We Know What We Don’t Know

Any connection to Vladimir Putin can be hazardous to your health. The words of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld come to mind as I ponder the steady albeit untimely demise of Russian diplomats or their contacts worldwide. Since the election of Donald Trump, seven prominent Russian diplomats have died unexpectedly and under questionable circumstances. Add to that list the death by blunt force trauma of Mikhail Lesin in 2015 and the mysterious fatal shooting last summer of Seth Rich in Bloomingdale, a D.C. neighborhood, and a rather obvious pattern begins to emerge.

This is not precisely “Breaking News” for anyone who casually follows world events. One can google almost any of the names above and expect to find a detailed account of how and, in many cases, why the person managed to draw the attention of the Vladiator. In most cases, we know what we know. That’s what makes a point of Sergei Krivov so unusual. We know only a few details about the man and how he died, and what we know prompts more questions than answers. Who, what, when, where, and why; of all these, the question of when seems to be the most intriguing. Mr. Krivov was found unconscious and unresponsive just before 7:00 AM on November 8, 2016. That is to say, just moments after the polls opened in New York City, the duty commander for the Russian Consulate General turned up dead. The initial first responder described him as exhibiting signs of blunt force trauma, but since even this fact is among the unknowable reality of this case, for now, let’s ask if there is anything significant about the time of death.

In NYC, one person dies roughly every 9 minutes, so we would expect that between 6:00, when the polls open, and 7:00 when the body is discovered, about 7 people would have died. Can we say that the odds of Mr. Krivov’s death within that time window were roughly one in 64 million? So his death was substantially less likely than a Trump victory that day, but certainly enough of an outlier to describe his death at that time as unexpected and enough to prompt questions as to why he died at all, much less when he did.

Of course, we know that merely being within the category of Russian Diplomats substantially increases the likelihood of sudden death, but is there anything about his specific job that might provide a clue? Buzzfeed reports that

“According to other public Russian-language descriptions of the duty commander position, Krivov would have been in charge of, among other things, ‘prevention of sabotage’ and suppression of ‘attempts of secret intrusion’ into the consulate. “In other words, it was Krivov’s job to ensure U.S. intelligence agencies didn’t have ears in the building.”

If Krivov was doing a bang-up job on that front, he had nothing to worry about, right? But was he?  On October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued the following joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. Based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, we believe that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

The USIC is composed of the following agencies.

Snowden is holed up in Moscow along with lots of information about U.S. Intelligence operations. It seems plausible that the identity of various double agents might be found among that trove of information. A double agent only survives because he is useful to both sides. Once the voting was underway, his usefulness to the Kremlin fell to the point where he was more of a liability than an asset? Or was it the other way around and his usefulness to someone in the USA had fallen to zero or below? Per his advice, I won’t assume that Trump is so naive that such a strategy is off-limits for him. Getting agreement among the 16 agencies plus the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is no small feat and would require compelling evidence to coax this consensus. A mole in the consulate is just one example of irrefutable evidence that might tip the scales. The mere possibility that Krivov might be such a mole would lead one to safely assume that Krivov would not likely get a glowing employee evaluation anytime soon. Still, it wouldn’t Kremlin H.R. frown on the disciplinary action he seems to have received. Why did he need to die, more specifically, just as the first polls opened in NYC and the USA? Here is one tin foil hat theory.

This is a thread that, when pulled on, could unravel the entire cloak of deception. For the most comprehensive reporting on this incident, please refer to Buzzfeed’s’ excellent article. In it, they document how much we don’t know and all the entities doing their best to ensure that we never learn the truth. Thanks to their reporting, we know what we don’t know, and that one data point, the clear understanding that we are not intended to ever see this information, allows us to know one more piece of the puzzle. When all is said and done, and we know all the facts about the Russian’s role in our recent election, Sergei Krivov will figure prominently in the story. So, set a Google Alert for his name.