Before James Comey was Director of the FBI, the agency had been greatly damaged by an agent who was a covert spy and double agent for the Soviets during the height of the Cold War. Robert Hanssen began spying for the Soviets in 1979 and didn’t stop until he was caught in 2001.

Although Hanssen took an oath to the United States, he was selling intelligence to the Soviets. He didn’t do this for ideological reasons but for his personal financial gain.

Hanssen wasn’t able to live within his means. He had six children and spent liberally. This made him an easy target for the Soviets. He needed money and they needed access to secrets.

Hanssen’s deceit led to the execution of three spies by the Soviets. He told the Soviets that General Dmitri Polyakov was a CIA informant. The Soviets killed Polyakov.

The FBI agent stopped spying for a while when his wife caught him in 1980. He told her he was giving the Soviets worthless information. He confessed the spying to his priest in Confession. The priest told him just to donate the money to Catholic charities and he would be forgiven. The FBI was never alerted and Hanssen was once again spying for the Soviets by the mid 1980s.

 

Watch FBI agents finally arrest the traitor in their midst:

You can see the treachery this man wreaked and the damage he caused to the United States of America in the video below:

In 2000, the FBI paid a former KGB Officer $7 million to help expose a mole in their ranks. This ultimately led to identifying Hanssen as the traitor. The FBI started surveillance on Hanssen and finally arrested him in February 2001 after he dropped a garbage bag filled with classified information for the Russians.

The FBI found another bag with $50,000 which was intended as payment to Hanssen. When he was arrested at a park, the traitor said, “What took you so long?”

Hanssen avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 15 counts of espionage and is serving 15 life sentences. The FBI now performs routine polygraph tests on its agents because of Hanssen’s betrayal.

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Source: History

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