn’t surprised, though, to hear that he was well-liked by peers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, particularly on the Judiciary Committee. His smarts and competence combine nicely with a winning temperament. I was delighted when President Obama nominated him to return to the SDNY as the boss, and fully expected that he would do a bang-up job, as he did.

Unfortunately, he seems to have forgotten the defining attribute of the great institution that is the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York: The work is bigger than any one person doing it. It is an easy mistake to make: When big cases are successful, the prosecutor in charge gets the plaudits; you must constantly remind yourself that you are being celebrated for the collective effort of scores of people; their dedication is responsible for the glow in which you bask.

In just the last generation, before Preet’s turn came, the SDNY was run by Rudy Giuliani, Mary Jo White, Jim Comey, and Mike Garcia among a handful of other stellar prosecutors who made their distinct mark before taking other lofty posts in public life. In each case, when the boss moved on, a new boss moved in and the work of the office went on seamlessly.

Contrary to the media consternation — which is more about loathing of the incoming president than loving of the outgoing U.S. attorney — the work will go on without Preet, too. All of it, including the political corruption cases. The “Sovereign District” has always prided itself on independence from Main Justice; the party in power in Washington made little or no difference to the day-to-day in Manhattan.

WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee declared today that they have seen no evidence of Obama administration wiretapping at Trump Tower, while the president retorted that wiretapping was a broad term and “interesting” things related to his tweet would surface within a couple of weeks.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump tweeted March 4 while in Mar-a-Lago. “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”

That sparked congressional review of the claims in committees already probing Russia’s influence campaign during the presidential election.

“We don’t have any evidence that that took place… I don’t believe there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters today at a joint press briefing on Capitol Hill with Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, said there remains the possibility of the “incidental collection on Americans who were tied to the Trump campaign” in the course of other investigations, but they’ve yet to substantiate that.

Schiff added, “I’ve seen no evidence that supports the claim that the president made that his predecessor wiretapped he and his associates at Trump Tower — thus far, we have seen no basis for that whatsoever.”

The Justice Department missed this week’s deadline to turn over evidence of wiretapping to the committee; Schiff said the committee extended the deadline until March 20 and stressed that both he and Nunes are willing to use “the compulsory process” if necessary. He added that FBI Director James Comey will be asked in open session if such evidence exists at a March 20 hearing.

“It concerns me that the president would make such an accusation without basis,” Schiff said. “I would think it’s in the public’s interest that this be addressed very openly by the director, and we certainly expect that he will.”

Russian government spies were behind Yahoo Inc.’s notorious 2014 security breach, stealing information about more than a half billion online accounts, including those used by U.S. military officials and by employees of firms in banking, finance and transportation, federal authorities said Wednesday.

The Justice Department announced the indictments of Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev and Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, alleging they directed and paid for the illegal collection of information in the U.S. and abroad. It is the first such criminal case to directly target Russia.

The case is expected to escalate tensions between the U.S. and Russia over cybercrime and espionage. Congress and federal investigators are probing what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as aggressive efforts by Russia to influence the 2016 election, which it has denied.

The House Intelligence Committee has a hearing next week on the matter, with scheduled appearances by James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence.

Authorities said the two Russian agents worked with indicted co-conspirators Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov to hack into Yahoo computer systems, starting in January 2014. They gained access to the content of 6,500 accounts and used information stolen from Yahoo to target other email providers, including Google.

“The criminal conduct at issue, carried out and otherwise facilitated by officers from an FSB unit that serves as the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow on cybercrime matters, is beyond the pale,” said Mary McCord, who runs the Justice Department’s national security division

The Russian spies paid the hackers to steal information seen as useful to Moscow, prying into the accounts of diplomats and journalists, authorities alleged; company officials were targeted for economic intelligence.

Mr. Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, 2004-07.

The spy world is cloaked in secrecy, but last week’s leak of documents from the Central Intelligence Agency offers a tiny glimpse into what America’s operatives can do. It seems the CIA can hack smart televisions to listen in on conversations, even when the set appears to be off. Smartphones might be less secure than many assumed. The CIA can supposedly penetrate a computer network and leave fingerprints implicating someone else. Man, these guys are good!

Personally, I’m thrilled to hear that the CIA has developed these capabilities. Stealing information from other countries is what spies do. But it’s devastating to see details about America’s intelligence operations leaked to the press. These kinds of intrusions recently have compromised billions of dollars worth of sources and methods, showing the world—including Islamic State and al Qaeda—how Washington knows what it does. They have also caused Americans to ask serious questions about their spy agencies.

The leaks by Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning in 2010, Edward Snowden in 2013, and now at the CIA demonstrate that the intelligence community does not have in place the systems and controls necessary to protect its most sensitive information. That raises the question of whether spy agencies can credibly say that these capabilities are not used against the American people.

The intelligence community can explain what the law says and even cite internal policies that exist to inhibit spying on Americans. But a spy agency that is incapable of keeping its secrets cannot say with confidence that it has effective means of controlling itself. When James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, says America does not spy on its citizens, he doesn’t really know. He hopes that the internal controls and culture will prevent abuse, but he cannot be certain.

After the Manning leak, I’m sure that America’s spymasters thought they had learned their lesson and put in place new, more effective controls. After the Snowden leak, I’m sure they thought those controls had been updated enough to solve the problem. Yet here we are, reading about the CIA’s secrets on the front page of the newspaper.

In 2013 Mr. Clapper testified in an open congressional hearing that the intelligence community did not maintain a cyberdatabase on Americans. That wasn’t true. He misled Congress and the public. The Snowden leak soon showed that the NSA did indeed have a massive database of telephone metadata.

Now the intelligence community has been implicated in the release of information damaging to the incoming president. Telephone conversations involving Mike Flynn, who briefly served as President Trump’s national security adviser, were collected and leaked to the media.

For 10 years I served on the House Intelligence Committee, and the men and women I met from America’s spy agencies were dedicated, hardworking and committed to serving their country. But these episodes indicate that at least a few within that cadre are willing to risk the security of the U.S. for what they must see as some higher purpose. In the process, they betray their oath and tarnish the reputations of their organizations.