MR. FOLEY: Welcome to the State Department. Let me just note for the record, before we move to the subject matter at hand that we have scheduled a briefing for 11 o'clock on the State Department's release today of its Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo Report. That may slip by a few minutes because we have pressing business at hand, but we need that to start by 11:15 so I'm going to try to bring this briefing to an end by about 11 o'clock, maybe 11:05, if some of you may need a few minutes, and we'll need to allow time to transition to the next briefing. As to the purpose of this briefing, as you know, we announced last evening that a Russian diplomat has been declared persona non grata here in Washington. I would make a correction for the record. He was listed as a Second Secretary in the announcement. He is not a Second Secretary. He's an embassy employee enjoying diplomatic immunity of the embassy of the Russian Federation. With us today are two gentlemen who have worked very closely together on this matter over the past period, namely Mr. Neil Gallagher, who is the Assistant Director of the FBI and Mr. David Carpenter, who is Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security here in the State Department. Assistant Secretary Carpenter will begin with brief remarks. Assistant Director Gallagher will also have brief opening remarks and then we will open the floor to your questions. Obviously, the matter at hand is sensitive. It's a matter involving intelligence. It's a matter that is subject to ongoing investigation so there are inherent limits as to the degree of specificity with which they can answer your questions. But we felt it was opportune to give you an opportunity to ask those questions. David. ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: As Jim said, I just want to read a brief statement, then Neil has some comments, then we'll answer your questions. Counter-intelligence agents of the FBI and the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service have worked jointly to neutralize this intelligence-gathering effort. This counter-intelligence operation could only have been accomplished through the cooperative efforts of these two outstanding organizations. Secretary Albright takes this opportunity to acknowledge the superb investigative work of the FBI throughout this operation. In the Secretary's view, the successful resolution of this case is a classic example of what can be accomplished when law enforcement agencies cooperate with each other. This episode should be a stark reminder to all of us at government that, despite the thawing of tensions between competing nations, government facilities and personnel remain a desirable target for foreign intelligence services. This matter reinforces the Department's belief that its counter-intelligence program must remain a cornerstone of its overall security posture. Neil. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Let me at the beginning also introduce Assistant Director Jimmy Carter from our Washington Field Office and, sitting off on the side, should be on the side, SAC Tim Caruso of our Washington Field Office responsible for counter-intelligence in Washington Field Office. At a time when we talk about sensitive technologies and advancements, I want to tell you a story of a classic counter-intelligence investigation. This is also a story of very good street work by a group of professional surveillance team members assigned to Washington Field Office. When you think of the FBI's counter-intelligence mission, our mission is to identify and to neutralize hostile intelligence service activity in the United States, and I would like to go back over the two main parts of this, identify and neutralize. Back in the summer, several months ago, a Washington Field Office surveillance team on a routine surveillance, completely unrelated to this matter, made an observation. They made an observation that Stanislav Gusev was standing in the vicinity of State Department. And it took them as a little bit odd and they just remembered that very brief observation and came back and developed a surveillance strategy to determine if there was any significance to this, again, very brief observation. Over a period of some time, what they identified was that on a rather frequent basis, each week, Mr. Gusev would show up in the vicinity of State Department, literally just walking around the surrounding street. They also noticed that his manner in parking his car and the way that he located it, where he located his car, was a little bit unusual and it suggested to them that this may take on some more significance. We initiated some extensive coverage of Mr. Gusev. We also identified every time that he showed up in the area of Department of State. We documented his activity around the State Department and concluded at the time that this may, in fact, be some sort of a technical operation. That assumption was based upon the frequency of his presence around the State Department, his personal movement, and the activity surrounding his car. Obviously, because of the association with the Department of State and the proximity of the Department of State, it was necessary to then consider could there be a technical penetration in the State Department, and where could it be. It was literally attempting to find a needle in a haystack and to do so without compromising the investigation, without alerting unnecessarily all of the employees in State Department, so we began a technical survey utilizing very sophisticated, very sensitive, technical equipment and were able to locate what we believed to be a listening and transmittal device. The goal was to clearly establish whether or not there was, in fact, a Russian intelligence service technical penetration of the Department of State. We left the device in place. We took steps to protect it. We took steps to minimize any loss that would result of its continued presence in State Department. We also utilized the technical expertise of several different U.S. Government agencies to attempt to fully understand and to exploit this device while it remained within State Department. That led to the second part of the FBI's counter-intelligence program, the neutralization of the device and that is, in essence, what occurred yesterday. Again, we needed and wanted to clearly establish that this was a Russian intelligence technical penetration and then stop it, and to prevent any further loss from Department of State. What this depended upon was one individual, and that's Mr. Gusev, to in fact show up at the vicinity of State Department. So as to the timing of when we would take this down, it was completely dependent upon him showing up at Department of State and, for the first time in a period of several days, that was December 8th. At 11:34 a.m. yesterday morning, Mr. Gusev was detained by FBI and Diplomatic Security agents. He was transported to the Washington Field Office, arriving there at 11:50 a.m. After being informed that he claimed diplomatic immunity, at 1:32 p.m. I contacted the Russian embassy and informed them that we had an individual that was at our Washington Field Office who claimed to be both a Russian and a diplomat. I asked that they dispatch someone over to our Washington Field Office to confirm both events. They did so. They called back at 1:56 p.m. and we made arrangements for them to arrive and identify themselves at our Washington Field Office. This occurred at 2:30 p.m. Two Russian embassy officials arrived at our Washington Field Office and by 2:39 p.m., we had turned Mr. Gusev over to their custody. At 5:10 p.m. last night, I was contacted by the Russian embassy confirming that, in fact, it was a diplomat assigned to the Russian embassy that was turned over to the two consular officials. There are several parts of this investigation that I would now like to address and tell you about that remain outstanding. First of all, I should have said it at the beginning. Not only is this a classic counter-intelligence story, it is also a classic story of cooperation between the Diplomatic Security and the FBI. Because when we first made these observations several months ago, we came to Diplomatic Security, we came to them with a serious problem of a potential penetration within the State Department and the obvious difficulties of conducting this investigation in a covert manner to protect the investigation and be able to get to the ultimate resolution, and that is whether or not it was a Russian intelligence penetration. That demanded and received the fullest of cooperation between Diplomatic Security and the FBI and we were able to do that investigation without unnecessarily alerting the Russian intelligence service or the general public that we were conducting this investigation. What remains is we need to fully understand how the device was introduced into State Department. With the Diplomatic Security we initiated a series of interviews and investigation yesterday in a more overt fashion immediately upon Mr. Gusev being detained, and not only are we conducting the investigation to understand how it was introduced, the second part of that is to do a damage assessment with Diplomatic Security as to what potentially could have been lost by the introduction of this device. The last issue is a very obvious issue. We have recovered the device in State Department and will be doing a very extensive technical exploitation of that device to fully understand and appreciate it. Perhaps, in conclusion, a simple statement that this is not only a story of effective counter-intelligence and cooperation but it is also a very important story of the aggressive activity of Russian intelligence presence inside the United States. The fact remains that a foreign intelligence service introduced a device within Department of State on U.S. soil. We'll entertain any questions. Q: Could you tell us where the device was located? There have been reports that it was in a conference room. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Let me, because that is part of the ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate for me to give the specific location of where the device was located, but perhaps Dave can address some other concerns because there has been some speculation as to where it could have been located that may help answer the question. ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: To further confuse you, what I'll try to do here is tell you where it wasn't. Some of the reports, that at least I read, was that it was in the Secretary's suite of offices, what we call our executive section. It clearly was not in that area or any other principal's office or suite of offices. Q: Can you tell us what floor it was on, David? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: Under the same provision that Mr. Gallagher just mentioned, I would prefer to not while this investigation is ongoing. Q: Can you tell us where he was arrested, specifically what he was doing at the time? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Mr. Gusev had driven up to the vicinity of State Department, had parked his car--based upon our understanding of his prior activity--, had activated some equipment, and had begun a collection operation within eyesight of Department of State, and it was at that point that we detained him. Q: Mr. Gallagher, you say the timing of the arrest was dependent on the Russian's arrival. Are you saying that there is no connection then with the recent case in Moscow of the American diplomat? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Absolutely not. This was a long-term FBI investigation. What drove the decision to bring this investigation to closure was the need to ensure that there would be no continued loss of any information from Department of State. We were working against, on one side, allowing the Russian intelligence service to continue to attempt to collect information; at the same time, trying to clearly establish that this was a Russian operation. Once I met my threshold, I had no reason to ask the Department of State or Diplomatic Security that we continue to allow this operation to continue. There was no other further intelligence benefit that I was going to get. Q: Could you spell his last name, please? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: It's in his statement. Q: Mr. Carpenter, I wonder if you can tell us if DS is going to institute any additional security measures in the building, given that this appears to be a penetration inside the building itself. ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: First of all, let me just say that the method by which this penetration was accomplished is still under investigation so that's one thing that should be made very clear. As all of you should be aware that come to work here at this building every day, we are in the process right now and have been in the process for the last year and a half since I've been here of upgrading our security here, both our physical security and our technical systems, but to suggest that we are doing anything in addition to those upgrades would be wrong at this point. Q: Can you tell us whether the timing of Mr. Gusev's arrival to activate the listening devices keyed to some knowledge of activities inside State that would suggest some sort of sophisticated knowledge of the operations inside the State Department? Can you tell us the make of the car and can you tell us whether when he was in the car he, you know, had headphones on or had a tape recorder going? Can you give us any kind of physical picture of what he was doing in the car? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: A lot of questions. Let me try to answer them. First of all, your first question? Q: Whether he had some knowledge of what was going on in State that keyed him to arrive at a certain time? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: No. That was an issue that we looked at extensively because we asked ourselves many of the same questions that you're asking yourself. Our assessment was that he did not have inside information as to what was happening at the location where the device was located. It was somewhat sporadic coverage. I don't have the exact description of his car and I would defer to, I guess, the Russian embassy if they want to provide that to you. The activity around his car, there was some activity that suggested that he was utilizing and adjusting technical equipment at various times. That was one of the developments that caused us to determine that, in fact, this appeared to be a technical collection operation. I wouldn't want to go into other details because, obviously, we are continuing our evaluation of the technical equipment associated with this operation. Q: You said that one of your concerns was obviously to prevent any further loss, which implies that you believe there certainly was a loss before that time. Can you give me an idea or an estimation of how long the device had been in place before you discovered it and also what kind of conversations generally take place in the room where it was discovered? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: Again, the nature--and I think Jim said it early on before he introduced us--the nature of this type of investigation, counter-intelligence, really prohibits us discussing exactly those issues that you bring up. Those are under investigation. The answers will be made available but, at this point, we are not in a position to discuss those. Q: (Inaudible) --about the device, or a year? Can you give us any sort of estimate? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: We've known about the device for several months. And in direct response to your question, recognize that we have had the device for less than 24 hours so, as far as the full understanding of the length of time in the room, there are technical examinations which may begin to answer some of those questions. But you'll have to bear with us because we need to have a very sophisticated evaluation of that piece of equipment and we just need time. Q: Is there a search underway for other potential devices? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: That has already been accomplished. We expanded--we have a program here that deals with this type of issue. Once this device became known to us, we began a very, very aggressive sweep of our principals' offices in this building to ensure that there was not another device. Q: Mr. Gallagher, you had said that there was a particularly aggressive presence of Russian intelligence in the United States. Could you give us some sense of the extent of that, the aggressiveness of that and how disturbing that is to the FBI? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: I think this incident, by itself, sends a strong message that there is a very aggressive Russian intelligence presence operation inside the United States. That is an issue that the U.S. Government has and continues to be concerned about. As to the numbers and extent, that is probably a larger issue that is beyond this particular operation. There have been some discussions concerning the Russian intelligence presence and I'm sure they'll continue, but it just points to the seriousness and the need for the FBI to maintain a very aggressive counter-intelligence program. I know, SAC Caruso will probably ask me to remind--he reminds me that we also need a very professional surveillance capability in and around the Washington, DC area and will probably ask me for more resources. Q: (Inaudible) --technology changing, fast-moving, there is something that seems rather crude about the operation you have described in the sense that someone was walking around the building, parking a car, sitting right outside the State Department. Why would it be necessary to engage in this type of surveillance that could so obviously be discovered, as opposed to something, longer-range listening devices or like that? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: The initial assessment, the equipment is very sophisticated. Q: Recovered inside? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Right. We may describe his movements as crude. However, you've got to be careful here. It was effective. What he did--think yourself of someone seeing someone sitting on a park bench outside State Department or along anywhere on these streets during the summer. Do you really take a second look at them? You had trained professionals that saw something different than what the ordinary citizen may see and it was the fact that they knew of him, knew him to be an intelligence officer and saw him sitting there that draws attention. His activities, in itself, wouldn't have drawn unusual attention either by State Department or the ordinary citizen walking back, seeing someone walking up on a sunny day for an hour or so. Q: The activities he was involved in were not actually listening but perhaps adjusting the device in some form or fashion? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLGHER: It would appear that. Q: Can you confirm that Mr. Gusev was, in fact, arrested from a bench or was it from his car? And, secondly, you said that he was not a Second Secretary? What's his title? Do any of the State Department records reflect that he had access to the room in which the device was found? MR. FOLEY: In terms of the title, I've been informed that he was referred to as an attache of the embassy. If that requires further refinement I'll get back to you later, but we just learned that before coming in. Q: How long has he been in Washington? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Since March of this year. Q: What about the bench? Was he arrested from a bench or from his car? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: He was detained in the vicinity of his car. Q: (Inaudible) --records of his access to the State Department, do you show that he was in the location where the device was found? Did he work with somebody else who may have had access and he monitored the device? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: We're still going over those access records. To date, we don't show a record of him being in the building. Q: Mr. Gallagher, your description of the device as still requiring more sophisticated analysis indicates that it's some sort of device you haven't seen before, if you could confirm that. And, secondly, since it seems to give sporadic coverage, did it have any recording capability and was putting out maybe voice-actuated bursts? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: The device--I wouldn't want to characterize that we have not seen a device of that sophistication before. Using our engineering research facility, we are certainly going to afford it very extensive technical evaluation to understand its full capabilities. The second part of your question? Q: Whether it might have had some recording capability where the recordings picked up later when Gusev came. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: We know that there were technical emanations coming out of State Department at the time that Mr. Gusev was in the vicinity. That would suggest that it's not a recording but it's a transmitter, but I wouldn't want to go any further than that. Q: You talk about an aggressive program that you've had over the last year and a half to improve security and, yet, I'm wondering if you regularly sweep principals' offices and conference rooms for devices and, if so, how come you didn't pick this one up. And does that suggest that you need to improve your program? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: The answer to your first question, do we regularly sweep, the answer to that is yes, we do--albeit, I would prefer not to get into where we do sweep and where we don't sweep, for obvious reasons. We are somewhat limited in our capabilities to be--I think you used the word "aggressive" or I used the word "aggressive" in this by our manpower. We do have limitations. This is a big building. So I don't want to understate the difficulty in doing something like this, but we have a program that ensures specific offices that we feel would be most vulnerable are, in fact, swept on a regular basis, on a reoccurring basis. Q: A couple of small questions. You said you had an aggressive search for other devices. You didn't say whether you actually found any. Did you find any in this effort and how often do you find them on your other sweeps? And then, also, I was wondering if you could give us an idea of how big this device was and where was it in the conference room, under a piece of furniture or whatever--something like that? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: Your first part is have we found any other devices? Q: In the search that was prompted by the discovery of this device and, secondly, how often do you find devices when you do these regular sweeps? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: Clearly, if we found other devices we'd probably be meeting on a much more frequent basis. The answer is we have not. As a result of the search that was done after this device was discovered, we did not find other devices. Again, it's an ongoing process. I might be--I might try to be brutally honest with you. There are some instances if a device were to be found, because of the investigative leads that would come out of that, it might take quite some time before it would be made public and we would not publish that fact that other devices had been found until that investigation had been, in this case, concluded. Neil. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: As to the size and disguise of the device, I mean, let's step around it just a little bit. It was an extremely sophisticated device and was professionally introduced into State Department. I would not want to go any further until we complete our full technical evaluation. It's just not slapped on here where we're looking at it. You would not--an ordinary person would not see it. Q: So was it in a wall or a ceiling? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Again, I would not want to go any further until we complete - what began yesterday at noon, Diplomatic Security and the FBI was able, for the first time, to go aggressively into an overt investigation to begin to understand how the device was introduced into State Department. We're less than 24 hours into the investigation. We need as much time as we can to begin to answer many of the questions that both you and I have. Q: Two quick questions. Mr. Gallagher, can you tell us, you said that there was some pattern that he used parking his car. Can you tell us what this pattern was, or the strange way in which he parked his car? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Oh, his pattern? Q: Yes. And also, if I may, how often were his visits around the building? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Okay. His pattern of activity was such that on times he would park his car, he would move his car around the block and come back to another location. It appeared to us that he was trying to position his car in an ideal location. It's not an observation that you see just on one visit or two visits. It comes over a period of time that you begin to see this repeated time and time again. We also--as to the visits, they varied. He had several days of the week that he favored. Whenever he showed up, we knew it. He would go for periods of time that he would not come. So there was no unique pattern that either suggested he had inside information or was there a unique pattern that he always showed up on the same day, the same time. It was, again, the difficulty was developing this pattern over an extended period of time to fully understand it. Q: Is this diplomatic license plates or plates that could identify him as a member of-- ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: Yes, his car had diplomatic plates. Q: Do you have any reason to believe that this was installed after he arrived in March or was it before March? ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GALLAGHER: It's far too premature to even speculate. That's the whole focus of the Diplomatic Security-FBI investigation to understand how the device was introduced. And what's ongoing today in State Department, there are teams of FBI agents working with Diplomatic Security agents conducting interviews, reviewing records, trying to get an answer to that question. (The briefing concluded at 11:05 A.M.) [end of document]
|
