Something is very, very off about this US citizen who was arrested as a spy in Russia...

[DetlefK]

TL;DR
It looks to me like he could be a russian double-agent.





Paul Whelan regularly travelled to Russia. He had a few friends in Russia. He had a Vkontakte-account (the russian version of Facebook).

On December 22nd 2018 he travelled to Russia to attend a wedding. In a meeting, somebody handed him a USB-stick with a top-secret list of names. And then he was arrested by the FSB as a spy.



So far, so good. Looks like he was a US-spy.

* Except that Carter Page, George Papadopolous and Mike Flynn also were big fans of Russia and they had low-level contacts with the FSB.

* Except that Paul Whelan was a Trumper.

* Except that Paul Whelan is an ex-Marine who had been court-martialed and dishonorably discharged for larceny. (Which means, he's a greedy character.)



And it gets weirder:

* Paul Whelan has dual citizenship for the US and for the UK. (Russian spies are very active in the UK.)

* Paul Whelan gets a court-appointed lawyer. (What are the odds that the FSB controlled that decision?) Vladimir Zherebenkov is a soviet-era investigator (What are the odds that he works for the FSB?) who has no experience whatsoever defending foreigners or clients with espionage-charges.

* Paul Whelan immediately accepts Vladimir Zherebenkov as his lawyer before his family in the US has a chance to hire someone else.

* Vladimir Zherebenkov immediately praises the professionalism of the FSB in a public interview and muses that the evidence against his client must be really strong if the FSB arrested Paul Whelan. (A lawyer condemning his own client via guilt-by-association???)

* Vladimir Zherebenkov immediately proposes a spy-swap: Paul Whelan vs Maria Butina. (His client has not been sentenced as a spy yet...)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-lawyer-for-alleged-us-spy-says-lets-make-a-deal-but-not-too-soon?ref=home




It seems obvious: Russia arrested a US-citizen on trumped-up charges, gives him a government-controlled lawyer and proposes swapping him for their own spy.

But what if there's another layer of subterfuge beneath that?

Paul Whelan could very well be a russian agent in the mold of Carter Page, George Papadopolous and Mike Flynn.
That's why Paul Whelan has UK-citizenship.
That's why Paul Whelan immediately accepted his obviously tainted lawyer.
Because he knew that it's all for show.

What better way is there to ingratiate Paul Whelan as a spy in the US national security apparatus and as a celebrity in the public mind than to paint him as a victim?
And who in the US would dare to charge Paul Whelan as a russian spy if Russia had previously charged him as a spy on obvious and blatant trumped-up charges?
Can you even IMAGINE the headlines and the public outrage if the NSA dared to arrest poor, poor Paul Whelan for espionage?

And lastly, would a greedy character like Paul Whelan agree to be a celebrity by day and to spy for Russia by night?